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Let's drink to tennis season
Clerkenwell Design Week chic
Blog post on a website
What's the reward of awards?
A toast to Scotland: our Scottish drink predictions for 2016
A bold new bottle deserves a bold new look. Delighted to share our latest work for Glenfiddich 12 Year Old, part of… https://t.co/XExd9GMS82 - 1 hour ago
Need a change of career? This is a mega rare chance to become a whisky cooper… https://t.co/gSNfP25IHI - 1 day ago
Canada has a new logo. It's sort of in the shape of a lopsided heart. Do you like it? https://t.co/HIXVxcojfH via @designtaxi - 2 days ago
So, Jamie went to the World Cup Final and now he can't speak... #astonishing #NZvENG #ICCWorldCup2019 https://t.co/XEHpN0HBDF - 4 days ago
When reducing your carbon footprint becomes beautifully literal - love these compostable plant-based shoes… https://t.co/U7qKrxmrBh - 4 days ago
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Wed 12 Jun 2019 (0) comments
We all know about the meteoric rise of Fever-Tree. And it seems the brand is continuing to build upon its position as the UK's favourite tonic. You could say, Fever-Tree has the art of marketing in the (sports) bag.
Not only has the brand launched ready to drink gin and tonics, but it's the new name for Queen's tennis championship, traditionally known as the warm up to Wimbledon.
Racquet sports enthusiasts can buy tickets to the Fever-Tree Championships at the Queen's Club London – but will they get a free gin and tonic, that's what we want to know. Yes, that's right, the tennis event has been renamed and rebranded around the drinks brand. The site bears some lovely illustration, and in our opinion, the premium nature of the brand is a good fit with the event.
The Great British love of sport and drink
Yes, it's hard to believe, but Wimbledon is practically upon us once more. We're a sporty agency, and we admit, we'll be the first to shout 'let's get a court!' as local tennis courts around the country become chock-a-block full of fair-weather tennis enthusiasts at this time of year.
Like the British weather, for food and drink brands, it's a guarantee that brings out the pound. Last year, the amazing weather and the FIFA World Cup led to an uplift in off-trade and on-trade sales. Feel good factor was coming out of our ears, until the semi-finals – but we all kept smiling, because it was just a perfect summer.
Sports, drinks and socialising. What could be better?
Fast-forward to 2019, and while we can't control the weather, we can look at what's on the menu this summer. So far, we haven't seen a sip of Pimm's mentioned anywhere, but Stella Artois is confirmed as a major sponsor of Wimbledon, along with Evian, Robinsons and Lanson.
Anyone for bottled water?
Given that we've been working on sourcing examples of sustainable packaging recently, we are interested to see where the bottled water industry's future lies. Will glass bottles be allowed on court? Can spectators pour refills of Evian water without having to buy more plastic? If anyone reading this is lucky enough to have tickets, please let us know.
While we're on the subject of brand sponsorship and good design, where does this leave the beer market? Do British tennis fans mix well with beer brands? Or is Stella Artois riding on the coat tails of the French Open sponsorship?
We expect the brand will have a moment of reinvention, as per Carlsberg's repositioning – or at least, we hope so. And yet, we can't help feeling there's a lot to do here. Will Stella Artois move off the base line or will it hit all the aces?
Non-alcoholic beers making their mark
Here at Purple, we're working on a range of alcohol-free beer brands, designed to keep the party going without the hangover. Peroni Libera is just one of these brands. They've got big plans this summer and if Christmas was anything to go by, the alcohol-free category is on the rise. Now that feels like a good fit for a sports tournament, right?
While we're blowing our own whistle, we've also designed the new look and feel for Asahi Super Dry, the premium Japanese beer brand. It's an exciting time at the agency and we can't wait to see what's coming next. Meanwhile, there's sure to be a few pulled tendons in the office from all this tennis fun. The only thing the rest of us will be hitting is the bar…
By Katie Quaite, Senior Copywriter
Fri 24 May 2019 (0) comments
We've been enjoying Clerkenwell Design Week this week. The streets around the agency are buzzing with all sorts of well-heeled design folk and there's an eclectic, almost holiday-like spirit in the air. Continue…
Tue 21 May 2019 (0) comments
Brewdog's 'Advert on a bus' has been praised as 'a testament to the power of simplicity'. A bold statement, the best copywriting of the moment. Which begs the question, is creative copywriting dead?
Are we entering an era where all we need are monkey-AI-content bots tip tapping out the world, just how it is? Will we be bombarded with cans that say 'buy this beer', or rubber ducks advertised as 'yellow'?
No. The reason is it's artless. If you take Brewdog's ad, you could insert any product or any service and it would have the same effect. There's nothing that links it to the beer, other than the fact the creative team are taking a stand. A stand against engineered adverts and thought-out headlines. A stand against the millions splashed out on creativity. A stand against the production cos— oh wait, a stand that also buys a slot in the Game of Thrones ad break? How very punk.
Following in the footsteps of Phoebe Waller-Bridge, it's an ad that breaks the fourth wall. But where Waller-Bridge's Fleabag was a triumph of complexity, subtlety and humour, using moments between viewer and Fleabag as ones of intimate revelations, this ad smacks you right between the eyes. With no detailed backstory or intriguing narrative, breaking the fourth wall in a single headline feels nothing less than obnoxious. It's a clumsy, cheap trick used to get attention.
I do have to admit that it's worked, or I wouldn't be talking about it in this blog. But it's also a message that will only work once. Such a brash campaign can't be repeated with the same effect, simply because the reason it got attention was because it hasn't been seen before.
Maybe all publicity is good publicity. But all creativity is definitely not good creativity.
by Emily Kerr
Fri 9 Jun 2017 (0) comments
Our latest blog post is from guest contributor Creative Awards. Based around the corner in Hatton Garden, Creative Awards have been making bespoke awards for some of the UK's biggest brands and events for over 40 years. We worked with them on the rather fabulous Glenfiddich World's Most Experimental Bartender competition, so we asked them their thoughts on the power of awards. Continue…
Fri 24 Jun 2016 (0) comments
The Grocer have recently written an in-depth article about Scotland and its exports and asked us to contribute. I wrote the following thoughts and predictions for them, from which they used a few quotes. I thought it might be enjoyed as a longer piece, so I recycled it as a Purple blog. Hope you enjoy it.
Fri 1 Apr 2016 (0) comments
Women's History Month: Famous women of booze
For Women's History Month (it's March, people), Purple were asked by The Spirits Business to help them with a Top Women of Booze article.
These are the female pioneers of alcohol. The heroes of hops. The trailblazers of taste. The dude-esses of distillation.
We supplied them with four of our favourite women. Admittedly some of our choices are a little left field, but we hope you enjoy their stories nonetheless. Continue…
Tue 8 Sep 2015 (0) comments
Behind-the-scenes at a Purple shoot
We've recently completed one of the most experimental, and frankly insane, shoots for Glenfiddich. It was for the exquisite and pioneering Glenfiddich 21 Year Old whisky, which after being matured for 21 years is finished in Caribbean rum casks for a richer, warmer and more exotic taste.
After coming up with the headline, 'Raised in Scotland. Roused by the Caribbean', we had to bring the line to life in a single image. You may well have seen the final visual (spoiler alert, it's at the end of this blog), but we thought it would be interesting to give you a behind-the-scenes peek into how the beauty image was created with the very talented photographer Benedict Morgan.
Warning: this blog contains paint. Lots of it. Continue…
Mon 7 Sep 2015 (0) comments
How to pick the perfect photographer
As every art director and designer knows, there's an art to creating truly memorable beauty imagery. In this blog, we've managed to wheedle out some of the secrets Gary Westlake, our Glenfidich Creative Director, uses when choosing and getting the best out of photographers. Continue…
Tue 28 Jul 2015 (0) comments
Our top 10 luxury alcohol beauty images
We've just finished work on creating a raft of new beauty images for Glenfiddich, who we've worked with for nearly a decade. As part of the project, I've spent more time than might be considered normal researching what makes a luxury alcohol beauty image work.
First things first, what is a beauty image? My simplistic description is – an image of a product shown in its greatest light. Continue…
Peace, pomegranates & packaging: The story behind our Plant for Peace logo
We're very proud to have created the logo and brand identity for Plant for Peace recently. You can see it in all its glory featured on their range of mulberry & pomegranate peace bars, now on sale in all Holland & Barrett stores and the larger Waitrose supermarkets.
Plant for Peace has an interesting story, so I thought you might be interested. You can also read this rather splendid article in Digital Arts too.
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