Smirnoff has announced details of the second year of the groundbreaking initiative – Smirnoff Creative Grants (formerly Smirnoff Night Vision) – which aims to discover, support and celebrate up-and-coming nightlife promoters. Recent grant recipients include Rob Lewis, Becky Hoghton and Gerard Phillips for their original night ‘White Wedding’ and Girlcore for Glitterball .
Applications for Smirnoff Creative Grants can be submitted via the Smirnoff Facebook page after becoming a fan. The closing date for applications is Friday December 11th 2009, when the experts will select the four most progressive and forward thinking experiences to each receive £5,000. The resulting nights will form a season of events across the UK throughout Spring 2010.
For more information on Smirnoff Creative Grants, details of how to apply and for your chance to be there at the events, please visit www.facebook.com/SmirnoffGB.
So, another week in London and another 3 Splendid events for September!
First up on Tuesday to celebrate Marmite’s partnership with Reading for Life, offering free Horrid Henry audio downloads with every jar from September, Marmite hosted a Horrid Henry themed pyjama party at the Haymarket Hotel. The party was exclusively for Woman readers and Sinitta read a chapter from the new HH book.
Second was The Girlcore Glitter Ball. Awarded a £10,000 Smirnoff Creative Grant, the 15 strong collective of ladies behind this one-of-a-kind-experience have taken some time out from throwing parties in Moscow, Paris and New York, and are rolling one big ball of glitter through the capital. On Thursday they hit The Bath House and putting the glitter balls into a spin at this sparkly event were electronic music star Peaches, and Girlcore’s own resident DJ’s Isa GT, Naomi, Bisoux Bisoux and Kirsten Brooke took to the decks.
Last but definitely not least was on Saturday night. White Wedding also awarded a £10,000 Smirnoff Creative Grant, transformed The Scala Nightclub into a giant wedding marquee, where there was a wedding themed cabaret room complete with burlesque dancers, a photo booth and dressing up box, and of course no wedding would have been complete without a huge free buffet and seven-tiered wedding cake for every guest. People were dancing to wedding-themed sets from Tim Westwood and DJ Otis Wedding!
It has been a controversial time at Splendid, as the UK and Australian offices are clearly on opposite sides of the pitch for the 2009 Ashes series.
With the series being over, ending in England’s favour, we won’t talk too much on the score (as its obviously not important).
Splendid Australia is however, celebrating the amazing journey that is Johnnie Walker AustraliaLocal to Lords. Two Aussies lads have undertaken the cricketing adventure of a lifetime, in an 80 day journey through nine countries to share their passion for cricket, adventuring spirit and dose of charisma. The two ambassadors, Melbourne boys Rick Liston, 24, and Josh Ogilvie, 28, commenced their journey in Singapore, and took cricket to the locals through Malaysia, Thailand, Laos, Vietnam, China, Mongolia and Russia before arriving in London for the npower Ashes Series 2009. Their journey is documented through the Johnnie Walker Australia Facebook page, and YouTube Channel, which features amazing photos and videos to check out from their travels.
Just when we thought Summer had been and gone, the girls at Rock-A-Hula brought everyone a wonderfully vintage beach party with all the fun of the fifties to London’s Bloomsbury Bowling.
Awarded a £10,000 Smirnoff Creative Grant, Rock a Hula! delivered one tiki tidal wave of elvis glasses, palm trees, live music, vintage DJs and cabaret. There was plenty of honolulu rock n roll from the The Bikini Beach Band and a live performance from the cream of rockabilly and rhythm and blues, Jessie & The Orbits.
To see more pics from the night and other Creative Grants events, click here!
Summer may be officially over now, but here at Splendid we’ve been busy seeing the season out with some style and there’s still a ruddy glow on our faces from all the great stuff that has been going on. First out of the blocks, despite wearing high heels, it’s the Dollyrockers with Kangaroos:
How do you rock your Roos?
The Dolly Rockers have teamed up with Kangaroos to launch a dance competition where fans send in their videos to have the chance to win a day with Dolly Rockers. You can enter on www.bebo.com/mykangaROOS or watch the video here:
Next up, something a little fruity from Smirnoff…
Smirnoff Flavours
Five ice sculptures were installed in 5 UK cities on Friday as Smirnoff launched two new flavored vodkas in London, Manchester, Liverpool, Glasgow and Edinburgh. The huge sculptures were up to 14m long and 3.5m high and took 2 months to build by the world famous Hamilton Ice Sculptors. The new Smirnoff apple and lime flavored vodka is now available in shops and bars across the UK.
The Flavours ice sculptors at work on a replica of the Forth Bridge
The model of Manchester’s Urbis building
The London skyline in ice
And finally, no news roundup would be complete without a pic of David Walliams in denim shorts and ski goggles
Smirnoff Black @ The GQ Man of the Year Awards
Smirnoff Black sponsored this year’s Most Stylish Man award (won by David Walliams) at the GQ Men of the Year Awards – one of the most talked-about and glamorous events in the celebrity calendar. Guests were served sophisticated Smirnoff Black cocktails at the star studded after party from the Smirnoff Black bar.
Perperami is inviting the public to create their next print and TV ad that will be an unapologetic, unexpected and incredibly memorable piece of communication. The overall winner gets $10,000!
If you fancy yourself as a bit of a creative, then you can see the full brief by registering here - http://www.ideabounty.com
Only 500,000 limited edition cricket ball shaped jars of Marston’s Pedigree Marmite have been released to celebrate the summer of cricket. If you’ve been lucky enough to pick one up and fancy earning some extra cash, it might be wise to keep yours in a safe place! 21st century iconic consumables with a distinctly British heritage have never been more desirable and items such as limited edition Marmite often become sought-after and greatly prized collectables. Top TV presenter and collectibles expert Jamie Breese has a wealth of experience turning knick knacks into notes. Here are his top tips for identifying collectables that could be hidden away in your home:
Last week a rare thing happened as the whole of Splendid vacated their desks and left the office for an entire day (well, rare unless you count weekends and Christmas). The purpose? Our annual agency planning day, this year held at a rather nice hotel in the beautiful but vaguely Hot Fuzz-esque town of Painswick in Gloucestershire.
Suffice it to say that much crucial planning was indeed done, but the real fun came later on as we stretched our creaky limbs and learned some basic circus skills. That’s right, for a few hours Splendid swapped juggling clients for juggling balls, and balancing budgets for balancing on each other. Big thanks to the guys from Circus Space for taking us under their rather limber wings and showing us a thing or two!
Below you can see the result of all our hard training in the form of the Splendid human pyramid (although technically that shape might be more of a trapazoid?)
There was a lot of excitement in the Splendid office this morning as we gathered round the television to watch our very own Alfie on BBC news being interviewed about his new Bus.Tops project. After looking at the picture below of Mr. Dennen in action, we think you’ll agree that he looked rather dashing (did you demand makeup Alfie?). Alfie has also recently had his handsome face plastered across the pages of The Guardian and The Evening Standard among others.
The Bus.Tops project aims to place LCD screens on the roofs of bus stops around London, on which artworks created online by established artists and the public alike will be displayed. A completely city-wide public exhibition for the digital age, if you like. Bus.Tops has reached the shortlist for receiving a grant from Artists Taking The Lead, which is part of London 2012’s Cultural Olympiad. If like us you think Alfie’s idea is brilliant and deserves to be made a reality, you can add your support by commenting here.
We like to keep busy here at Splendid and recent times have been no exception, with a lot of great stuff going on involving everything from credit cards to cocktails and canapés.
First up it’s the return of the Smirnoff Black Screenings:
Smirnoff Black has paired up with Bluebird to celebrate Holywood’s most debonair modern gentlemen actors with weekly film screenings of both classic and modern films throughout the summer. Guests can purchase a ticket for £25 which includes a main course and dessert from the restaurant, a stylish cocktail from the exclusive menu (each cocktail inspired by one of our distinguished Hollywood stars) and a ticket to the film screening.
Film schedule is below:
12th August The Dark Knight starring Christian Bale
19th August The International starring Clive Owen
26th August Catch me if you can starring Leonardo Di Caprio
2nd September Casino Royale starring Daniel Craig
Still with Smirnoff, it’s time for Night Vision:
The last week has seen the latest round of national Night Vision events, and they certainly offered up an original array of entertainment! Circus of Oddities hit Manchester on Friday with Whatever the Weather, the promoters behind the event, bringing together some of the UK’s best musicians, artists and oddballs for a one of a kind extravaganza. Dollop rolled into Nottingham’s Stealth for a night of electro, tech, house and dubstep with the added bonus of vintage dressing up boxes and complimentary one-of-a-kind abstract masks created live on the night by Matthew the Horse. Back in Manchester, the Museum Sessions took over the Manchester Museum for a night of live acoustic music surrounded by all manner of animal specimens from round the world, including a whale skeleton suspended from the ceiling! Finally, Twitgigs merged live music and social networking with a ‘battle of the bands’ at Brick Lane’s Vibe bar where punters and fans all over the world were able to interact via a live Twitter feed projected onto the venue’s wall. And all that despite the best attempts of the world’s hackers to bring down Twitter!
Circus of Oddities Dollop Museum Sessions Twitgigs
And finally, onto news of the Escape MasterCard Prepaid Card and the Neon MasterCard Prepaid Card:
We just launched the two highest value prepaid cards to the market led by classic PR and community outreach via social networking. Escape MasterCard Prepaid Card will be aimed at ethnic minorities and subprime groups; Neon MasterCard Prepaid Card will be marketed to 13-18 year olds.
Coverage so far has included the Daily Mirror, Sunday Mail and Marketing plus we’ve got anticipated coverage coming in from Woman’s Own, Essentials and Reader’s Digest amongst many others.
A highlight has been producing 4 different videos targeting very different markets that act as a ’how to guide’. These are being used online and we’re just about to start radio activity with Choice FM and Sunrise radio.
