A Different Way of Life

German National Tourist Office Nominated For British Youth Travel Award

The Travel Destination Germany – represented by the German National Tourist Office (GNTO) – has been nominated as a finalist in the ‘Best International Youth Destination’ category of the 2011 British Youth Travel Awards.

Organised by The British Educational Travel Association (BETA), the annual awards recognize and raise the profile of the work and individual successes of organisations engaged in youth, student and educational travel – to, from and within the UK.

The GNTO is nominated for its current ‘TravelMeister’ Facebook campaign, which is designed to find the ideal candidate to become the student ambassador to Germany. With all major universities across the UK and Ireland involved, the contest targets students aged 18-29 and has the potential to reach 2.4 million students in total. The main aim is to stimulate young people’s interest in Germany as a fun and exciting travel destination.

Klaus Lohmann, Director GNTO UK & Ireland, said: “We are delighted to be shortlisted in the ‘Best International Youth Destination’ category this year. Students are a very important target group for us. It’s been one of our goals to engage with a younger audience and communicate Germany’s diversity, which has great appeal to young people. We are very happy that our efforts have been recognized; being a finalist at this year’s awards confirms that we have chosen the right approach in conveying our message to the youth.”

The winners of this year’s awards will be announced on 8th December 2011 at the British Youth Travel Awards Ceremony in London.

Further information on the TravelMeister campaign can be found on GNTO’s official Facebook page at www.germany.travel/facebookcompetition.

Have the Tyne of your Life

 

NewcastleGateshead's autumn city breaks campaign, aimed at our target market segment living in Yorkshire, the North West and Scotland, is underway and we’re already seeing a huge increase in traffic to the website (18 Sept – 12 Oct 2011: over 60,000 visitors; 40,610 during the same period in 2010). The campaign by Different includes press inserts in the Sunday Times, Guardian and Independent, press advertising, radio advertising, online activity and integrated PR, including a planned media visits programme. The campaign runs until the end of November.

South West shopping centres choose DiFFERENT retail therapy

Following a four-way agency pitch process, DiFFERENT has been appointed to handle the creative consumer marketing accounts for Cabot Circus shopping centre in Bristol, St David’s in Cardiff and Princesshay in Exeter, as part of a major review coordinated by Land Securities on behalf of its retail property joint venture partners across the South West region. DiFFERENT will be the single agency delivering brand and tactical consumer marketing activity within a new regional structure.

The South West region, home to all three acclaimed centres, is one of four newly designated consolidated marketing regions. DiFFERENT has held the St David’s account since the centre’s relaunch in 2009. Land Securities coordinates marketing for joint venture partners across the region, including Hammerson, Capital Shopping Centres and local authority partnerships.

Ben Quigley, chief executive said: ‘We are absolutely delighted to win this prestigious account. Shoppers in the South West have a wealth of choice, and ensuring that Cabot Circus, St David’s and Princesshay stand out from the competition as shopping destinations is a fantastic opportunity for us. We look forward to embarking on a long and fruitful relationship to help shape the future of retail in the South West.’

Different will be responsible for all above and below the line activity and will work with Land Securities' PR, media and digital agencies on the account.

Cabot Circus, Bristol.

Talented, hungry graduates wanted!

We’re looking for talented, hungry graduates to join our agency in Newcastle as trainee account execs.  You must be a minimum 2:1 or predicting a 2:1 in marketing/advertising/communications/digital.  If that person is you then get in touch, or if it’s someone you know then get them to get in touch! We would appreciate a simple retweet on Twitter or share on Facebook to spread the word. You can email info@different-uk.com or call 0191 2610111 for more information.

 

Get Involved with The Active Guide

Further to our exciting news a few months ago about our collaborative website project with the Outdoor Industries Association, we've recently let the cat out of the bag about The Active Guide and its launch this Spring at www.theactiveguide.com, and we're now looking for input from the outdoor activity community...

Established writers and members of the outdoor trade now have the opportunity to attract new, wider and more targeted audiences to their content or products and services by becoming a part of The Active Guide contributor community via our Get Involved website.

From reviews of routes, sites, shops and spots, to the latest product reviews, advice, event coverage or just anecdotes and observations, The Active Guide will speak to anyone with a passion for the outdoors.

The Active Guide will also play host to a range of advertising opportunities from small banners to bespoke page takeovers. We have set the platform for the outdoor trade to expose their brand in a highly targeted environment, find out more here.

The real heart of The Active Guide however, is its Map feature: An innovative community-managed directory containing destinations and reviews created by both the general public and the trade. Anyone can add items to the map for free, without even needing to register on the site – a fantastic opportunity for businesses large and small to get their products and services in front of thousands of potential customers.

You can find out more about getting involved by visiting www.theactiveguide.com/getinvolved or by contacting Rachael Short at getinvolved@theactiveguide.co.uk. In the meantime, keep an eye on the progress of any development by following The Active Guide on Twitter.

 

Different Digital.

L'Oréal Colour Trophy Awards

This morning we've just launched an exciting new site for the L'Oréal Professionnel Colour Trophy Awards - an annual nationwide hairdressing competition which attracts more than 1400 entries each year and involves regional live finals building up to a Grand Final held in London in July.

We have created a contemporary, fashion-focused look for the site which reflects the nature of the awards. The site will be updated with the full list of regional finalists on 9^th March , then as the regional live finals progress the site will be updated again with photos from the night together with a list of winners.

Have a look for youself at www.lorealcolourtrophy.com.

#DDLCTW

Call for focus group - £30 Berghaus Vouchers

As part of our work for an exciting new website for The Outdoor Industries Association, Different Digital is looking for people to take part in one of two focus groups on Tuesday 7^th December in Newcastle upon Tyne.

If you are either a regular enthusiast or only take part occasionally (even once a year) in any kind of outdoor activity, be it walking, cycling, camping, caravanning - anything, we'd like to hear your thoughts on how the web affects that interest.

In exchange, we will give you £30 of Berghaus vouchers to spend online. Perfect for the cold winter months!

Let us know if you're interested - drop an email to Rachael Short or give her a call on 0191 261 0111.

#DDOIAW

New Business: The Outdoor Industries Association

We're delighted to announce that Different Digital have been selected by The Outdoor Industries Association to help them develop, produce and run a new consumer-facing website to promote outdoor activities in the UK.

This hugely exciting and innovative project will bring the OIA's members and the general public together using web, social media and mobile technologies to increase the take-up and continuing popularity of outdoor activities.

You'll hear more of the details as the project develops, especially if you follow  the project hash tag #DDOIAW or the the Different Digital team on Twitter.

Going for Gold

 

I was delighted to to attend the 2010 Scottish CIPR PRide Awards last week where our friends at Glasgow Caledonian University were shortlisted in the Best Website category.

We've been working with the Marketing team at GCU for almost two years now and following a Heist award for 'Best Student Recruitment Website' earlier this year, I was quietly confident that the work we've done with them would also be recognised by the CIPR.

On the day, delight at being shortlisted quickly turned to a large order for more celebratory wine as it was announced we'd struck Gold, going one better than our Silver Heist award.

The success of this website project is testament to many things, not least a great client who really understands the potential offered by effective collaboration between agency and customer. Thanks guys, you're a pleasure to work with and here's to our continued success going forward!

What's it REALLY like at Uni?

Before I went to university, I knew it all already. It's about two things: Drinking and Beer. And I planned to get Honours in both subjects. There was something else that happened while you were hung over, but it wasn't what I was excited about.

OK, that's a rather narrow stereotype, but it's true that there's a big gap between what university applicants know about student lifestyle, and what it's really like - and this is a hugely important part of their decision making process.

The universities do a nice glossy job of selling the area and everything that goes along with living there, but you can understand why prospective students will just take that with a pinch of salt.

At the other end of the scale, we've found that relying purely on the social networking chatter around a subject, can sometimes give people an exaggerated, biased or simply misleading view of that subject. Not the best information to base such a huge decision on.

It's clear the best people to tell the REAL story are existing students, but to give the audience a rich, detailed and genuine picture of student life, it needs to be delivered deliberately, regularly and honestly to be a true (and useful) reflection of what they're actually doing at university.

Following this principle, we've recently launched Lives Online for The University of Sunderland:

 

"Six Students. Twelve months. One amazing year. Watch our lives changing."

This fully integrated campaign sees a group of existing students blogging, tweeting, videoing and generally broadcasting whatever it is that they're experiencing during their daily student life over an entire year - the typical amount of time prospective students take to make these considerations.

They're using standard social networking tools to do this: Typepad, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Flickr - allowing their audience to engage with them in the place they feel most comfortable. All this is also pulled together in the Lives Online microsite where people can find it from other channels such as search and the main university website.

Stu Marlow