Parenthesis Design Consultancy

Advent Day Twenty Five: Legoland – Child’s play

2011-12-25T01:20:00.001Z

Working for Legoland was, literally, great fun – Especially if you had young children, as many of the Parenthesis team did at the time. One of the perks of working for a client who has a theme park is the offer of free tickets for all the family. Suppliers working with Legoland were encouraged to ‘live the brand’ and ‘share the values’, so were offered free admission to the park on an annual basis.

Our work with Legoland was primarily to promote the Park to business as an alternative venue for hosting conferences and events. The client gave us the perfect brief for a creative agency such as ourselves and that was quite simply – “to have some fun”.

www.parenthesis.co.uk

Advent Day Twenty Four: Coventry University – Student House Prospectus

2011-12-24T01:20:00.004Z

Many of us are graduates from Coventry University so we were delighted when we were given the opportunity by the University’s School of Art & Design to create a prospectus which would seek to attract additional student applications to the school for their range of design degree courses. The piece that we produced not only focused on the range of courses but also sought to ‘open the door on student life’ in Coventry.

The project was memorable for both its success in significantly increasing new student applications to the University’s School of Art and Design and for attracting the attentions of the creative industry. It received 4 awards including the ‘Fresh’ Awards Grand Prix.

www.parenthesis.co.uk

Advent Day Twenty Three: Bott – Mixing business with pleasure

2011-12-23T01:20:00.002Z

Bott is a workshop and vehicle storage system manufacturer located in Leicestershire, Cornwall and Scotland. We’ve been working with Bott for 6 years and they are one of those clients that disprove the old adage ‘you can’t mix business with pleasure’ – and that’s not just because they have offices in Cornwall!

Bott, like many of our clients, represent just how business should be done – work hard, work smart and find time to have a laugh as well. This is a simple philosophy that has served us well over the years and is the reason, we think, why we have such long lasting relationships with our clients. We’ve been working with 3 of our top 10 clients for over 10 years, (one of which for 20 of the last 25 years) and our average client retention rate is 8 years amongst our top 10 clients. We think that is something to be proud of.

www.parenthesis.co.uk

Advent Day Twenty Two: Be !nventive – Best laid plans…

2011-12-22T01:20:00.003Z

Ribbon, lace, bicycles, motorbikes, cars, the jet engine, disc brakes, the first hand held computer, virtual space technologies – “Coventry has always been embellished by a rich vein of invention…”

Working with the city’s Image Working Group (a representative group across the city’s public, private and not for profit sectors), and motivated by an innovative city council plan to regenerate the city centre, Parenthesis helped to develop a proposition for Coventry that more clearly defined the city’s dynamic past, present achievements and inspirational future. Being passionate about our city, the project became a big part of our lives for a four-year period. The strategy that was ultimately developed proposed how, by collectively telling ‘Coventry’s story of invention’ to their respective audiences, the city’s stakeholders would more effectively inspire its residents, its students, encourage enterprise and attract innovative inward investors.

Unfortunately, not all well-researched, well-considered and well-executed ideas that are hatched actually do make it into flight. Regrettably, the city council’s leaders, in their wisdom, selected their own proposition in the end, which they felt had more resonance with their electorate – “Coventry – proud to be a city that works… for better pavements, streets and roads”.

www.parenthesis.co.uk

Advent Day Twenty One: Caterpillar Challenger – Boys toys!

2011-12-21T01:20:00.001Z

We’ve had the good fortune to work with some exciting brands over the years, but when we were given the opportunity to launch Caterpillar’s ‘Challenger’ brand in the UK, the boys at Parenthesis thought all their Christmases and birthdays had come at once. The Challenger was a monster of a machine; with a 610hp engine under the bonnet and brimming with (at the time) revolutionary sat nav technology and gizmos galore, the boys at Parenthesis were queuing up to get involved. The client and customers also loved our “Track and Field” campaign that we came up with to support the launch of the product.

www.parenthesis.co.uk

Advent Day Twenty: Restore – Brand and fund raising campaign

2011-12-20T01:20:00.003Z

Our work isn’t all about selling goods and services. Restore Burns and Wound Research Trust gives us an opportunity to put our skills to the greater good. The charity is the leading body conducting critical clinical research into burns and wound healing and reconstruction. We’ve been involved with the trust for the last 10 years, working with them on a range of projects from brand development, web, annual reports and fund raising literature – something of which we are very proud.

www.parenthesis.co.uk

Advent Day Nineteen: Cygnet Property Management – Interior design

2011-12-19T01:20:00.005Z

As our first major interior design job this project was very memorable, representing a permanent high street example of the quality of our work. After first developing the brand identity for the client, we were then charged with the (slightly scary) task of developing a 3D interpretation of it with which the customer could interact.

This project gave us the confidence for similar projects and was the catalyst for many other interior and 3D commissions we have successfully undertaken over the years.

www.parenthesis.co.uk

Advent Day Eighteen: Wine in Time

2011-12-18T01:20:00.003Z

This was a great job and marked our first big creative awards success. Winning the gold medal and the Grand Prix (best in show) at the inaugural Cream Awards, hosted at Symphony Hall in Birmingham. The job was for Wine in Time, a small business based in Burton-on-Tent that manufactured a range of home beer and wine products. The budget was tiny and our margin on the job was even less than that, however it just goes to show you don’t have to have a big budget to do creative work with a big impact.

We went on to win a number of Cream Awards over the years as well as awards from other bodies such as Roses and Fresh for both the creativity and effectiveness of our work. Our current tally stands at 42 and we reckon we’ve got a few more left in us yet.

www.parenthesis.co.uk

Advent Day Seventeen: Coventry Cathedral – Signage Project

2011-12-17T01:20:00.008Z

Coventry Cathedral is an icon for the City of Coventry. We were therefore very proud when we were asked to develop a signage system for the Cathedral site to assist and guide the visitor around this fantastic heritage attraction.

The system we developed had to be sympathetic to the environment it was placed within and the Cathedral’s visual identity yet create sufficient stand out in order to be of help to the visitor.

www.parenthesis.co.uk

Advent Day Sixteen: Birmingham REP Theatre – Controversy

2011-12-16T01:20:00.016Z

The Birmingham Rep will always be memorable to us for one particular play that we produced a promotional poster and programme for. Called Behzti (Dishonour), the play provoked violent protests and thousands of pounds worth of damage at the Rep theatre in December 2004. The theatre was forced to cancel the play on safety grounds and the playwright Gurpreet Kaur Bhatti had to go into hiding following death threats. The protests, we hasten to add, were not as a consequence of our poster but related to a particular scene in the play set in a Sikh Temple.

Surprisingly, Parenthesis staff were inundated for the following few days with phone calls from the press, including the Mail and Express, encouraging us to comment on the episode – which we obviously declined to do, not wishing to breach any client confidences.

www.parenthesis.co.uk

Advent Day Fifteen: Coventry University – Fashion Mailer

2011-12-15T01:20:00.008Z

After the success of the ‘Student House’ prospectus (also featured in our top 25 memorable pieces of work) we were asked to assist the University with the launch of its brand new fashion course. Using visual reference from the iconic ‘sewing patterns’ our mums used to make funky trouser suits from, we created a spoof piece, which was sent out to schools and colleges to create awareness of the new course.

The project was particularly memorable, not just because it was fun to do but also because it caught the judge’s eye at the 2005 Cream Awards picking up two awards for ‘Best Promotional Piece’ and ‘Best Art Direction’.

www.parenthesis.co.uk

Advent Day Fourteen: Square D – The Beast Catalogue pack

2011-12-14T01:20:00.009Z

Sometimes the job is about making big look beautiful; well this Square D project was a beast of a job. Comprising of 24, 26 page catalogues complete with folder and dividers, covering the full Square D product range, this job utilised the resources of the whole account team for several weeks. Involving lots of early mornings and late nights (for us and the client), not only did the team manage to get the job done on time and on budget but it looked pretty damn good too.

www.parenthesis.co.uk

Advent Day Thirteen: Staffordshire Building Society – ‘All Staffordshire No Bull’ branding

2011-12-13T01:20:00.009Z

“Never work with children and animals”. Staffordshire Building Society gave us the chance to put the ‘animal’ part of that phrase to the test. After being appointed to develop the society’s rebrand and brand launch campaign materials, we set ourselves up for a real challenge.

Well before the ubiquitous baseball capped, shell-suited urbanite adopted the Bull Terrier as his intimidating companion, we featured the previously proud, characterful Staffie as a brand mascot in our proposals to the society.

So where and how do you start with the formidable task of sourcing a camera friendly, obedient, affable looking Staffordshire Bull Terrier dog, locate a photographer and studio prepared to undertake an animal photo shoot, take hundreds of sufficient images to populate a multitude of materials and media and all in less than 5 weeks? The answer is, we still don’t know but we managed to do it somehow – a great job well done by the whole Parenthesis team.

www.parenthesis.co.uk

Advent Day Twelve: Provex Consultancy - X-Rays Only

2011-12-12T01:20:00.009Z

Provex Consultancy is a healthcare financial and business management consultancy. When the company wanted to raise its profile with new prospect NHS Trusts, they asked us to come up with a mailing piece that would fit the bill. The piece we created was a spoof x-ray folder containing a mock x-ray which, when held up to the light, revealed an image of a skull and brain with the very small words ‘in depth knowledge of healthcare planning and financial management’ running over the image.

This job was memorable for the painstaking lengths our creative team went to in order to achieve authenticity in creating this piece. A friend and relative, who worked in the health service, were deployed to assist in ensuring accuracy, specialist printers were sought to ensure a realistic material could be found on which to print the x-ray skull image and just the right sort of card had to be found for the folder.

The result was a great piece of work, which went down extremely well with both the client and the recipients.

www.parenthesis.co.uk

Advent Day Eleven: Roses Design Awards 2003

2011-12-11T01:20:00.016Z

On the back of winning the Chairman's Award from the Roses Design Awards, we were honoured to be asked to produce the following year's event literature and styling.

We also created this impactful opening sequence to start the night off with a bit of a bang.

www.parenthesis.co.uk

Advent Day Ten: Peter Grant Papers – Branding

2011-12-10T01:20:00.010Z

We were commissioned to work with Peter Grant Papers (PGP), based in Telford, to develop a coherent brand strategy that would allow the company to compete more effectively at a regional and national level, in what is an increasingly competitive market.

Our inclusion of this project in our twenty five most memorable pieces of work was not only because of the bold and distinctive new brand identity we created but because our work assisted PGP in growing its revenue by a staggering 40% in a 34 month period. It just goes to show that those companies who are prepared to invest, rather than cut back on its design and marketing communications costs when the going is tough can reap substantial rewards.

www.parenthesis.co.uk

Advent Day Nine: Warwick Arts Centre – Let's Create

2011-12-09T01:20:00.008Z

Warwick Arts Centre (WAC) ran an education programme that focused on bringing drama, visual arts, film and media to schools within the community. To help communicate their work, WAC asked us to produce an imaginative and flexible information pack, which showcased their work within arts education.

The result was an uncomplicated piece that focused on activities the children took part in and the enthusiasm they showed. A mixture of black and white photography shot by Parenthesis, simple but bold typography and strong colours made this piece visually stimulating and memorable.

We were very pleased to be involved in this project because the programme produced by WAC delivered excellent results. The programme reached young people in communities who would otherwise not be given the opportunity to get involved in the arts and who thrived as a consequence.

www.parenthesis.co.uk

Advent Day Eight: British Gypsum – Responsibility and Sustainability Report

2011-12-08T01:20:00.010Z

British Gypsum, now part of the Saint Gobain group of companies, asked us to design and produce the company’s ‘Responsibility and Sustainability Report'.

We’re really pleased with this job because we think it’s a good example of what can be achieved with creativity even when the content is quite restrictive. Our approach blended both illustration and photography and sought to present the factual information in a playful and engaging way. The idea was to create memorable images that would stay with the reader even after reading the document.

www.parenthesis.co.uk

Advent Day Seven: George Shaw – IDST (If Destroyed Still True)

2011-12-07T01:20:00.006Z

This show catalogue was produced for Coventry born artist and recent Turner Prize nominee, George Shaw. The concept for the catalogue was based on a school exercise book (complete with wallpaper backing). Each page in the exercise book presents the artist’s work, which seeks to explore the narrative of nostalgia, memory and loss.

The catalogue produced by our senior creative, Martin Bird, is memorable for its pure originality and its dedicated, detailed craftsmanship, which evokes a familiar resonance in all of us. The work is also significant as it was awarded five individual creative awards – Roses ‘Best Promotional Literature’ and the coveted ‘Chairman’s Award’, Cream ‘Best Brochure’, ‘Best Art Direction’ and ‘Design Grand Prix’.

www.parenthesis.co.uk

Advent Day Six: Parenthesis Design Partnership – ‘ID’

2011-12-06T01:20:00.007Z

The first design brief undertaken by Parenthesis Design Partnership was our own identity, done as a student project in 1985 before we left college the following year. Parenthesis was chosen as the company name because it was aimed to give the impression of a company that was established – having just left college, we figured our lack of experience may work against us when seeking new clients. The significance of the word Parenthesis, we felt, was also very appropriate, referring to the nature of our work being relevant and in context with the bigger picture.

Our first identity utilised references from a ‘dictionary definition’ with hyphens, semicolons breves and accents incorporated as graphic devises. Since Parenthesis started trading in 86, we’ve had four identity refreshes, with our current identity being implemented in early 2010.

www.parenthesis.co.uk

Advent Day Five: Square D – kit kat mailer

2011-12-05T01:20:00.003Z

Electrical control and distribution products are not generally known for their opportunity to create clever, witty, award winning direct mail. However we definitely did our best with the challenge set us by our client, Schneider Electric.

The job was to promote Square D twin and quad circuit breakers to electrical wholesalers and distributors. The solution we came up with seemed to hit the mark featuring a boxed mailer containing a two and four fingered kit kat bar – two and four finger breakers – get it?

www.parenthesis.co.uk

Advent Day Four: South Birmingham College – ‘Smartie’ Pants

2011-12-04T01:20:00.004Z

This job was a recruitment campaign for South Birmingham Collage. Our brief was simply to create significant stand out from the competition utilising press, broadcast and outdoor media. We definitely ticked all the boxes with this simple, dynamic, witty and award winning piece of work.

www.parenthesis.co.uk

Advent Day Three: Mercian Housing Association – ‘This way Up’

2011-12-03T01:20:00.020Z

We’ve been working in the social housing sector for most of our 25 years and have worked with some of the regions largest housing providers. So we were well equipped when Mercian Housing Association asked us to create a marketing communications and brand strategy that would help to reposition the midland based organisation as future facing and a more progressive Registered Social Landlord.

The brand strategy devised consisted of creating a common identity for each of the five constituent parts of the organisation. This consistent and coherent identity was applied throughout the organisation from stationery to site signage and promotional materials.

(Image: Outer packaging for the annual report)

www.parenthesis.co.uk

Advent Day Two: Warwick Arts Centre – Branding

2011-12-02T01:20:00.009Z

The arts have always been very close to our hearts, often giving us the chance to do high-end creative work that we would not have the chance to do in other industry sectors. So you can imagine our enthusiasm when we were invited to undertake a brand development project for Warwick Arts Centre. The Arts Centre team wanted something that would stand up to the competition and appeal to all their audiences, whilst also working across a wide range of printed and digital media – music to our ears.

The outcome, we think, was a really nice piece of work that was fresh, modern and totally flexible – oh and the client seemed very happy too.

www.parenthesis.co.uk

Advent Day One: Finning – 30 minute challenge

2011-12-01T01:20:00.005Z

This direct mail piece is memorable because it really did deliver the goods. The 30 minute challenge, featuring a boxed mailer with stop watch set at 30 minutes, propositioned buyers of materials handling equipment to give Finning just 30 minutes to convince them of the benefits of switching their equipment to Finning.

The highly targeted piece provoked a 59% response rate from the 300 sent out, resulting in over 50 appointments made for the sales team. Ultimately the campaign delivered in excess of £3m in new business accounts.

www.parenthesis.co.uk

Our advent calendar

2011-11-28T16:59:00.001Z

This year we're celebrating 25 years of being in business, so this Christmas we've chosen 25 pieces of work memorable to us and created our very own advent calendar.

Each piece of work, revealed in our blog on the run up to Christmas, represents a key moment in time over the years. They have all been selected for many different reasons; the people who worked on the project, the complexity and challenge the project represented, an award winning or highly effective piece or the fact that we just liked what we did.

This blog will give you a little bit of insight and background on the project and why it was memorable. We hope you enjoy them and you may even get a name check.

Merry Christmas

www.parenthesis.co.uk

Butterfly delivers big business for cleaning client

2011-11-11T09:35:00.001Z

Client: Admiral is a well established ‘best value’ provider of cleaning and janitorial supplies. The company operates nationally and internationally in key sectors including Retail, Commercial, Healthcare, Hotel and Public Sector as well as other specialist sectors.

Brief: Parenthesis was asked to devise a direct marketing campaign to assist the company in developing business specifically within the hotel sector. The campaign objectives were to create additional awareness amongst key procurement individuals within the targeted hotel groups sector and to establish interest in Admirals main proposition.

Strategy: The approach incorporated database acquisition, cleansing, profiling, creation of a direct mail piece and telemarketing follow up. The creative piece featured a printed 4 page leaflet concealing a cut out butterfly, which, powered by an elastic band, fluttered out of the leaflet when opened by the recipient.

Result: The campaign delivered a 20% response and, to date, a significant contract for the business.

Expert resources - on hand when you need us

2011-11-11T09:33:00.001Z

First and foremost we at Parenthesis are known for our creativity. But our creativity couldn't be successful without being underpinned by our established project management processes ensuring that we deliver on budget and on schedule, every time.

However these project management skills, developed over many years and qualified to Prince2 standard, can benefit our clients across a whole array of activities.

Recently a number of clients have found themselves short on resources with critical projects requiring their attention. They have been able to call upon us to work as part of their team to manage activities and get involved in planning and co-ordinating key campaigns for them.

Bott Ltd, a leading manufacturer of storage equipment for vehicles and workshops, asked us to manage and deliver the launch of their new product, Vario, at the Commercial Vehicle Show at the NEC earlier this year.

From liasing with stand contractors and co-ordinating internal resources, to planning pre and post-show activities we were able to ensure that all elements of the event came together to deliver a dynamic and hassle-free show for our client.

With internal marketing resources being forever stretched we're here to offer a 'here when you need us' support service.

Staying ahead with your brand

2011-11-11T09:27:00.000Z

Warwick Arts Centre is one of the UK’s leading Arts Centres attracting around 280,000 visitors to some 1,600 events embracing music, theatre, dance, comedy, literature, film and the visual arts.

We have been working with the Arts Centre to develop their identity to coincide with the completion of an exciting building expansion project and maintain its position as one of the leading Arts Centres in the country.

Our challenge was to devise a new look and feel that would reflect the different art forms on offer and appeal to a wide range of audiences from families, students, to thirty-something’s and retired arts lovers. It was also important to capture the warm, quirky personality of the Arts Centre whilst being conscious of the need to stretch marketing budgets in the current economic climate.

Moving away from commissioning photography or purchasing stock images led us to an illustrative approach that was unique to the Arts Centre and more cost effective. A concept consisting of simple white silhouettes with themes reflecting the three seasons of the programme, or the type of performance was chosen. Each silhouette is decorated with coloured strands that link to colour coded sections on the internal pages for Theatre, Film, Comedy, Music, Dance and Visual Arts.

These sections allow customers to easily select their choice of peformance and the new page layout enables specific marketing messages to be added. Themes for the Concert Series, Cinema and Family have been developed as well as idents for newly emerging work and a film membership scheme.

Is direct mail dead?

2011-11-11T09:24:00.000Z

In the 80’s and 90’s direct mail was the most effective method by which to target tailored messages to specific audience groups and individuals. Over the last decade technology has revolutionised the way in which we are able to communicate with our audiences.

We are now able to target customers, prospects, and influencers to a far higher level with relevant information or personalised messages at considerably less cost than through traditional direct mail.

Also, emailing has allowed us to measure the effectiveness of our activity far more quickly and accurately and allows recipients to respond directly using the same medium. Direct mail takes longer to create, requires bigger budgets and the recipient has to respond by making the effort to phone, write or log on to the organisations website.

So there we have it, direct mail is dead - long live emailing

So why has Parenthesis seen an upturn in demand for more traditional direct mail campaigns over the last year?

The truth is, marketeers are beginning to realise that emailing is not the single solution answer to all direct marketing campaigns. And in fact, paper based communication still retains some attributes well over and above those of digital marketing when considering how to reach their audiences. Throughout the digital marketing revolution of the last decade Parenthesis has continued to be an advocate of direct mail, for one simple reason; good direct mail will always have a greater personal impact on the recipient through the deployment of intelligent creative concepts.

High quality direct mail will always have a greater impact on how valued an individual recipient may feel as a result of an appropriate, well-conceived mailing piece landing on their desk. When executed well, direct mail can engage and engender a far more emotive and lasting response from the recipient.

Clearly there are ‘strengths and weaknesses’ to both emailing and direct mail as effective communication tools. The truth is that successful marketing communications results only from well-planned well conceived strategies with clearly defined relevant messages and an integrated approach to the effective delivery of those messages.

Read our ‘Butterfly delivers key contract’ article for a recent example of how direct mail, used appropriately and effectively, delivered exactly the right results for our clients.

A new approach in fresh surroundings

2011-11-10T14:30:00.000Z