Celebrities live and breathe their brand. Whether it’s making a personal appearance or demanding six-figure sums for their size zero bodies to showcase the latest hot trend, celebrity is a powerful force. And it’s here to stay. We work with celebrity stylists and the fashion press every day for our clients, and its generating fantastic results.

Although not new, the power of celebrity is certainly evolving. You could hear the astonishment when The Only Way is Essex won a BAFTA this year! And when reality shows such as Strictly Come Dancing closely rival the viewing figures for this year’s Royal Wedding, you need to sit up and listen.

Many A-listers through to Z listers have extended their brand into fashion. I’m intrigued to see who does this, and more importantly, who does it well?

Whilst I’m less convinced by the Amy Childs Lipstick clothes collection, celebrities such as Victoria Beckham, Stella McCartney and Liam Gallagher have seen their designer labels flourish. Liam’s Pretty Green line scooped Best Breakthrough Brand at the WGSN Global Fashion Awards 2011, and Victoria Beckham has gone from strength to strength, winning Designer Brand of the Year at the British Fashion Awards in November.

Kate Moss’s collection for Topshop lasted 3 years, so in my book a success and Cheryl Cole’s Stylistpick shoes collection has just launched but makes a sassy style statement.

It goes to show that a famous name offering well-conceived, beautifully crafted products can deliver real brand authenticity.

Ever the multi-taskers, Marketing Zone has come up with a great way to raise money for charity at the same time as developing prize draw marketing promotions for our clients. From the heaving mailbags of competition entries that we receive into the office on behalf of our client’s, we give the stamps to the Wood Green Animal Charity, who use them to raise funds for their animal centre in Cambridgeshire.

Prize draw promotions can be a cost effective way of generating PR and getting your product published in magazines and websites. Or a good way to increase readership of eNewsletters by offering a prize that can generate extra interest, and increase open rates.

Marketing Zone has developed numerous promotions for our clients, including a professional institute, fashion brands and parenting clubs to name just a few. In a time when customers are looking out for great offers, we’ve seen an increase in the level of competition entries. It’s even a professional business for some!

We can source prizes, create the competition, liaise with the press for campaigns and handle the winner fulfilment. To find out more, just get in touch.

Are you in need of a little inspiration? If your brand’s crying out for a blast of fresh air, we might have just the ticket.

No matter what your budget allows, there’s always a way to inject new life into a marketing campaign. And as we head into 2012, how’s these for starters. Whether you’re looking to spend just £34 or if you have millions to spare, both of these demand attention, and make you ask ‘now who is that?’

Morph suits – the costume phenomenon
If you’re looking to take part in field marketing as part of your campaign, a morph suit is sure to make people stop and take notice. Dressed head to foot in breathable spandex, your marketing team would attract a lot of attention leafleting business parks with your promotional flyers. It’s a great way to create a stir!

Is it a limo, is it a yacht?
You can be unmissable, in a private exclusive kind of way. If money is no object, we can all dream can’t we, for those with a spare £132 million, how about a yacht shaped like a limo? Take a look!

Marketing Zone's Robin celebrity spotting at the SB.TV Xmas Party.

The SB.TV Xmas Party was a great success last night. We spoke to many television and music celebrities, including British actor Adam Deacon, Eastenders star Devon Anderson, up and coming superstar Chanelle Williams, aka Lady Chann, and SB.TV founder Jamal Edwards.

It was also great to make a number of connections on behalf of our sunglasses client, and we’re busy following up the promotional leads and potential PR opportunities that arose at the event.

We could get used to the special treatment – VIP passes, goody bags, speaking to celebrities, it’s all in a days work at Marketing Zone!

I’ve been writing for The Chartered Institute of Marketing’s London blog. My latest thought piece takes a look at John Lewis, who has just launched a ‘Made in UK’ label as part of their Corporate Social Responsibility programme.

What do we associated ‘Made in UK’ with? Quality, traditionalism and design perhaps. Many products associated with various countries give customers a certain perspective. For example, Switzerland is synonymous with fine timepieces, Germany comes top for precision machinery, and Italy is known for elegant jewellery. So potentially the John Lewis range will see customers making purchases due to the fine heritage of British clothing.

It’s an exciting development for the store. Take a look at the Institute’s blog for the full story.

It’s been announced that Marketing Zone has been short-listed for an award, for the transformational marketing work we have done for Polaroid Eyewear in 2011.

The entry showcases the marketing campaign we created for Polaroid Eyewear’s heritage sunglasses collection, Best Under the Sun. Marketing Zone has helped to move this brand to the next level through PR, blogging, partnerships and more. The Chartered Institute of Marketing’s national Marketing Excellence Awards are highly regarded within the industry, and level of entries they’ve received this year has been phenomenal.

As a short-lister in the Retail Category, we’re competing with PepsiCo, Unilever, Marks and Spencer and Britvic. We’ve worked with Polaroid Eyewear for over 5 years, when we re-launched their sunglass brand in the UK. It’s great to see them recognised amongst other household names. 

It just goes to show what you can achieve when you work well together and apply creativity to everything you do. The winners will be announced in February at the ceremony at The Grosvenor Hotel in London.

It must be nearly Christmas as the much anticipated John Lewis Christmas advert campaign launched today, with its debut on Facebook and YouTube today before hitting our TV screens tomorrow during the X Factor.

It’s another beautifully crafted ad to stir the emotions with the ‘80s band The Smiths track ‘Please, Please, Please Let Me Get What I Want’ sung by Slow Moving Millie.

It’s the perfect start to the festive season and its already creating a buzz online.

Rebel Magazine is a fashion and lifestyle magazine, focusing on creative industries including designers, art, film and music. That’s why it’s great to see Marketing Zone’s fashion designer client, Alex Seroge Ignatian, featured this month.

Take a look at the website we developed for Seroge, and view his featured collection in Rebel magazine on pages 54 61 below.

We’ve been working with British fashion designer, Alex Seroge Ignatian, to design and develop a portfolio style website to showcase his collections.

Alex wanted his website to represent his unique designs and to clearly display his latest collections. We developed a high fashion website which is simple to navigate and directs potential fashion buyers seamlessly to his most recent creations.

Alex is delighted that he received enquiries through his new website from fashion buyers on the day it went live!

It was great to see student Jack Owen and team from Freman College in Buntingford, collect their prizes for winning Amnesty International’s Youth Raise-Off fundraiser.

With help from one of our clients, Polaroid Eyewear, Marketing Zone had arranged for twenty pairs of sunglasses to be donated to their goody bags, and it was great to see the students enjoying their achievement.

Freman College’s team of twenty students beat 650 other schools and colleges in the UK-wide competition, to raise the most amount of money through a variety of activities including an Amnesty week, a quiz, a Santa’s Grotto and balloon race.

In total they raised £3,153.45, and volunteer Veronica Raymond from Amnesty International made a special trip to the College to present the team with their prizes. Well done!