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.

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 ...

A fact about advertising: In a study of U.S. recessions, McGraw-Hill Research analysed 600 companies from 1980-1985. The results showed that busnesses that maintained or increased their advertising expenditures during the 1981-1982 recession averaged significantly higher sales growth, both during the recession and for the following three years, than those that eliminated or decreased advertising. By 1985, sales of companies that were aggressive recession advertisers had risen 256% over those that didn’t keep up their advertising. Don't say we didn't warn you.

Monday night saw the opening night of Classic Rock's regular new club night at the Embassy club in London's Mayfair. Just Ken, Tina and Viv's scene. They were there making polite conversation with Viv's mate Krusher (organiser and DJ) as well as the likes of The Quireboys, Motorhead, Zodiac Mindwarp and Paul Di'Anno's band. Ken, Tina and Viv were already down there on business anyway so they said might as well go to this. How convenient. [caption id="attachment_26" align="alignleft" width="450" caption="Viv and Ken and a couple of freaky rockers spotted at the Embassy club Classic Rock night"][/caption]

Here's a quick look at some of the creative from Underdog last month along with a smattering of advertising industry news.