Wieden and Kennedy’s loss is our gain here at the Minimart. We’re pleased that Natasha Markley with her great award winning brand experience has joined our team and look forward to utilising her experience in 360 advertising integration. We’re mildly concerned about her musical taste but we’ll be happy to share those wild strawberry mojitos with her.
One of adland’s most high-profile creatives, Steve Henry, kindly joined us for our agency knowledge sharing session – ‘Binge Thinking’. True to form, the session was disruptive; what was billed as a session on blogging became a discussion around values and principles across adland at large.
As ever, Steve championed the disruption model, which is arguably even more pertinent today than when it was first conceived. He argued that advertising in its current form persists because we’re obsessed with the concept of a captive audience of people “passively waiting to see our ads.” But these audiences are disappearing in this new age of social media and self-curation of content.
Steve argued that it is only the brave work that matters, the rest is overlooked in a sea of sameness. For most brand managers however, challenging sector convention is scary territory and requires risk-taking, not very appealing at a time when budgets are under intense scrutiny.
We discussed our responsibility as an agency to help clients understand the “stepping stones” that lead to brave work.
This is something that we’ve tried to implement in our ‘Open Days’ where we discuss the brand ambition and look at the norms and conventions of the sector. Encouraging openness and exploration in an open forum where we can set the agenda for the rules we’d like to break is a ‘stepping stone’ to creating brave work.
Being disruptive for the sake of it isn’t what we’re about however. The Holy Grail for us is to create work that is brave and cuts through the noise but that also sparks a genuine emotional dialogue with people on a human level. Disruption without engagement is superficial, what we need to do is nurture honest and genuine long term relationships.
The session with Steve was an inspiring reminder of our role in challenging the status quo. It was a pleasure to meet him and reminded us all how much we enjoy being part of this “pure space where commerce and creativity converge”.
Calling all talented design students. We have a summer intern opportunity starting June for 1 month +. Portfolios to info@theminimart.com
What makes us different? Check out Tim & Ed’s inspiring piece on our new blog. http://tinyurl.com/64epsl4
From Camden to Glamden (via Gt Portland St ,Charlotte St and Madison Avenue)
New and well -travelled (her words) Jo Smith brings a wealth of experience to The Minimart as our Sales and Marketing Director. She was on the boards of agencies like Saatchi and Saatchi, Grey, Bates and WCRS but in recent times helped take creativity directly to clients via the internet. She is passionate about creative work; passionate about new technology and new channels. She has always sought to work with companies that push to work differently, more effectively and that understand it takes wisdom to know that a TV commercial, a facebook page, a tweet all need to be engaging to gain attention and permission (Stanley Pollitt taught us that a commercial was an uninvited guest in the living room and needed to entertain, charm and inform in order to be welcomed back).
And to work for a company that understands that it takes wisdom to know that good media channels are meeting places not transmission systems
And that knows that a tomato is a fruit – wisdom is knowing not to put it in a fruit salad.
Looks like she’s found the right home
Duncan is our newest addition to The Minimart design team. A kiwi boy through and through he has just landed on our fair shores bringing with him six years design experience and his un-canny (semi english) accent. Read more…
Manchester born Debbie joins us from Uffindel and has been working in brand consultancy and strategic planning for over 10 years. She has experience across arts, media, not-for-profit, B2B, financial, FMCG and technology sectors and on brands such as BBC, Chrysalis Radio, FSA, HSBC, Lovefilm and Universal Music. Debbie has expertise in brand strategy, comms strategy, digital strategy, research methodology and analysis. She is a member of the Account Planning Group, Chartered Institute of Marketing, Market Research Society and the Association of Qualitative Researchers. Welcome Debbie!
Gabbi has joined as our new ‘Director of Fun’, splitting her time between office management and ensuring clients and agency enjoy the perfect work/life balance. She joins us from Chorion, Publishers of the Mr Men books, so she is perfectly cast as our very own Little Miss Sunshine.
Christmas has finally arrived at The Minimart. Behold Ben and Laura taking in the sumptuous pine scent of our blue spruce, lovingly hand decorated by Marc and Laura.
Ben and Laura basking in the glow of the fairy lights
Mulled wine, anyone….?
The Minimart team made their presence felt in Puerto Banus recently when they disappeared for their annual brainstorming session. The weekend was peppered with a healthy dose of fun and games too, with The Minimart award for general excellence going to Alex. Not least for his prodigious ‘Bop It’ talents.
The Team
We're still unclear what Ben did to elicit this reaction...
Working hard whilst it rains outside....
So many utensils, so little time
'Ed Chef
The Girls
