The creative team spent many hours refining the entries down to a shortlist of just five. At final judging the choice of a winner was unanimous, and we were delighted to announce the winner was Carrie Nugent of Aylesbury. Carrie’s entry was a wonderfully lucid poem describing the start of a romance – the very first photograph of which was spontaneous, awkwardly composed, and unfortunately timed – showing the subject scratching his nose. The judges praised the charming manner in which this unveiled the hidden story of a photograph whose importance ran far deeper than its appearance as an image. They loved that the picture was treasured and captured a great moment in time despite its lack of artistic merit.

I didn’t really know him,
But still I clicked away,
I guess I wanted a reminder
of this simple London day,
He smiled oh so broadly
he has such a cheeky grin
deep set eyes and spiky hair
a manly looking chin
cars and people going past
while he struck his pose
It was then I took the shot
just as he scratched his nose!
I laughed because the picture
is exactly what I wanted
It’s the man I fell in love with
who has never taken me for granted.
I took the pic on our first date
and it sits proudly on our wall
a reminder of that perfect day,
When I began to fall….

Carrie was delighted to have won, “OMGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG! Sorry, but this is so so amazing!!!! I broke my camera at Christmas and I’m getting married in June, so this will be a fantastic amazing prize, to be able to go on Honeymoon and actually take some pictures! I am so so happy, thank-you so much!” We wish them all the best for the wedding and hope they get some more photos to treasure just as much.

Sorry to all those who missed out this time, but thank you all for making the time and the effort to submit such great entries.

Television was such a mammoth technical feat it is perhaps understandable that TV sets were sometimes a rather unsettling addition to the living room. Of course, the idea that my harmless friendly telly could act covertly and report my activities to distant unknown power is laughable… isn’t it?

Recently a London voucher code site put out a hoax video for a product named ‘Hearscreen’. The imaginary product placed microphones in televisions and using voice-recognition the system would display discount-code ads based on what viewers were talking about. Sounds frightening, yes? Well – isn’t this what Facebook already does? Post a status on Facebook mentioning a brand-name or a keyword such as ‘pizza’, ‘beer’ or ‘holiday’ and you’ll notice Facebook has been ‘listening’ to your updates – contextual ads will begin to appear based on what you’ve said. Translating this contextual model to television isn’t at all far-fetched. Net-connected TVs will have installed microphones (for both Skype and voice-controlled apps) and IP-based transmission networks make it relatively easy to deliver different ad-breaks to each user. But of course – is there really a market for such contextual ads? I mean, would Facebook or Google also like to take a big slice of the global TV advertising market? Would advertisers and agencies like to make broadcasting their TV commercials internationally as simple as running an Adwords campaign?

Contextual advertising that’s based on real-life conversations happening ‘in earshot’ of your television will become reality, and I can see it being here within the next five years. Naturally there will be concerns for privacy, cries that big-brother is listening in on household conversations – but the operators will undeniably claim, “You’ve been telling Facebook everything for almost a decade – so, what’s different?”

I’m interested to hear your views on the future of television advertising. Will TV ads remain a medium to reach millions of viewers in one hit, or is the future going to be more selective and tailored, moving further toward the remit of search-marketing businesses than traditional media-buyers?

Most recently JMS was the opening act at the Tindle Radio Managers’ Conference, where John shared the stage with such industry luminaries as the Chairman of the Radio Academy, John Myers; MD of Radio Player, Michael Hill; and Head of Insight at the Radio Advertising Bureau – Judith Spilsbury.

John and JMS Production Co-ordinator Laura Cuthbert together took 30 Managers and Tindle Directors through no less than 90 years of radio advertising in one hour, even playing the very first ad, from a station in New York, broadcast in 1922.

Their message, as ever, was that radio continues to be a powerful and persuasive medium when used properly. And that radio advertising is particularly effective as part of multi-platform social media campaigns – making it all the more remarkable that truly creative production remains so affordable.

From the many good wishes and compliments received, it was evident the Tindle Radio Group totally shares this belief! Next slide please!!

The competition called for skill with words besides skill (or in many cases, luck!) with a camera. Our judges were amazed and delighted by the stories behind the pictures, which embraced weddings and romance; children and pets (even some ghosts) and lots taken on holiday, where grand vistas or fascinating people featured in equal measure. Some entrants told us they hadn’t yet taken a good picture but their next picture would be great if only they won the camera – which was kinda funny the first couple of times – whilst others told us of the pictures they almost captured, but due to battery failure, camera loss, or just not being quick enough, the shot of a lifetime had eluded them. (Can’t tell you the number of TV documentaries we’ve produced where such infuriating things have happened!) And speaking of loss, many of you described a photo which captured, even fleetingly, a relative or friend who is no longer here, usually in an informal or unguarded moment where true character shines out – a happy instant frozen in time, for all time.

By far the largest number of you found this eternal moment in nature, with snow and ice, rainbows and lakes, mountains and wild animals bringing you great joy or satisfying memories – a category almost equalled by the huge number of loving or observant photos of children – from new-borns to teenagers, families to orphans. And although everyone found something unique in their favourite photo, the overwhelming majority were questing for one thing, that evanescent quality, perfectly summed up in this single sentence from one entry: ‘That was one of the most peaceful moments I’ve ever lived and every time I stare at this picture I feel the same’.

This brings us to the finalists, each of whose pictures prise some special meaning out of the mundane, or capture a moment so unique it will for all time continue to enthral, engage or amuse them, and anyone who knows the background story. Our scriptwriters found plenty to comment on, and noted, with surprise, that quite a few entries were written in
verse! It was truly amazing how much thought and effort some entrants put in.

So, to help us pick a single winner from such a remarkable field of entries, we have decided to ask the shortlisted finalists to send us digital copies of the picture they have written about, which, with their permission, we will publish in due course along with their written entry.

If you have not been contacted by us then your entry has not been successful, but please accept our sincere thanks for taking part. If you have been contacted by us, no decision can be made until we have received the five finalists’ pictures – so hurry up! We’d like to place the camera in the hands of one lucky winner by the end of April!

As far back as I can remember, long before YouTube, in the days when ‘online video’ was a postage-stamp sluggishly delivered at a dozen frames a second over a dial-up modem there has been one guiding principal, ‘no one on the internet will watch anything longer than one or two minutes’. Technical considerations relating to buffer under-run and file-size limits also made longer videos less feasible. So, the view that exceptionally short videos work the best gradually became so pervasive that many clients came to us specifically requesting that we produce videos no more than one minute and thirty seconds long – this continued long after technical issues relating to buffering and bit-rates had been resolved. In some instances we were tasked with re-cutting existing videos of six or seven minutes duration to clips of less than one minute but, even exercising some creative editing, most of these ‘web-length’ versions made little sense and contained such small soundbites of information that they arguably served no purpose and weren’t worth the effort of clicking on.

In recent years YouTube has been host to many more long-form films and documentaries, even ‘virals’ which have traditionally been considered to be no longer than a minute or two have gradually been creeping to longer durations. The biggest YouTube spectacle in recent weeks has been a documentary about Ugandan warlord Joseph Kony, largely promoted on Twitter prior to spreading through social shares, ‘KONY 2012′ had racked up (at the time of writing) almost 86 million views with the stream being shared five times every second. However, it wasn’t the gargantuan number of views that I found surprising – what intrigued me was the video’s duration. At thirty minutes long the Kony documentary was an unlikely candidate to become propelled to truly epic viral status. Putting the video’s political and emotional appeal to one side I have a few other theories that may help explain its success. Firstly, it is good quality content – good content will keep people watching. Secondly there are technical considerations, internet connectivity and streaming technologies have come a long way since the term ‘viral’ was coined and delivering a half-hour documentary at 720/1080p resolution doesn’t pose any major challenges. Lastly, people are increasingly watching online video through devices attached to larger displays (Apple TV, PlayStation et al). Many people would have viewed KONY 2012 on their domestic TV with no discernible difference to other broadcast channels. YouTube can behave as a VOD service no different to ITV Player or BBC iPlayer.

Looking at today’s most popular videos on YouTube, the top ten list contains videos with durations of 5’01″, 13’05″, 11’37″, 14’09″ and 35’10″. With that in mind, isn’t it about time we stopped giving in to the self-imposed and unwritten rule of producing truncated ‘web versions’ of productions? Shouldn’t we put down the stopwatch and simply return to making the best editorial decisions to convey the most compelling story?

Over 10,000 votes were submitted by travel professionals from across the UK with Canadian Affair’s ‘Start Your Affair’ winning the coveted number one slot. It was a tight battle with Keycamp who came a close second with Voyage Prive taking third place.

Tour specialists Canadian Affair were determined to start 2012 with an ambitious multi-platform advertising and sponsorship campaign with a cheeky edge and a subtle nod to US show ‘Desperate Housewives’. Conrad’s creative treatment features a kitchen scene with two sophisticated women drinking coffee. Each execution of the three-commercial campaign opens with the same line from one of the women, “I’ve just had the most amazing affair”. She reveals teasing details of her exciting adventures, shopping sprees and wild nights with her new love interest, which is naturally accompanied by appropriate shots of Canada’s best tourist spots, with footage supplied by several Canadian tourism development agencies.

The JMS Group’s Composer Andi Baxter created a bespoke and sultry piano score building in drama as more shots of Canada are revealed – this same theme was carried through into the accompanying radio campaign, also produced by JMS. The three completed commercials (City Breaks, Rail and Cruise, Outdoor and Adventure) were each tagged with an alternate phone number to track effectiveness by television region, with URL-only versions created for online syndication. During production of the campaign we also created a set of sponsorship idents for STV’s television series, ‘Scottish Passport 2012′.

Kathryn Munro, Communication and Marketing Director for Canadian Affair said, “We are truly delighted to have won this award and to have beaten off stiff competition from some big industry names. We were delighted with JMS and Conrad for such an inspirational and fun advert creative. They balanced showing Canada off to its best as well as creating a sense of fun and adventure. The two teams worked seamlessly and were a pleasure to work with.”

The winner will be announced shortly, thank you all for the superb entries!

Just before Christmas I took a phone call which reminded me that we’ve been in business for quite some time. The call was from a bookshop in Cornwall that specialises in natural history books. The proprietors, Tim and Kate Loe, had found our phone number on the label of a 1985 Betamax videocassette which they’d purchased at auction in a box of mixed items of interest to natural historians. The video featured the respected naturalist Ted Ellis, whose home at Wheatfen in Norfolk remains to this day a wildlife study centre and an area of great interest to natural historians internationally. Tim and Kate were somewhat surprised that the number not only still reached us, but that they got through to someone who knew the origins of their twenty-seven year-old video, which to that point they had been unable to play.

The JMS Group started life as John Mountford Studios in the Autumn of 1983, producing advertising for the burgeoning commercial radio industry. By 1985 we were also producing video, and amongst our first productions was a sell-thru-video project ‘Ted Ellis – A Limited Edition’. Ted had for over 60 years been a hugely popular local naturalist with an unparalleled knowledge of East Anglia’s wildlife. He was a regular columnist with the local press, and a contributor to many Radio 4 radio discussions, but above all he was known to regional TV audiences through a weekly commitment to filming his rambles around the region for BBC East. Working with Ted on these films was The JMS Group’s founder, John Mountford. The video grew out of John’s suggestion that viewers so loved these 5 minute rambles they would be almost certain to enjoy a larger project, which told them more about Ted Ellis himself. And so began a year-long project to capture Ted and the changing East Anglian wildlife through the four seasons of 1985. The result was an hour-long wander through the seasons, and featured insight into Ted’s life at home and extracts from his book, published to coincide with the release of the video.

Few production companies can have had the honour of receiving a request from The Queen Mother for a copy of their programme, which we hand-delivered to Sandringham in time for Christmas. After Ted died in 1987 a lot of the footage from ‘A Limited Edition’ went on to form part of the documentary ‘The Ellises of Wheatfen’ featuring Ted’s wife Phyllis maintaining his legacy at their cottage in the wake of the 1987 hurricane. The programme aired on BBC East in 1988, and was repeated on BBC2 in 1997 to mark the 10th anniversary of Ted’s death.

‘A Limited Edition’ was a great success but naturally sales eventually declined and it went out of circulation and, we thought, long forgotten. Due to the Loe’s interest we transferred our original 3/4″ U-matic video master into Final Cut Pro and did some basic colour correction, compression and normalising of the split-mono soundtracks in order to author a new DVD copy, whilst retaining the original 4:3 aspect ratio.

Tim and Kate liked the programme so much they enquired whether we would consider re-releasing it for retail at their shop. After negotiation with The Ted Ellis Trust at the Wheatfen Nature Reserve (who received royalties from the original sales) we put the video back on the market, again with a percentage of the revenue going to benefit the trust. And Ted’s engaging performance and boundless enthusiasm for the natural world will live again to enchant generations who never had the pleasure of knowing him.

In the 1950s and ’60s movie companies made a realisation that television could be a threat to the movie business, in an attempt to up their game curious gimmicks such as 3D glasses and ‘Smell-o-Vision’ began appearing frequently in cinemas. For the release of the 1959 B-movie movie ‘The Tingler’ certain cinemas had seats fitted with buzzers to be triggered at the film’s climax in order to provoke the audience to scream. Wafting smells into cinemas didn’t stick around and ‘The Tingler’ gimmick doesn’t appear to have ever been repeated – it is only 3D that has since seen something of a resurgence.

That’s not to say the media don’t still enjoy playing with gimmicks… if anything we’re even more eager to find new additions to the traditional mediums. We’ve recently produced a couple of television commercials featuring QR codes on the closing graphic, the success or otherwise of these has never been mentioned by any of our clients. Success is still measured in traffic uplift and offline and online conversions – and that’s still via on-screen URLs and spoken brand names. One of our clients (name currently withheld) is experimenting with Sonic Notify – it’s a system that uses the insertion of an audio trigger into the soundtracks of television commercials, in a sense it’s an audio version of the QR code. Neither you nor I can hear this trigger as human hearing (under laboratory conditions) can only perceive frequencies of up to 20,000 Hertz. Frequencies beyond 20Khz can still be heard by electronic equipment and in the case of Sonic Notify, which sits in the 18-21Khz range, the audio can trigger activity on your mobile phone. That may sound a little invasive, but we’re gradually getting more used to near-field communications and letting the outside world have a level of control over our phones – so we’re intrigued to see the results this advertiser achieves with it.

The pet-food manufacturer Bakers have created a one-minute television commercial, a parody of The Italian Job, showing a number of dogs making a daring plan to steal a van full of Bakers food, almost losing the van over a cliff. In addition to the audible commercial soundtrack there is another layer of audio beyond the hearing threshold of human viewers. Dogs have the ability to hear audio frequencies up to 60,000 Herts (60Khz) and their soundtrack is in this upper-range of frequencies, it apparently features a number of whistles and barks. The commercial was tested on twelve dogs, all of whom exhibited signs of recognition to the noises of above 17,000 Hertz. Bakers hope the advert will cause dogs across the country perk up, making owners think they are interested in the product. Bakers brand manager Mark Zaki said, “We are always looking for new ways to deliver an engaging experience for our consumers. With these special sounds we hope this delivers enjoyment for both dogs and their owners.”

From our perspective as producers it’s something of a challenge to mix a soundtrack that is humanly impossible to hear… in fact we can’t even tell if it really exists. An additional consideration for us it that digital sampling and compression commonly removes frequencies not of any use to humans, so even when we’re sure we’ve added the ‘silent’ audio file to the mix, we’re can’t be entirely sure that it remains there. Perhaps we need to consider hiring a dog?

The Italian Job will hit UK screens at 7.15pm during Emmerdale – a soap pulling in seven million human viewers.

This morning I spotted an article on AdWeek.com regarding the broadcasting of standard-definition advertising between HD programmes in the USA. ‘If you own a television and take an interest in big-time sports, chances are you’re intimately familiar with the Geico brand. From October 2010 to September 2011, the insurance provider invested $158.1 million advertising in televised sports, making it the sixth biggest spender in the space. And yet despite the magnitude of Geico’s TV budget, none of its spots were produced in high-def. When the ads run in native HD programming, they’re letter-boxed, bracketed by a pair of vertical bars. For another, the picture quality isn’t as sharp as the surrounding HD content.’

I entirely sympathise with the American situation – here in the UK we supply all advertising to standard-definition channels in 625-line PAL format, a technical standard that hasn’t changed since the late 1960s. Standard-definition via digital services such as Sky+ and Freeview usually provides DVD quality video, and it looks fine on smaller-screens and traditional CRT televisions. However, when it gets ‘up-rezzed’ (is there yet a standard spelling for this new term?) by HD displays the image quality degrades quite badly – and this is most noticeable on larger screens. Of course, supply a 42″ LED screen with a 1080p HD signal and it looks great – however, just like the USA all our advertising is still supplied to broadcasters, be they SD or HD, in 625-line format (also know and 576i). According to AdWeek’s article, ‘digital media-services company DG estimates that only 16 percent of all television advertising [in USA] is aired in HD.’ They extracted return-path data from 100,000 set-top boxes and found that more viewers stuck with an HD commercial than a regular old standard-def equivalent. In my opinion there are lots of variables at play, and in a country as large as America a research base of 100,000 viewers can’t really be said to be conclusive evidence. That said, the statistics did surprise me – retention for HD ads was said to be 18% higher than ones broadcast in SD, and the lift was as much as 28% when the HD ad was first in the break. The lift was even more evident with drinks and QSR brands (Quick Service Restaurant) such as McDonald’s and KFC, presumably because the higher resolution makes their products look more appealing, where the ads benefitted from a 33% boost. If anyone is still skeptical, DG also did audience research – nearly 50% of people surveyed said they could easily spot the difference between SD and HD content.

For many years America was a long way behind the UK in terms of television standards, their 525-line NTSC system was widely regarded as pretty awful. However approximately 82% of the programming now broadcast in the USA is offered in HD, with 70% percent of cable TV also delivered in the format. Mike Caprio, the Senior VP at DG said, “You’re spending millions of dollars on media, millions on creative, hundreds of thousands on production, and then at the point where the customer will see all that work and all that investment… you’re essentially turning them away. The advertising business hasn’t been as progressive as it should be in addressing the issue.”

For the time-being both the USA and UK continue to juggle a mixture of NTSC, PAL, 720p, 1080p and 1080i sources and best match them to common standards for SD and HD delivery chains. On this side of the Atlantic there is currently no requirement for production companies to supply commercials to broadcasters in HD – even for entirely HD services. This is especially a shame as we’ve been producing many of our commercials in HD for several years – but convert them down to standard-def for delivery and transmission. The delay in seeing hi-def commercial breaks is two-fold, firstly ITV’s regions still have a standard-definition infrastructure which prevents them running local services in parallel SD and HD offerings. Secondly, many advertisers are still running campaigns that were produced before HD was widespread (the ones that get dusted off and brought out at Christmas for example). We’re keen to begin delivering in HD, it’s no problem for us to do so, but will likely only be doing so when the scales tip towards HD being the most prevalent broadcasting format. Fingers crossed it shouldn’t be long now – what the research does conclusively prove is that viewers notice the difference, and the appreciate it.