Category: Uncategorized

The Sainsbury’s Christmas Ad

Post author By NB Team
Post date 13 November 2014

Today social media has been ablaze with commentary about the new Sainsbury’s Christmas advert.

It tells the astonishing story of the 1914 Christmas Truce. In the midst of one of the most bitterly fought wars the world had seen to date, at Christmas soldiers from both sides called an unofficial truce.

They met in no man’s land to celebrate their own humanity, putting their differences aside to share food, sing carols, hold joint burial ceremonies, and most famously, play football.

It’s an incredible story of humanity triumphing over unbearable atrocities and destruction.

Sainsbury’s worked with the Royal British Legion to produce it, but opinion today has been hugely split, because at the end of a beautifully shot advert, the words “Christmas is for sharing” appear, followed by the Sainbury’s logo.

It was always going to be polarising to use such an emotionally charged period in time for advertising. Some people have accused the supermarket of being crass, while others have applauded its work with the Royal British Legion to remember those lost in battle.

It’s an important moment in history that should certainly never be forgotten. Whether it’s insensitive or not, is a question for each viewer to answer personally.

Tags Advertising

News Uncategorized

Lumino City

Post author By NB Team
Post date 24 November 2014

This is beautiful.

Every now and then, a simple idea comes along and knocks you off your feet.

Lumino City is a jaw-dropping, gorgeously constructed game. Instead of being designed and built entirely in the virtual world, the creators *made* it out of paper and wood models.

Here’s the trailer:

Lumino City – Official Trailer from State of Play on Vimeo.

And you can see behind the scenes pictures here.

News no-image Uncategorized

The catch heard around the world

Post author By NB Team
Post date 26 November 2014

Even if you’re not an NFL fan, I’m sure you can appreciate the sheer athleticism of Odell Beckham Jr.’s incredible touchdown catch the other day.

If you’ve not seen it, here you go.

As you’d expect, social media had a field day.

Firstly, people shared gifs of the catch itself, and there was an outpouring of adoration – “the best catch ever” was bandied about.

Then, from another angle it emerged there was a sports photographer just feet from the action. The picture on Twitter went viral, with people joking that he had missed the shot and had been fired.

The photographer in question quickly caught wind of it, and shared his version of events.

The story from start to finish has been quite quick to play out, and is a great example of how quickly things ebb and flow on social media.

News no-image Uncategorized

MediaWorks lights up Soho

Post author By NB Team
Post date 8 December 2014

The US might be all a-twitter with news of Wills and Kate’s visit, but forget that. The real news this side of the pond is that MediaWorks, our media strategy and brand storytelling consultancy, is now officially open for business!

Industry movers and shakers, including friends and customers of Nelson Bostock Group Unlimited, gathered in Soho on Wednesday night to hear Head of MediaWorks Matt Cowan introduce the Group’s new offering. We were honoured to be joined by Unruly’s Sarah Wood, who spoke to Matt and the audience about how video is changing the way we communicate online – and what she thinks 2015 hold for video content

Thanks to everyone who came along to help us launch this exciting new string to the Nelson Bostock Group Unlimited bow.

For more information about MediaWorks, you can read Matt’s interview with PR Week here, or visit the website: http://mediaworks.london

Tags Content, MediaWorks, Technology

News Uncategorized

Christmas Jumper Day!

Post author By NB Team
Post date 12 December 2014

Today we’re getting in the Christmas spirit, and supporting Save The Children, by taking part in Christmas Jumper Day. Woop!

News no-image Uncategorized

A Pottermore Christmas

Post author By NB Team
Post date 15 December 2014

As self-confessed internet addicts, it’s hard not to know about Pottermore, the online Harry Potter community. It’s an immersive way to experience the hit series online – a completely original way to extend the Harry Potter world, filled with puzzles and hidden content, where you can cast spells, brew portions and even learn what Hogwarts house you’re destined for.

Now, with the festive season underway Rowling’s back, and she’s offering us even more new content. If you’re getting bored of your chocolate advent calendar (ours have featured some truly terrible jokes!), you can indulge in an altogether different guilty pleasure at 1pm each day, when Rowling releases a little more of the story. Once you’ve solved a Harry Potter themed riddle, you can find out more on subjects ranging from unpublished subplots about Diagon Alley’s ice cream parlour owner, to exactly what kinds of enchantments Harry Potter’s cauldron has on it.

As PR goes, it’s a bit of a dream. It builds on the legacy and the whole site is a pretty incredible idea for engaging with fans. Not only does it let us keep our Harry Potter fantasy world alive, but it makes sure that everyone’s favourite author remains at the forefront of our mind.

To see the new content for yourself, head over to www.pottermore.com.

News no-image Uncategorized

CES CES CES!

Post author By NB Team
Post date 9 January 2015

This week CES, hailed as the primo event in every gadget aficionado’s calendar, has caused our attention to bounce (like caffeine-fuelled Minions in a banana plantation) from one new “must have” to the next. Having seemingly lost its shine in previous years with blasé coverage that reacted to “yet more 4K” with the editorial equivalent of a yawn, this year it feels like it’s back with a bang with autonomous cars, new takes on wearables and so so so much more.

Here are five of the coolest things that caught our eye – as well as a goodly amount of media buzz:

The Parrot H2O and Pot

Do you tend to murder every plant that gets within ten miles of your so-called green fingers? This could be the ultimate techie cheat to keep plants alive, healthy and thriving.

Gogoro’s Smartscooter

Gogoro may have been set up by some ex-clients of ours but we’re TOTALLY unbiased when we say that it’s clear why the Smartscooter scooped the Best of CES awards from Engadget and Mashable. It has the potential to completely change how to view electric transportation in the future and the design actually makes it an object of desire… Definitely more Tesla than Prius!

Storedot’s battery charger

The moment when your battery reaches just 5% of its life is one of the most fear-generating, stress-inducing, arse-clenching first-world problems to have. Imagine the smile on your face when you realise that in just 30 seconds, you could be fully-charged once more and ready to take on the world via Twitter, Facebook, Skype, WhatsApp, Instagram and, errr, email. This is the world that many of us, very embarrassingly, inhabit.

The Anova sous-vide cooker

This HAD to be in our top five as it combines two of our great loves – tech and cooking! This Bluetooth enabled sous-vide cooking tool lets you pick a pre-programmed recipe, and an app will let you know when your cut of meat is cooked to perfection. Honestly why wouldn’t you??

Intel’s Curie

A tiny addition from a huge company, Intel’s Curie aims to push the Internet of Things ever further. We’ve got a long time to wait before it’s released, but it’s definitely one to keep an eye on and will hopefully take wearables to the next level.

TGIF! We’re off for a lie down in a dark room (and to plan our 2015 letters to Santa for some of this brilliant new tech).

Tags Technology

News Uncategorized

Forget the Oscars, it’s the Bostocks!

Post author By NB Team
Post date 15 January 2015

Big news today, the Oscar nominations have been ignored in favour of Bostock Awards. Our Awards night gives us an excuse to have a lot of fun and celebrate the incredible work we’ve done over the last year.

News Uncategorized

Friday’s llama drama and dress mess

Post author By NB Team
Post date 2 March 2015

Friday was a bit strange. It was the end of the week and everyone was feeling a bit silly, so apparently we celebrated by watching llamas on the lam in Arizona and arguing over the colours of a dress for a Scottish wedding (blue and black vs. white and gold). As you do.

(screengrab from CNN.com)

It was all over Twitter and Buzzfeed, obviously – but the stories also made it on to the BBC website, into the Independent and the white llama (Pierre, of course) was interviewed on CNN, such was the height of this global obsession.

As the stories swept the world, they competed for eyeballs, with the dress coming out on top, setting new traffic records for Buzzfeed. It was the perfect storm. It was a fun Friday story, it created debate, and it had a bit of science. The shameless news hijacking was pretty impressive by the end of the day.

The llama drama and dress mess succeeded in putting both John Travolta’s creepy Oscars behaviour and Madonna’s tumble at the Brits firmly in the shade – nay, even the Super Bowl’s triumphant Left Shark was overshadowed. Sometimes the stories enchantingly combined – as seen here, here and here…

(screengrab of Buzzfeed’s infamous post)

Just what is it though that makes people so susceptible to the more frivolous and whimsical side of the 24 hour news cycle? Was it a touch of T.G.I.F? It certainly caused bonding (read: an argument) in the office. These are stories that provide relief, distraction and, let’s face it, a touch of Schadenfreude (sorry Madge, and Arizona – there were two llamas, TWO).

Is this the end of the long tail? Stories catch on and burn intensely before becoming oversaturated and everyone moves on. It’s probably still too early to tell, but it’s well worth keeping your eye on.