GRP

It’s Children in Need Day on Friday 14th November and at GRP we’re throwing ourselves into the spirit with fancy dress, a bring-and-buy sale, a raffle and several culinary adventures, including ice-cream and chili-con-carne (not necessarily on the same plate).  Most of this hilarity is confined to our own office, but if you’d like to contribute, you can buy a copy or our mouthwatering charity cookbook, or enter a prize draw to win a Christmas Card designed for your company by our award-winning creative department.  To help a great cause, call us now.

Winning is good in our business, even if it’s not always a plum new business account, or a D&AD Pencil.  And this week, Steph and Lisa won a huge box of sweeties - including retro favourites like Sherbet Fountains and Black Jacks - courtesy of Galaxy 100-106, a new radio station launching in Scotland and taking the place of XFM. Thanks to Kevin, Sam and Cheryl for their presentation and generosity.

abica is a new mobile phone network exclusively for business users.  Headed up by senior industry figures Rod Mathews (who founded Scottish Telecom) and Scott Allison, it promises simpler, fairer and more flexible plans for all kinds of businesses, from sole traders through to large organisations.   We came up with the abica name and brand identity, on- and off-line marketing material, and an elegant, clutter-free website that we managed to turn round within three weeks of taking the brief.  Take a look here.

We were delighted to see Andy Murray winning in Madrid at the weekend - particularly as his sponsor, Highland Spring, is now one of our clients.  His conclusive victory over Gilles Simon in the final makes Andy, currently the world’s number four, the first British professional ever to win two consecutive Masters Series events (he took Cincinnati in August).  Our own involvement with the leading UK-produced brand of bottled water began earlier this year when we won the digital account in a competitive pitch.  We’ve since created campaigns in support of Highland Spring’s involvement with British tennis, and we’re currently planning lots more sparkling projects for the months to come.  Watch this space for more details.

BBC Scotland visited us last week for a live link-up to the Fred McCauley show.  Unfortunately - timing for live radio being how it is - Birte, Jamie and Nicki were primed and ready to share their views only to be dismissed while the show cut to the 11am news.  Later Guy and Martin got a few seconds on air.  It was long enough for Guy to get a dig in at LibDem MP Lembit Opek, anyway…

We developed an innovative new feature for the Scottish National Blood Transfusion Service’s Scotblood website earlier this year - a postcode-based session-finder which helps prospective blood donors find the nearest and most convenient place for them to give blood.  The website is one of just a handful within the NHS to achieve AAA status - a best-practice standard.  See the site here.

Last year’s grand haul of awards for the phenomenally successful Be Books is a hard act to follow, but we’re keeping up the trophy-winning habit with the invitation to our Lighthouse Agency Party.  After winning two silvers at the Roses, we’re nominated in two categories at the Scottish Advertising Awards - namely best illustration and best self-promotion.  Martin will be at the event on 24th October to pick up the awards if we win.  The rest of the agency will be elsewhere, enjoying some aprés-awayday refreshment.

One Glasgow team picked up a couple of trophies in Manchester earlier this month, though sadly it was nothing to do with football. GRP won two Silvers at The 2008 Roses advertising awards – Best Use of Illustration and Best Self-Promotion - both for our invitation to the agency’s birthday party last October.

We’ve recently won the creative work for the launch of the National Museum of Scotland’s new gallery, Scotland: A Changing Nation. The new gallery tells the stories of Scots people since the First World War with film, audio, images and hundreds of objects, including a Hillman Imp and a Howitzer shell. It’s a particularly satisfying win as we failed (perhaps narrowly) to secure the Museum’s business last year. The project boosts our profile in the culture and heritage fields – and it’s great to win something from Edinburgh. The gallery launches on July 10th.

Check out the work section now for some finished visuals.