Can you guess what it is yet?

We’ve just dropped off your ICG pressies with Santa…so keep your eyes peeled for Rudolf and those sleigh bells!

To celebrate the festive season and a great 2010, team ICG have come up with yet another snazzy festive gift to keep everyone smiling.

If you can’t stand the excitement, then look at the pictures to see if you can guess what it is yet.

And, if you need any more handy hints, all we can say is that Rolf Harris wouldn’t need one if he was back in Oz right now!

Feel free to send us your suggestions. Whoever tweets us @icgbrandbuilder with the first correct answer gets double helpings! Follow us on Twitter.

Moustaches in November…it must be Movember!

If you’re not familiar with the prostate cancer fund-raising campaign, then check out these great pictures of ICG’s designers Dave Mallalieu and Ian Jones.

They’ve both been growing moustaches this month to raise money for the UK’s Prostate Cancer Charity.

The ICG ‘Mo Bros’ both look very dapper with their lip-tickling 70s-style trimmings.

They’ve had to negotiate the social etiquette of eating and drinking with a moustache as well as keeping them neat and tidy! Dave even has his own dinky, wallet-sized comb!

And they’re not alone – check out England cricketer Kevin Pietersen in the forthcoming Ashes Series – which is quite apt because the whole idea was started in Melbourne, Australia, over a couple of beers!

The guys have got 12 days before the end of Movember – and staff at ICG have vowed to come out in support for Ian and Dave by sporting fake moustaches on the last day of Movember!

Watch out for the photos and of course, don’t forget to make a donation. Dave's MoSpace or Ian's MoSpace

For more information about Movember visit http://uk.movember.com

Online Branding Strategy

A NEW branding strategy for a freight ferry booking specialist is driving online bookings and putting clear blue water between itself and the competition.

Freightlink, which provides competitive freight tickets on ferries and Eurotunnel routes throughout Europe, is now seeing more of its customers make online bookings as part of a growing digital communication strategy.

ICG created a new Freightlink website to help customers access routes, prices and make bookings in just a few clicks.

Freightlink took the decision to drop their existing corporate colour of blue –typically used by many ferry companies and competitors – and replaced it with a dynamic combination of lime green and black to make themselves stand out.

The website features easily identifiable signposting icons while photography and line drawings clearly demonstrate services.

The new website went live in October, and was quickly followed by the launch of Freightlink News - a newsletter also produced by ICG informing new and existing customers of the changes.


Already the strategy is delivering results! New customers are turning to Freightlink because the website is easy to use and existing customers are starting to make bookings online.

Freightlink is also driving customers to its website by becoming a focal point for industry information about shipping times, port information, traffic and weather using Twitter and Facebook as well as blogging about topical issues.

To see ICG’s work for yourself, visit http://www.freightlink.co.uk/

Newsletter Bonanza

Insight, Touchline, Freight Link News…these are just some of the newsletters hot off the presses in the last three months.

ICG has been writing, designing and project managing a staggering number of newsletters during Autumn in both print and interactive digital formats.

Publications of all shapes and sizes have been in production for clients including Biwater, Farrer, Central Training, Sodexo, Freightlink, Yorkshire Copper Tube, Enterprise and League Football Education.

In most cases we’ve handled all elements of the project. This includes design and art direction, copy writing, and full project management to organise competitions, source photography, handle multi-lingual editions as well as organise print and distribution.

Whether you are communicating with customers, sharing information with stakeholders, employees, journalists or industry analysts, clients benefit from ICG’s expertise about what formats and strategies work best to generate effective response rates.

Digital interactive newsletters are increasingly giving clients greater scope for dynamic end-user interaction with pictures, videos, links and clicks as well as mobile, smart phone access.

We’ll keep you posted about our next crop of newsletters in 2011 – and the latest advancements in newsletter functionality.

Press success for flamingos

One of ICG PR’s latest news stories for Blackpool Zoo literally flew out of the door, resulting in TV, radio, newspaper and internet coverage – all in one day!

It all started when the zoo successfully hatched and hand-reared a baby flamingo, who became all confused when she became attached to the first living thing she saw – a zoo keeper.

Staff at the award winning Lancashire attraction spent the next couple of months teaching the chick that she was, in fact, a flamingo and not a zoo keeper.

When she was ready to join the rest of the flamingos, ICG PR invited the press to see how she was getting on.

First up were BBC North West Tonight and Radio Lancashire, which covered the chick’s journey from her sleeping quarters down to the flamingo lake and interviewed keepers about her progress.

CBBC favourite Newsround jumped on the phones for more pictures, which they then used to document her life in an online gallery and the Blackpool Gazette featured the story in a full page lead article.

The chick, which has been named Anandi, is now all settled into life as a flamingo and ICG PR are working with the zoo on more exciting animal tales.

ICG helps client shine

Throughout 2010 ICG has been helping long term client Yorkshire Copper Tube shine as the company celebrates 60 years of business and continued investment in its state-of-the-art plant in Kirkby.

Yorkshire Copper Tube took to the road and appeared at plumbing and heating exhibitions across the country – and the entire team at ICG were on hand to make sure they had everything they needed to ‘stand out’.

As well as designing and project managing an eye-catching exhibition stand we sourced and supplied promotional gifts, produced corporate literature and carried out pre and post event public relations to ensure our client got the most out of each visit.

Added to that, two specially extended editions of Yorkshire’s celebrated newsletter Tube Talk were published, which, along with the usual news and product information, took readers on a journey back through time to when the first sod of turf was cut on the site that was to become one of the most sophisticated tube plants in the world.

Competitions that are designed to add to Yorkshire’s targeted database, which ICG has built from zero to a comprehensive list of more than 7000 potential customers in recent years, were also published in Tube Talk and we gave away a whole host of useful branded goodies.

In 2010 ICG spear-headed a 12-month advertising campaign which saw the company featured in all the top plumbing, heating and building publications, which was backed up by an ongoing media relations campaign aimed at specifiers and buyers.

It has been a busy twelve months and we are already looking towards 2011, with several more huge projects planned for Yorkshire Copper Tube.

NEW SEASON NEW KIT FOR LEAGUE FOOTBALL EDUCATION

ICG is no stranger to keeping its eye on the ball – especially when it comes to helping clients improve and refine their communication strategies.

Working in close partnership with our client, League Football Education (LFE), we have updated their suite of literature four years after introducing the original branding.

League Football Education is a partnership organisation between the Football League and the Professional Footballers’ Association; it manages the education programme for apprentices at football league clubs.

The newly designed look helps create a stronger brand with colour coded hierarchy so there is a clear point of difference between literature targeted at clubs and stakeholders, which is more formal and text based, compared with literature targeted at young apprentices, which is more visual and image led.

The redesign was also an opportunity to address feedback from key stakeholders who advocated replacing stock imagery with photography of real apprentices, improving layouts and greater synergy with the www.lfe.org.uk website.

A greater use of white space and cleaner, fresher design formats were combined with the existing use of quirky illustrations and large scale photography to convey important information to young footballers.

The new design has been rolled out across LFE’s Apprenticeship Induction Pack, NVQ material, Welcome Packs and the award-winning newsletter Touchline.

LFE have been really pleased with the results, with great feedback from young football apprentices, their families as well as LFE staff.

SCOTT REES BLOG SUCCESS

Scott Rees' new blog has become a focus for a wide range of topics from Government announcements to consumer advice and contributions from sponsorship partners.

The blog went live in September and hot topics of conversation include postings about legal advice, the implications of proposed reforms on the claims sector and the local community of Skelmersdale, Lancashire - including the fortunes of Skelmersdale United FC!

Scott Rees specialises in handling claims and accident management for accidents on the road, at work and in public places. It also operates legal services in wills and probate.

ICG provides an integrated PR, marketing and design services including writing and distributing press releases, posting blogs and tweets as well as writing articles for specialist industry publications, including Law Society e-newsletters, Young Lawyer magazine and Costs Lawyer magazine.

ICG also handle the firm’s design requirements including direct mail, advertisements, signage and website requirements; we are currently rolling out an autumn promotional campaign in the local community.