6
Dec

UNION STAFF PARTICIPATE IN WORLDWIDE PARTNERS TALENT EXCHANGE

One of the benefits of The Union’s longstanding membership of Worldwide Partners, our network of more than 70 agencies in 43 countries, is the opportunity for staff to experience working in other agencies and in other countries – to ‘talent exchange’ within the network. In the past staff have travelled as far away as Helsinki and Connecticut, and recently one of our copywriters spent time in San Francisco, California. Christine Stamanti, a copywriter in Union Direct, recently went to Butler, Shine, Stern & Partners (BSSP) in San Francisco, a highly creative leading independent US ad agency, for a month-long talent exchange.

Read more >>

6
Dec

UNION DIGITAL LAUNCH NEW WEBSITE FOR FOOTBALL AID

Union Digital have created a new website for Football Aid, the charity which raises funds for good causes through organising charity football matches across the UK, Europe and USA. Football Aid has been helping good causes for over 18 years now, through the innovative and creative concept of facilitating fans to ‘live the dream’ of playing in their club colours, at their club’s stadium, coached and supported by legends from their favourite team.

Read more >>

15
Oct

WORLDWIDE PARTNERS HOSTS GLOBAL AGENCY SUMMIT IN LONDON

Worldwide Partners, Inc, (WPI), one of the world’s largest agency networks with more than 65 agency partners in more than 40 countries on five continents, is hosting its Global Agency Summit in London this week for agency partners within their network. The Union will be participating, having been a partner agency since 2000. Michael Hart, the agency’s Creative Director, Gus Chalmers, Managing Director of Union Direct and Daniel Batey, Managing Director of Union Data, will all be in attendance.

Read more >>

25
Sep

IT’S THE WAY THAT YOU DO IT

The first piece of advice my first boss at Saatchi & Saatchi London gave me, back in the mid-80s, was that my future value to the agency lay in the quality of my relationships with my clients. Everything else was academic. After 35 years in business, I have long since realised that he was right – there is a brutal simplicity to servicing clients when providing advertising and marketing solutions. I have always remembered his words – the relationships we have with our clients are the defining factor in business success or failure.

Read more >>

24
Sep

KEN DIXON JOINS THE UNION’S LEADERSHIP TEAM AS PLANNING DIRECTOR

The Union has appointed Ken Dixon to head up the agency’s Planning Department. Ken has over 20 years’ experience in brand development, brand architecture, communication and strategy. He has worked in agencies in London, Hong Kong and Edinburgh, ranging from boutique ‘hot-shops’ (such as St Luke’s) to multi-nationals Ogilvy and Leo Burnett. In 2002 he co-founded Newhaven in Edinburgh (after a short spell at The Leith Agency) which went on to win a host of awards for creativity and effectiveness with both public and private sector clients including ABInBev, Iberdrola, HBOS, and The Scottish Government. 

Read more >>

31
Aug

HOW TO WIN FRIENDS AND ENGAGE PEOPLE

What is experiential marketing? It’s any form of marketing which targets the senses; be that sight, hearing, smell, taste or touch. An immersive interaction creates (when done well!) a unique experience between the consumer and the brand, in a relevant environment to provoke a positive and memorable impression. These ‘experiences’ can take place anywhere: at events, trade shows, in shopping malls, in the street., at exhibitions, roadshows, or pop-ups. They can be executed to support a sponsorship, a brand launch, a public sector behaviour change campaign or a competition. They often use interactive technology; such as augmented or virtual reality or gamification, to provide even deeper engagement.

Read more >>

26
Jul

GOOD FOR {U}

According to the Office for National Statistics, UK productivity was 15.1 per cent below the average for the rest of the G7 group of advanced economies in 2016. This, alongside the Britain’s Healthiest Workplace evidence of deteriorating national workforce for the past 4 years – calls for action. Productivity has become a nationwide issue now addressed by the Government and HR professionals. Technology and changing attitudes have enabled a more flexible, dynamic workforce – including working remotely, flexible working hours and using our own devices for work.  It has also made for a more connected and transparent world – pushing the emergence of glass box brands. The workforce is changing on the social level too, with people living longer – employers have a challenge of bridging the gap and creating engagement between a multi-generational workforce. Change is constant, but it does present multiple opportunities for employers to grow their business, by focusing on their biggest asset – THEIR STAFF.

Read more >>

28
Jun

ARTIFICIAL PARADISE: THE INTERIOR DECORATION OF OUR REALITY

Picture this. You’re at a music festival. Your favourite band is playing. You’re among the raucous hedonists with flowers in their hair. However, there is one difference. You’re the only person who isn’t simultaneously raving and recording the whole thing on your phone and uploading it to Instagram, Snapchat and Facebook while it is taking place. This phenomenon has become our new normal. More and more people interrupt living their actual lives to construct a utopian online identity. And by doing so, they let this fantasy world supersede really living the experience.

Read more >>

22
Jun

UNION ENJOYS STELLAR EVENING AT STAR AWARDS

The Union team enjoyed a great evening at the 2018 Marketing Society Star Awards, held at the Corn Exchange in Edinburgh. The awards is the equivalent of the Scottish marketing community’s Oscars – with over 500 guests attending from across a wide range of the agency and client companies. We were delighted to pick up six awards on the evening. Our entries for Scottish Government (Parent Club) and Historic Environment Scotland won Gold, whilst these clients also picked up Silvers, with another Silver going to Sterling Furniture. A Bronze was awarded to Union Direct for Scottish Widows. Three other entries were nominated: for Food Standards Scotland and Police Scotland.

Read more >>

30
May

THE PERPLEXING WORLD OF THE TENDER

I found myself ruminating on the dark art of pitching and tenders today, particularly as the latter is becoming the norm. In a pitch you have three things to focus on: story, content and chemistry. That’s not to say it’s an easy thing to master but a clear narrative and a solid idea presented by likeable people is a pretty good foundation to land (or keep) an account. If you win you get all the gushing reasons why. Lose and you’ll be informed by phone or email that you were a close second – they don’t want to hurt your feelings. Dig a little deeper and you may uncover the reasons for your failure. And you need to learn from those reasons because sometimes you can trick yourself into believing the decision has nothing to do with you. 

Read more >>

24
May

THE DEVIL’S IN THE DATA

When we formed Union Data a little over six months ago we had a simple goal: to drive more effective marketing for our clients by unleashing the creative power of data for the common good. An approach we call data sharpening. There couldn’t have been a better time. Client demand was high and data is a hot topic. In part because of the imminent arrival of GDPR but also because of the genuine opportunities opening up to us by the constant advances in tech. Then it happened. The Cambridge Analytica scandal. And in a moment the conversation turned from talking about the power of data to trying to work out if data was the devil.

Read more >>

30
Apr

THE POWER OF MARKETING TO CHANGE THE WORLD

How advertising is helping fight bias and make the world a more accepting (and sassier) place. Laura Jones, Senior Account Manager at The Union, muses on hidden biases and how uplifting it is that advertising has grown from contributing to them, to smashing them.

Read more >>

25
Apr

KYLE HARDIE – OBITUARY

Kyle Hardie
7 March 1971 – 16th April 2018

Devoted husband and father, marketing agency founder and leader.

Kyle Hardie, Managing Director of The Union Advertising Agency, and founder and Managing Director of sales promotion agency Union Connect, passed away after a brave fight with cancer having achieved success in the industry he loved. The tragedy is that, at only 47 years old, he had so much more still to achieve.

Read more >>

29
Mar

INTEGRATION. AN IDEA WHOSE TIME HAS COME.

Marketing folk love buzzwords. The rise of digital channels has accelerated this trend. Hip new acronyms and fads are all the rage. ‘Customer experience’ meets ‘omnichannel’, whilst ‘behavioural economics’ crosses ‘360 degree’ thinking. So forgive me, but I’m digging up an old, and rather tired, buzzword from 20 years ago: ‘Integration’.  Or ‘integrated marketing communications’ to be more precise. It’s much less fashionable these days, but finally, after years of being an idea preached more than it was practised, its day has finally come.

Read more >>

28
Feb

MARKETING AUTOMATION: CUTTING-EDGE OR JUST PLAIN CREEPY?

It’s likely you’ve already seen at least one over-enthusiastic salesperson at a roadshow or expo by now, gesticulating wildly about the easy wins to be had with marketing automation. Call it personalisation, ‘hyper’ segmentation, or ‘marketing to an audience of one’, but in the simplest sense, marketing automation is just using purpose-built platforms to give you extra insights about your customers and make automated decisions based on those insights.

Read more >>

31
Jan

DOES THE SIZE OF YOUR AGENCY MATTER?

Union Creative Director, Michael Hart, muses on the importance (or not) of the size of a creative agency and what scale does and doesn’t offer clients.

Small is beautiful. Big is reliable. No-one got fired for hiring IBM. We’re all familiar with the maxims. In the communications world the small, fleet-of-foot startups sit in one corner while the big guns squat in the other. The small players will say they have smaller overheads, less bureaucracy, quicker reaction times. The big ones counter with scale, experience, dependability.

Read more >>