The Seal team attended the inaugural Live & Work Birmingham event at THSH Town Hall, hosted by Birmingham Future.

The event was held to celebrate the city (it’s not all about London you know) and a number of Seals were on hand to promote not only their great work, with our colourful ‘clothes rail’ of creative campaigns, but also the city as a whole.

Sarah, Louise, Rachael and Sam were there to let attendees know about Seal but also the best places to eat, drink, shop and socialise.

It was a great networking opportunity for local businesses and students alike with some truly fantastic raffle prizes including a year’s supply of donuts – yum! Great fun and we’re already looking forward to 2014′s event…

Ahead of the 30^th National No Smoking Day the British Heart Foundation (BHF) has found that one quarter of smokers who responded to a survey claim the cost of their habit is a bigger motivator to quit than long-term health risks.

Taken on first reading that’s a shocking statistic in itself and it begs the question are shock tactic marketing campaigns failing to deliver the desired impact to the target audience?

The latest anti-smoking campaign focuses on a cancerous tumour growing on a cigarette. It’s gruesome but have we all got so used to this sort of imagery thanks to ‘Silent Witness‘, ‘House‘ and even good old ‘Casualty‘ they just don’t cause a reaction any more?

The Think! campaign by Direct Gov has been one of the most successful campaigns of its kind, has run for years and has delivered shocking visuals to millions of viewers who will struggle to forget those images in a hurry.

At Seal, we have used shocking imagery to get a message across. The poster below was created for the Central Office of Information to raise awareness of issues around the sale of illegal cigarettes. Of course it wasn’t a real rat in the model’s mouth but it gets the message across instantly that if you buy ‘dogdgy cigs’ you can’t be certain of what’s in them. The campaign also encouraged people to ‘shop’ those trading in the illicit goods.

Shock campaigns have to be carefully crafted and focused on a single, clear message. You have to know how far to push the barriers and as importantly where to stop.

The story from the BHF was a shock tactic in itself. It shows you don’t always have to go to the biggest number in the book to find the most newsworthy nugget. If you pause for a moment, yes 25% of people said the unpleasant images didn’t work, but that still leaves up to 75% who could have been persuaded by them.

It was a well considered piece of news management that put a fresh angle on an event that comes up year after year.

The hottest new cooking competition, to find the ‘Young Chef of the Year for Oriental Cuisine’, got off to a mouth-watering start when some of the Midlands’ most talented upcoming chefs put their culinary skills to the test in front of a panel of celebrity experts.

Created by Seal for client Wing Yip, the UK’s leading Chinese and Oriental supplier, it had all the right ingredients – frying panfuls of fun, tense competition and great cooking.

Deciding the winners were TV chef Chin He Huang, Michelin-starred Glynn Purnell and Peter Griffiths, president of the British Culinary Federation.

The contestants, aged 18 to 25 and who were either training or employed in the catering industry, were given 90 minutes in the fabulous kitchens at University College Birmingham (UCB) to prepare and authentic Oriental starter and main course.

The ‘menu’ of creative communications devised by Seal included the initial concept, a media relations campaign, marketing materials and managing the event.

The winning young chef was Joseph Vinten (below, centre), a UCB student, who impressed the judges with his dishes, which included lobster spring rolls and a duo of Asian quail. As well as the coveted title he won a culinary trip to Hong Kong where he will have the opportunity to experience fine Asian cuisine and the popular street food scene.

Onsite power machinery supplier and Seal client ArcGen Hilta unveiled its rebrand at this year’s Executive Hire Show which saw the company changing its name to Morris Site Machinery following its most successful year to date.

Seal were tasked with supporting the announcement in an eye-catching and show stealing manner. So how best to get all eyes and exhibitors at the biggest industry show of the year fixated on the Morris Site Machinery stand? A flash mob of course!

Managed by Seal with dancers and choreography supplied by the fantastic team at Walsall College the 30-strong dance troop stealthily entered the Ricoh Arena hall and erupted into dance with Snap’s ‘I’ve Got the Power’.

The result: a thoroughly happy client, a great promotional video for the company’s new website and social media channels and a hall full of envious competitors all pondering ‘why didn’t we think of that?’

Seal was briefed to create a fun and exciting Christmas creative campaign for our client Hermes, one that would run across the web and marketing requirements including national advertising.

The campaign was to push the ParcelShop service and promote a tour bus which was travelling round the UK but also to generally promote the delivery service over the festive period.

We created an overall campaign theme which once approved was applied to the show piece for promotion, the Tour Bus.

The creative was then set up and rolled out across various marketing requirements including: leaflets, press advertisements, online and website graphics such as rotational banners, ATM Machine promo screens. We also created the designs for an interactive game and advent calendar which was a great success. Here’s a few of the designs: