Author: Lucy O’Dea

Football mania has begun…..and love it or hate it, football supporters from all around the world have turned their attention to Brazil, as their teams battle it out in the 2014 FIFA World Cup.  Houses, shops, bars and offices have become draped in patriotic flags, bunting and posters; adults and kids are supporting team attire of various sorts while the all-essential match planner wall charts have come out with a vengeance, as the office sweep stakes swing in to action (yes, we’re full steam ahead at AD too… come on Greece!)

Author: AD Communications

Having only been with the AD team for a couple of months now, I’ve been privy to an overwhelming amount of new information. From flatbeds (which, apparently, are not orthopaedic mattresses), to thermoforming inks, I feel the print industry is firmly, well, printed on my brain!

Author: Patrick Anderson

“It annoys me when people say that they want good product design, but also that it must sell,” laments Jonas Petterson, co-founder of Swedish industrial design studio Form Us With Love. “It is good design that sells the product!” Jonas was speaking during a session at this year’s iteration of Clerkenwell Design Week on ‘Why design is shaping the brands of tomorrow’, and this sentiment was echoed, unsurprisingly, throughout the makeshift showrooms and backstreet galleries of the dynamic 3-day event in the Islington borough of London.

Author: Lucy O’Dea

About a year ago, a colleague posted a blog entitled What a waste!, in which she bemoaned the issue of excessive packaging.

Author: Michael Grass

Here we are, a week since the stands have been dismantled, the plastic plates and beer mugs cleared from the kiosk tables and the gates of the almighty Messe Dusseldorf closed to the global packaging industry, and I can now finally stand tall and say the words I never thought I’d utter so triumphantly: yes, I survived the Interpack ride.

Author: AD Communications

Popping into my corner shop for a necessary chocolate bar, I felt the need to scour the magazine rack for a cheap publication to satisfy my need for celebrity gossip. With well-known figures shining out of every glossy cover, it seemed unlikely that I would come across a lesser known figure, a young adolescent girl with fortunes made purely via the medium of video. But gracing the cover of Company magazine was Zoella, a 24 year old beauty and lifestyle blogger with over 4 million subscribers on YouTube. Armed with a backdrop of a modest bedroom and a camera, Zoella has a global audience hanging on her every word.

Author: Patrick Anderson

When I was five, my family and I went on a holiday with some friends to a small rural town in France. It was a little community complex – comprised of three cottages, an old barn and a swimming pool – frequented predominately by unattended Gallic chickens, who would idly wander about the place with poetic nonchalance. Not quite like modern holiday complexes today, but hey, this was the late 80s. And it had a swimming pool. A pool! My best friend and I could hardly believe our eyes.

Author: Kerry Rice

I have a paradoxical relationship with the use of research in PR. Having studied research methodology at university, I chuckle quietly to myself as a certain UK newspaper (which shall remain nameless, but really you all know which one I mean don’t you?) runs entirely contradictory ‘research’ headlines mere days apart. Yet despite this, I also write page after page of long-form content that just wouldn’t work without research to inform it.

Author: Joanna Muggeridge

Having lived and breathed marketing and communications for more years than I care to admit, I know all of the benefits that we tell clients about when we advise them to have a multi-faceted marketing campaign. Communications should reach out across all areas – social media, editorial, advertising, branded content etc.  (Or shared, owned, earned and bought as we like to refer to it at AD.)

Author: Michael Grass

I have a theory. Not a revolutionary theory involving chaos or relativity I must admit, but one that’s controversial enough to turn some heads or at the very least raise a few eyebrows. So, here it goes: the appeal of an unfamiliar product lies not in its function, but in its packaging.

Author: Kerry Rice

I love receiving postcards. And I love sending them. But I very much resent buying them. They always seem to use poor quality photographs and layouts that were à la mode in the 1980s.

Author: Alexa Mills

I found it fascinating to learn that 40-50% of the footage shot for the BBC documentary that aired recently ‘Dolphins – Spy in the Pod’ was of activity that has never before been seen, let alone filmed. This got me thinking about how video capability has developed over the years.