We are proud to announce a new arrival to the Smyths Toys family, Smyths Baby. Smyths have provided high quality, low cost baby and nursery items for some time now. As with the rest of the Smyths offer, demand for Smyths Baby has grown to such an extent that it was time for it to take on it's own personality.  And isn't it lovely? Looks just like its mum. Watch out for Smyths Baby appearing on posters, press and in stores near you.

Coloured Masterbatch Specialists, Technical Colour Supplies, needed a new corporate id and online presence which communicated their strengths and positioned them as the pan-European company they have grown into. Their new positioning is one of absolute precision in colour reproduction, time after time, for plastic processing companies. The new identity will be present in all future advertising and design work.

Today sees the launch of the very first Smyths Toy Scrappage Scheme promotion. Customers can now bring any old, unwanted or even broken toys into their nearest Smyths Toys Superstore and they'll get a voucher for money off a shiny brand new toy. The campaign was created to be fully media-neutral and is working through national press, radio, in-store, flyers and online. Click here to see some work.

Health care provider Bupa has appointed Chester Advertising Agency Underdog Creative to deliver a suite of banners to drive online acquisition of its medical insurance by businesses. Underdog and Bupa have a relationship which spans the past two years and we have started work on the project with the campaign set to run through 2009 and 2010. The creative will feature a mix of traditional and ‘shapes’ executions and challenges many preconceptions currently held by smaller companies about the affordability and flexibility of Bupa. The banners will feature heavily on many UK sites over the coming months. We have a real two-way relationship with Bupa and share learnings and insight with each other regularly which fits with our 'Let's think together' ethos. We're delighted to develop and enjoy our relationship with Bupa as well as increase exposure of their offer to small business in these challenging times.

We're proud to announce that, over the past three months, we have been working on a series of internal communication projects with Wine Cellar. Originally it was a one-off project to help them out at short notice. However, we're happy to say that the projects have continued to come in one after the other and we'd like to think it's because they were so impressed with us. There's an idea. Give us a go and you might be really impressed too.

We at Underdog have recently collaborated with Disney to create animated sponsorship idents for Smyths Toys. The sponsorship of Mickey Mouse Clubhouse on Playhouse Disney began last week and is just part of the overall marketing mix which includes TV commercials, outdoor, catalogues, in-store, radio and more. You can see the work here.

Those hugely experienced people over at Market Chemistry have launched a sister company, Brand Chemistry with the aim of  catalysing brands through strategy and deep insight into people. The new website states "At the heart of every great brand is strong insight that is translated into action. Our approach builds out from existing insights or establishes new ones to provide a strong foundation for the work we do from that point." We couldn't agree more which is why we plan to work alongside the guys at Brand Chemistry on projects in the near future. Paul Colback, ex Global Brand Director of PZ Cussons and Bob Jones, ex Managing Director of PZ Cussons are no strangers to the team here at Underdog and we are pleased that they chose to work with us on these projects. Luckily for us, they have enough experience to see that even though we are a relatively small agency, the team at Underdog has one of the biggest track records around.

Last week saw three days of solid shooting for the next wave of TV commercials for Smyths Toys. Over the last few weeks, children were cast, sets were dressed, scripts were written and tweaked, fine tuned, perfected, then tweaked a bit more. Then, for three days last week, it all came together as our army of little stars performed brilliantly in front of camera for our favorite toy retailer. With the last TV campaign proving so successful the pressure was on our tiny talent and they rose to the challenge. We're not saying that there weren't tantrums, tears, shouting and stomping. But in Tina's defense, she was under a lot of pressure making sure everything went to plan.

We at Underdog have recently produced a new identity and website for Market Chemistry. Market Chemistry help organisations re-assess their strategic intent and develop the right plans and infrastructure to optimise their business performance. A few of us here at Underdog have a history of working with many top brands, helping create big ideas that work through the line. One such client was PZ Cussons which owns the Imperial Leather and Carex brands. At the helm back then was Paul Colback - Global Marketing Director and now co-founder of Market Chemistry. Those few, now applying our trade here at Underdog, spent many a day and night plotting the domination of the antibacterial hand-wash and shower gel markets, among other things, with Paul and his team. So it's a great pleasure to be working with Paul, Steve, Bob and Tony at Market Chemistry and it's good to know that Paul rated us so highly from those days at PZ Cussons that he came to us for this project. Well, he had to get it right because this time it's his own money.

Our favorite toy retailer Smyths Toys are continuing their impressive rate of growth this year. What's more pleasing is that it's happening the current climate. Underdog received a call from Smyths shortly after some recent marketing activity to inform us that there had been a surprising amount of demand for certain products. So we're getting together to do it again shortly. As a full service agency, we're also delighted to be involved with catalogue design, outdoor and in-store communications too. As an agency we have won literally dozens of creative awards but nothing feels as good as when a client reports great results like that.

A very interesting article by Louise Jack taken from Marketing Week. Brands will benefit from marketers employing a little more creative thinking if the trend of consumers adopting cautious spending strategies becomes a long-term pattern of behaviour.  The recession is not only affecting how people buy now but also their future long-term spending, according to a report from agency Shoppercentric. Buyers are adopting cautious spending strategies that may well become ingrained behaviour, leading to new challenges for marketers. Ninety per cent of UK households are employing more prudent buying strategies, an increase of 4% from research the agency carried out in January. While the results from the start of the year were seen as a knee-jerk reaction to the economic downturn, this prudence now appears to be an ongoing trend. Shoppercentric managing director Danielle Pinnington explains: “The prudence trend seems to be growing at quite a pace. Economising, which is specifically about price, has actually fallen since January, whereas prudence has increased. “It seems that, over time, the initial reaction has developed into people realising they can save money by being less wasteful or avoiding temptation. The longer-term outcome seems simply to be people learning to be more sensible.” “Prudent” activities include consumers making things go ...

If this post makes any sense to you, you've probably recieved an email from us here at Underdog Creative asking you to vote for your fave Easter Egg from our shortlist. You've got until the 25th to vote because we know some of you have been away. To see the shortlist just click on the blog entry below - the one with the egg picture, then reply to the email we sent you. That way we know who to send the bottle of bubbly to if you win. The winner will be decided from those who voted for the most popular egg. If you weren't sent an email asking you to join in, please don't be offended. We just didn't think you'd be interested. But, if you are, brilliant just chose your egg and send an email to tina@underdogcreative.co.uk and get involved.