Behind the lens with ATTIK’s Simon Needham

As the co-founder of global creative agency ATTIK, and the creative director for ATTIK U.S., Simon Needham has already made an impressive impact on the marketing industry. ATTIK recently published NoiseFive, the latest of its self-guided, experimental, collectible design publications, and with each passing day, Simon continues to innovate alongside the world’s premier marketers — and the extremely talented artisans and craftspeople working with or within ATTIK on its latest campaigns. Read more

At age 23, self-styled creative agency ATTIK keeps making “Noise”

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ATTIK’s James Sommerville ready to operate (on brands) in Russia…

HiBrand 2007 is an international conference on branding set to occur this Friday and Saturday, March 16 and 17, in Moscow, where a group of distinguished international experts in the field will explore innovative brand strategies in depth. Among principals from other top firms, including Cato Purnell Partners, David Carson Design, Dragon Rouge, Enterprise IG, Fitch, FutureBrand, Identica, Interbrand, Landor, Lippincott Mercer, MetaDesign, Total Identity and Wolff Olins, global creative and brand-engineering agency ATTIK’s own Co-Founder and Group Creative Director James Sommerville will present a session entitled “Plastic Surgery for Brands,” wherein he will reveal techniques and secrets his firm has evolved over the past 20 years to help leading brands conquer new markets and appeal to new demographic groups.

The conference is organized and presented by Identity magazine, Russia’s first magazine on branding and commercial design, whose mission is to open and expand the country’s branding and commercial design markets. Having recently joined the ICOGRADA Design Media Network, Identity’s founder and publisher is ArtGraphics.ru, which since 2000 has emerged as one of Russia’s leaders in brand-consulting and commercial design.

At its best, marketing is getting unreal…

Another great feature story in the February issue of Wired is entitled “A Second Life for MTV” and is written by Mark Wallace of the endlessly fascinating blog 3pointD.com. In the Wired feature, Wallace writes about the developments inside of MTV that led to the development and launch of the Virtual Laguna Beach community virtual world of 3D avatars. Reportedly drawing some 300,000 members during its first 10 weeks, the story breaks down the current community as being 40 percent below the age of 17, and 55 percent teenage girls overall. With mainstream and trade publications raving about how virtual communities and in-game marketing are offering brand marketers so many wonderful new opportunities, it’s great to see MTV leading the way in putting virtual reality to work in promoting their “Laguna Beach: The Real Orange County” reality series. Here’s a key takeaway from Wallace’s story: On average, users visit six times a month for 35 minutes a session… the typical web site devoted to a television show receives just five six-minute visits per user per month.

Last week, my clients at global creative and brand-engineering agency ATTIK unveiled an amazingly innovative campaign to attract and engage potential buyers for Scion’s 2008 xB. The focal point of their cross-media campaign is an engaging, entertaining, multidimensional web experience launched online at www.want2Bsquare.com. There, visitors are encouraged to explore an expansive world, play games against others, view a wealth of video content celebrating the xB’s boxy shape, and discover other quirky experiences… where their time and interactions lead to the accumulation of points which can be redeemed for an array of prizes. It’s not a virtual 3D world where people can assume the forms of avatars, but it is an amazingly sticky site that’s getting lots of visits, generating a ton of online buzz, and building interest in a unique vehicle in a groundbreaking way….