We just keep getting cooler and cooler! The other week we went to the SB.TV Xmas party, and then on Friday, Marketing Zone’s Robin attended comedy gig, Kojo Live N Kicking, at Hackney Empire.

It’s all part of our celebrity product placement service, that saw us rubbing shoulders with England footballer Carlton Cole, and British rapper Angel.

Live N Kicking was also attended by UK sports and entertainment stars, among them songstress Jamelia, and stars from Eastenders and the music world.

If you want to get your product seen with the stars, talk to us on 01763 274440.

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!

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.

I recently attended a Social Media Bootcamp arranged by The Chartered Institute of Marketing, where it was good to meet with other experts in the industry. The key insight that came from the event was that customers are engaging with social media more and more, and that they expect businesses to do the same.

Millions of us use social media. Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare, its part of many people’s daily lives. So it’s not surprising that search engines highlighting social media mentions in their search results.

You can read my full article on the Institute’s blog, but it’s worth noting that with 25% of tweets on Twitter including URLs, this can be a valuable way to create unpaid links to your website which could boost your web ranking. We can develop a Twitter account for your business, call Mark on 01763 274440 for more information.

In this month’s Hertfordshire Business Independent, Marketing Zone’s Mark features in their Executive profile. Take a look at page 23 to hear from Mark about the importance of strategic insights, creativity and results in marketing.

Plus on page 31, Mark gives importance tips for businesses considering whether to outsource their marketing.

The new Citroen logo was launched to celebrate its 90th anniversary.

There’s got to be a strategic reason to rebrand your company. Brands are the key to a company’s long-term success, so to alter the brand identity costs time and money, and can have a major impact on your business.

What is a brand? A brand is a promise. It gives your company or product an identity, and projects an image of expectation and reassurance to your customer.

Rebranding involves giving a product or company a new image, with the aim of making it more successful and making it more attractive to a new market. This can be a huge undertaking and can involve a complete redesign of the corporate identity. Or it could be more of a ‘refresh’ to inject some extra spark into the image. Rebranding usually involves re-examining the entire culture of an organisation, and readdressing the company’s brand values.

A new take on the umbrella icon works well for a more corporate identity.

Why rebrand? A business might choose to rebrand after a merger of two companies, this might be a great opportunity for them to have a combined identity for the future. Or if a brand is failing, a new identity might give it a new lease of life and a fresh start. But a business needs to take care when rebranding, because if a customer is used to a particular identity, a sudden change may rock their confidence.

The likes of Cadbury and Coca Cola have kept the same logo for decades. So you need to question how relevant your brand is to your business.

Polaroid Eyewear has been getting some great PR coverage this year thanks to our ongoing trade media relations plan. So it was fantastic to see the interview that Marketing Zone arranged with Marketing Week and Polaroid’s Chris Knight published.

The feature discussed Polaroid’s new 3D glasses, Lady Gaga’s involvement as a creative figurehead, and the importance of marketing when revitalising a brand.

During the interview, Chris was quick to point out the level of marketing support from Marketing Zone. We’ve developed the brand over the past five years, taking it from a relatively unknown label to now being stocked in John Lewis, Fenwick, Specsavers and on luxury cruise ships.

You can read the full article here. With over 40,000 marketers and industry influencers reading Marketing Week, this was an important piece of coverage for Polaroid Eyewear and has already inspired interest from a number of journalists.