Christmas Tweets, our festive Twitter aggregator has been nominated for Best Social Media Strategy at the Drum Marketing Awards.

The awards ceremony will be taking place on Thursday 15th April at the Ramada hotel, Manchester.

Full-service digital agency twentysix has launched “Extreme Gaming” - a unique, adrenaline-fuelled viral to promote Epson’s new range of projectors.

Extreme Gamer is a video games player who likes to think big. His extreme mobile gaming suit has an Epson EH-TW450 HD-ready projector mounted to the front. A games console and battery are loaded on the back.

The power and clarity of the Epson projector allows the Extreme Gamer to light up a building like a cinema screen and play video games wherever he likes. The high impact film shows our gamer getting suited up, testing his suit out shopping (he was mobbed by a crowd during the filming in Carnaby Street), dancing and gaming in a packed nightclub, and finally really putting the projector to the test by indoor skydiving and abseiling down a building.

Paul Coffey, twentysix MD, says, “twentysix is an agency full of gamers. Delivering an idea that would demonstrate the immersive experience of gaming with a projector and which gamers would love and pass on was easy. Finding someone to wear the suit – that was tough.”

Sophie Layer at Epson adds, “At Epson, innovation comes as standard. We expect the same from our agencies and twentysix has really delivered the goods. We wanted to create something that would tap into the Gamers’ mindset and show the benefits of the product. We believe the film will show gamers that Epson projectors are perfect for real-life gaming, offering a totally immersive, big screen gaming experience. ”

Less than a month after its launch, Christmas Tweets, a new Twitter service that allows people to see what subjects are getting the most conversation this Christmas, has revealed that despite the recession, most people are still full of the Christmas spirit.

Christmas Tweets has so far counted over 250,000 holiday tweets – of these more than 120,000 related to Christmas spirit (Christmas Trees 51%, Christmas Parties 18%, Snowmen 18%, Mistletoe 9%, Christmas Dinner 2%, Happy Christmas 1%, and Happy Xmas 1%).

In comparison, only 65,000 tweets were about commercialism, only 37,000 around the credit crunch and a mere 27,000 people tweeted about religion – showing that for most people, Christmas is about the festive spirit.

The service was launched in late November by full-service digital agency twentysix. It divides the global online debate on Christmas into four categories, each one represented by a different festive character:

• Commercialism – Is Christmas about spending, commercialism and consumption?
• Credit Crunch – Has the recession taken its toll this Christmas? Will the credit crunch cast a shadow over Christmas festivities?
• Religion – Will this year revert back to the true meaning of Christmas and be focused around the religious festivals?
• Christmas Spirit – Can Christmas still be about celebrating the occasion and enjoying the season of goodwill? Is the fun and magical aspect of Christmas still alive?

The more tweets made about each character, the faster it ‘travels around the world’. And users can click on each character to see a detailed breakdown of the key phrases in each category or to view a graphical representation of the Christmas tweets.

Rachel Clarke, head of social media at twentysix, comments: “With the popularity of Twitter, Christmas Tweets is the perfect tool to capture the moments of the season. It allows people to see what Christmas means to the world and what subjects are relevant now in the hearts and minds of the public.”

Full-service digital agency twentysix today announced the launch of Christmas Tweets, a new service that allows people to see what subjects are getting the most Twitter conversation this Christmas.

This unique Twitter visualiser breaks the global online debate into four categories, each one represented by a different festive character:

• Commercialism – Is Christmas about spending, commercialism and consumption?
• Credit Crunch – Has the recession taken its toll this Christmas? Will the credit crunch cast a shadow over Christmas festivities?
• Religion – Will this year revert back to the true meaning of Christmas and be focused around the religious festivals?
• Christmas Spirit – Can Christmas still be about celebrating the occasion and enjoying the season of goodwill? Is the fun and magical aspect of Christmas still alive?

The more tweets made about each character, the faster it ‘travels around the world’. And users can click on each character to see a detailed breakdown of the key phrases in each category or to view a graphical representation of the Christmas tweets.

Rachel Clarke, head of social media at twentysix, comments: “With the popularity of Twitter, Christmas Tweets is the perfect tool to capture the moments of the season. It allows people to see what Christmas means to the world and what subjects are relevant now in the hearts and minds of the public.”

Full service digital agency twentysix has launched an affiliate marketing division, twentysix Affiliates, to complement its existing range of online marketing services.

Following from the success of its recently-launched search/SEO division, twentysix Search, this dedicated affiliate department will add an additional dimension to twentysix’s core offering.

It will be headed by new arrival Andrew Chung, formerly a key account manager at Affiliate Window, the UK’s largest affiliate network. During his time there he helped to shape campaigns for major clients such as Boots, Scottish Power and Dial a Phone.

Andrew will be working closely with twentysix’s search director, Ryan Scott, to drive the online marketing divisions forward. Andrew comments: “twentysix already offers a full service digital perspective based around its successful web design and development side and its dedicated PPC, SEO and social media divisions. twentysix Affiliates adds yet another string to the bow.

“My role will involve bringing a broader knowledge of the affiliate industry to twentysix and offering a full affiliate marketing service to its client base.”

The new department has also already signed up its first client: online fashion retailer Daxon UK, part of the Redcats Group. Daxon currently works with twentysix on SEO and web management and has now agreed a commitment for twentysix to drive its affiliate marketing strategy whilst specifically targeting new customers.

This launch is undoubtedly timely, as affiliate marketing is one of the fastest growing online disciplines in the UK. In 2008 it generated just under £4 billion in online sales, a 22% increase on the previous year.

It is now seen as an ideal partner to online retailers as it works like a virtual sales team, paid only on commission. The use of affiliate marketing has allowed online retailers and service providers to acquire new customers and help to consolidate their brand positioning.

In the current economic climate, more and more businesses are looking to performance marketing as an accountable, measureable and effective form of online marketing.

Ryan Scott, search director at twentysix, adds: “Affiliate marketing is a rapidly growing channel with a clear synergy with search. This is shown in the fact that more and more blue chip clients see the affiliate channel as a vital part of their online marketing mix.

“This new department further reinforces twentysix’s ‘life online’ proposition. Adding a specialist affiliate unit within our established agency set-up enables us to enhance our core client offering. “

Full service digital agency twentysix has announced that it has been appointed to create and drive a comprehensive online marketing strategy for Everest, the UK’s leading supplier of home improvements, including double glazing conservatories and kitchens.

Won after a three-way pitch, the online strategy covers Everest’s full product range and will initially focus on developing the user experience and improving further the commercial effectiveness of everest.co.uk. One of the first projects will be developing a new standalone kitchens site – Everest has a huge range of products in this sector and is one of the leading quality players in the market.

The work focuses on improving the web site to make sure it converts as much traffic as possible through to appointment requests or to brochure request. Multivariate testing, which is still a relatively new discipline, but a very powerful one, will allow lots of different variants to be tested against each other simultaneously. It allows organisations to very quickly identify ways to improve their on line strategy; “end to end” optimisation will improve all aspects from initial search, landing pages, the user journeys and form optimisation. The brief also entails SEO consultancy, and helping to build online creative for Everest’s advertising campaigns.

Paul Mitchel, head of marketing at Everest, comments: “It’s not enough just to have an online presence anymore; retailers have to offer customers a more holistic digital experience. twentysix demonstrated the right combination of strategic, online marketing and creative thinking to push us to the next level, building our online marketing efforts and optimising our digital assets.”

Gail Dudleston, CEO of twentysix, adds: “This is a fantastic win for us. The work lies at the core of what we are all about: reaching more consumers online, generating leads and converting them to deliver improvements in ROI.”

Full service digital agency twentysix has been brought in to develop a website and e-commerce platform for Yarwood Leather.

Leeds-based Yarwood was, by the early 1990s, the largest supplier of leather upholstery to the UK furniture trade. It has since expanded into the marine, automotive and aviation sectors, with its unique SupaLite leather chairs now gracing many of the world’s executive jets.

This is twentysix’s first project with Yarwood and entails the creation of a new, distinctive website that will demonstrate the exceptional quality of British leather upholstery in a market facing stiff competition from Far Eastern suppliers. In the long term, it is intended to become an online hub for businesses and consumers alike.

Matthew Nichols, managing director of Yarwood Leather, comments: “We have a bold digital strategy and our website will play an integral role in making it happen. twentysix has the right credentials to make our new site something for the entire industry to admire.”

Gail Dudleston, CEO of twentysix, adds: “Leather is a perfect example of an industry where no-one has really picked up the gauntlet and taken advantage of everything digital has to offer. Yarwood is bucking that trend and is aiming to realise the enormous potential of the online business to business environment.”

Full service digital agency twentysix has won a three-way pitch to develop the digital strategy for National Friendly, a specialist provider of health insurance.

National Friendly, previously known as National Deposit, recently underwent a major rebranding exercise to help position it as a 21st century mutual committed to building its share of the UK healthcare market.

The company also restructured its business to provide customers across all channels access to a comprehensive and value driven healthcare solution.

It has appointed twentysix to help ensure its digital strategy stays ahead of its competitors and to provide new and existing customers with online access to a range of services. The award-winning digital agency will create a refreshed online presence for National Friendly, designing and building a new website as well as Search Engine Optimisation and social media elements.

Claire Templeton, head of e-commerce at National Friendly, says, “We’re passionate about the health of our members and wanted our new online messaging to demonstrate our values as a mutual insurer and our commitment to embrace policyholders as owners. The team at twentysix impressed us with their proven track record in e-commerce, as well as their keen design aesthetic.”

Paul Coffey, managing director of twentysix London, adds, “Health insurance is a highly competitive business and an effective digital presence can make a huge difference. National Friendly is keen to take advantage of every channel, including social media, which will allow it to reach its diverse customer base.”

Full service digital agency twentysix has won a 3-way competitive pitch to redevelop the online strategy for Provident Financial Services, one of the UK’s leading suppliers of personal credit.

The award-winning digital agency has been commissioned to redesign and redevelop the websites for Provident Personal Credit (for the UK and Ireland), Greenwoods Personal Credit, and Real Personal Finance brands. The aim is to optimise the online channel as a cost effective route to market by improving user journeys, site navigation, site content and the consumer lead generation process.

In addition to revamping the websites and managing them on an ongoing basis, twentysix has also been tasked with developing SEO campaigns, with campaign optimisation and reporting, as well as providing hosting and general support services. twentysix has partnered with EPiServer CMS, Europe's leading .NET web content management system, and Vialtus, a provider of integrated telecoms services, to manage the hosting services.

The work will kick off with a strategic review of Provident Financial’s online assets for all three brands, understanding and analysing consumer online behaviour, and reviewing existing material, before moving on to create new site architecture and creative design; the first two sites are expected to go live in July.

Established in 1880, Provident Financial is one of the UK’s leading suppliers of personal credit to the non-standard lending market. They serve over two million customers through a network of more than 300 branches, administrative offices, call centres and websites. The Provident Personal Credit and Greenwood Personal Credit brands provide home credit; Real Personal Finance offers direct repayment loans that are larger and longer than traditional weekly-collected home credit.

Gail Dudleston, CEO twentysix, says, “This is a fantastic win for us. The work lies at the core of what we are all about: reaching more consumers online, engaging with them online and converting them to deliver significant improvements in ROI.”

David Hopkins, Provident Financial IT project manager, adds, “twentysix demonstrated strength across all our criteria – strategic understanding, creativity, technical capability and project management, campaign optimisation, SEO, and most of all their ability to generate significant improvements in our online performance.”

Full service digital agency twentysix has boosted its London and Leeds teams with four new appointments.

Dominic Moore joins twentysix as an account director with the London office. Dominic will be responsible for managing the work being carried out for the Royal Navy and Royal Marines. He has over nine years’ experience in the digital arena, most recently with Rapier where he worked with Virgin Media and Virgin Mobile on a range of online initiatives.

Before that Dominic was at Dare, where he led the ITV account and developed social media and online advertising concepts for flagship programmes such as Primeval and Moving Wallpaper.

His role will be to provide strategic direction for the digital campaigns employed by the Royal Navy and Royal Marines, aiming to boost awareness and drive recruitment among key demographics.

Dominic comments, “This is an incredible opportunity. twentysix has already done some cutting-edge online work for the armed forces and it continues to be an area where creativity and innovation are paramount.”

Gail Dudleston, twentysix CEO, says, “We are really pleased to welcome Dominic to the twentysix team. He possesses extensive experience in directing major digital accounts and will help twentysix continue to develop and grow through 2009 and beyond.”

Other new appointments include:

Jonathan Alderson – Jonathan joins twentysix Search in Leeds as an SEO analyst with over a decade of experience in digital. Prior to joining twentysix, Jonathan worked as the director of a team of freelancers, and as an information architect at Unidin.co.uk doing bespoke website design, development and SEO for small to medium enterprises. Jonathan has also worked on a freelance basis, doing ghost work for a number of local agencies.

Luke Brown – Luke joins twentysix’s offices in Leeds as a web developer. Luke is a Microsoft Certified Technology Specialist in SQL Server and has extensive experience with technologies such as .NET, C# and SQL Server. He has also worked with HTML, CSS, XML, AJAX and Javascript. Luke started his career with Mobileshop.com where he was primarily responsible for web based software development, as well as working on e-commerce sites. Luke has also spent time with CascadeHR, where he worked on a web based human resources software solution.

Ben Waine – Ben joins the twentysix Leeds’ team as a junior developer for his university placement year. He is currently completing a computing degree at Leeds Metropolitan University, and has previously worked for two other local web development companies, Welford Media and Creode.

Full service digital agency twentysix has launched a dedicated business unit to provide brands with much-needed support in the world of social media.

twentysix social media provides in-depth analysis of the social media landscape, strategies and plans for organisations to take advantage of this route to market and ways to build and maintain dialogue and brand interactions online. The Equality and Human Rights Commission is one of the first clients to use these new services. twentysix is also working with Cancer Research UK’s Innovation Team on an internal project.

The new division is led by Rachel Clarke, head of social media, who joined twentysix after working for Diageo and JWT New York. Her expertise in social media is drawn from working with some of the world’s biggest brands as well as her own online presence through the Behind the Buzz and DigitalStuffing blogs.

Rachel comments: “ Many public and private sector organisations need to know more about how to best connect with customers through social media, whether networking sites, interest groups or the many others ways of receiving and distributing content and information. Currently, very few get it right first time.”

twentysix social media offers a range of services all of which cover every aspect of the online community and, crucially, allow brands to measure their success . These services include strategy and brand planning, campaign set up and monitoring through to asset creation, activity stream delivery and measurement.

Gail Dudleston, CEO of twentysix, adds: “This is a really exciting development for twentysix and complements our existing agency proposition. ‘Full service’ means covering every possible angle of digital communications and social media is a vital part of that equation.

“Having the expertise and knowledge in-house is really important to us and our clients. A lot of clients and prospects have spoken with us about social media, underlining the need for a specialist division to handle it. We aim to deliver expert guidance across every part of the social media spectrum.”

Full service digital agency twentysix is continuing to grow its London team with three more senior appointments.

Pete Petrella joins twentysix as creative director. Pete was previously at Proximity London, where he spent two and a half years as creative director for digital. In this capacity, Pete was responsible for developing the creative direction and quality of the agency’s digital output, as well as building a world class creative team. Prior to joining Proximity, Pete spent over four and a half years working with Wheel Group, including roles as head of design and associate creative director.

During the course of his career Pete has worked with a number of prominent brands, including Marks and Spencer, Paul Smith, Lycos and the COI. He holds a number of industry accolades, including BIMA and DMA awards in 2008.

Pete says, “twentysix has been involved with some really cutting edge and innovative creative projects in the past. I am really excited to be a part of the team and help the agency continue to break the creative mould.”

Haydn Kerr comes to twentysix as the new senior copywriter. He will be working closely with Lex de Wynter, twentysix’s digital strategist, helping the agency develop a strategic direction for all client communications.

Haydn was hired from Draft FCB, where he spent a year as manager of the digital copywriting team. During this time, Haydn worked across range of major accounts, including Saab, Oxfam, Cadillac, Nivea for Men, the Post Office, Stella Artois, Vauxhall, and Chevrolet.

A native New Zealander, Haydn moved to the U.K. in 2006, starting work with as senior copywriter at moneyhelpline.com. Before moving, Hayden spent time as creative director at an independent radio station, as well as freelance copywriting roles with a variety of agencies.

Marcos Moret joins twentysix as a senior project manager, running the agency’s Epson account. Marcos has spent a decade in the digital industry and has worked with brands such as Sony, the Guardian, Vodafone, the BBC, Cadbury, MTV, Diageo, Nokia, the Royal Navy, Epson and Toyota. He brings to twentysix a wide range of online expertise, from strategy and account direction to project management and copy writing. Marcos also possesses in-depth knowledge of the latest web technologies, and has extensive experience with web branding, design, usability, information architecture, content management, search marketing and web metrics.

Southern Cross Healthcare, the UK’s largest provider of private care homes, has appointed twentysix Search to create a campaign that will boost the organisation’s online brand visibility to match its offline presence.

twentysix Search, which launched in 2008 to complete twentysix’s full digital offer, will help Southern Cross Healthcare (SCH) significantly improve search engine visibility and develop a sustained web presence that can deliver continuous web traffic against key target markets on a national and local level.

SCH sees the web as a key driver for new business opportunities, brand building and information gathering, with many potential suitors increasingly turning their attention to search engines when locating care homes and related services.

Essentially the project will have 5 target markets:

• Users (current clients)
• New business
• Investor relations
• Careers
• Press

Ryan Scott, twentysix Search director, says, “The online care home market place is enormous and Southern Cross Healthcare is a big player within it. The search campaign is aimed at enhancing its reputation within this market, driving quality traffic and creating a sustained, tactical web presence for the brand.”

Brian Simpson, web manager for Southern Cross Healthcare, says, “twentysix has shown it understands our business and the market we operate in. The agency has created a campaign that is focused on boosting the performance of the web, which is a key strategic business tool for us.”

For more information visit www.twentysixlondon.com or email twentysix CEO Gail Dudleston gail.dudleston@twentysixlondon.com or Ryan Scott, twentysix Search director, ryan.scott@twentysixleeds.com

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