Umpf / Blog / Umpf Diary Jan-Feb ’20: The low down on what’s been keeping us on our toes over the last two months…

Umpf Diary Jan-Feb ’20: The low down on what’s been keeping us on our toes over the last two months…

  • Creative
  • Influencer
  • PR
  • Social Media

Our Umpf Diary is a bi-monthly low-down on what goes on behind the scenes at Umpf HQ – from coverage, campaigns and events to awards, team outings and more!

Launching the Adam Henson by Harrison Spinks Collection

Starting the year with a bang, we organised a press event to launch a new range of luxury mattresses with Harrison Spinks and rural TV presenter Adam Henson to the national consumer media.

Wanting to showcase the new range, made exclusively with carefully selected wool from rare breed Cotswold sheep, we took the mattresses to the media.

Based in the heart of Soho, we took a classic shop front and transformed it into a Harrison Spinks pop up, with our very own side-stitcher in the window.  Nine high end consumer journalists attended from Hearst, TI, Taylist and The Evening Standard, and feedback has been resoundingly positive. A success all round.

Superhero statues swoop in to Trinity Leeds

A squad of superhero statues has been assembling at Trinity Leeds, including Marvel comic book icons Hulk and Captain Marvel, as well as DC heroes Aquaman, Batman, The Flash, Wonder Woman and Cyborg.

Umpf has been supporting the super-sized superheroes with PR and creative assets in time for their arrival.

Using photography from the squad’s previous visit, our designers cleverly transformed it into a comic-book style graphic which was used across all creative outputs, including social media, in-centre promotions and balustrade vinyls.

Visitors were invited to snap a #superheroselfie with the life-sized statues, and Umpf will be turning the best selfie into a comic-book illustration for the winner.

Centenary celebrations with Stoves

Celebrating its 100th anniversary on Valentine’s Day, we arranged for the Lord Mayor of Knowsley, Cllr. Jackie Harris, to visit appliance manufacturer Stoves’ site in Prescot for a tour of the manufacturing site before enjoying the first of a series of centenary lunches alongside some of Stoves’ longest serving employees.

The VIP visit was supported with regional press activity and kicks off a year of centenary campaign activity. More updates to follow!

Woodcroft Veterinary website for VetPartners

VetPartners, the parent company to over 400 individual animal care centres across the country, approached us to help with the website redesign for one of the individual practices from the group, Woodcroft Veterinary Practice.

At the same time as coming up with the redesign, it was looking for inspiration and ideas for developing the brand. This included creating a suite of branded iconography for some of the different departments and services as well as establishing an approachable and reassuring look-and-feel.

Knowing that the site was eventually going to include a large amount of content, we paid particular attention to the style of typography, making sure it effectively communicated the content – establishing an approachable nature for the practice. We also worked on an accessible colour scheme that helped maintain focus on the information available to users of the site.

Another new addition to the team!

We’ve recently welcomed the lovely Lucy to the team. Part way through a placement year to gain more experience in the industry, she’s two years into a Graphic Communication and Illustration degree at Loughborough University.

With a real talent for illustration, she’s helping us provide engaging creative for our clients across a variety of different platforms. Lucy will be at Umpf until she heads back off to uni for her final year later in 2020 (if we let her go, that is…).

A clean (and cordless) brief!

We’ve been working with a brand-new company, Halo, to launch its revolutionary cordless vacuum cleaner ‘Capsule’ through PR, social and influencer outreach.

The new cordless stick vac uses carbon fibre (usually found in motor sports and aviation) to create the only lightweight cordless vacuum with the same capacity and power as a traditional full-size upright.

It’s been full throttle the past couple of months as the team launched the product in the media, securing fantastic coverage in Which?, The Evening Standard and Real Homes, as well as working with a variety of fab cleaning and interior influencers including Lynsey Queen of Clean, Little Big Bell and Cara Sutherland.

We’d say the vacuum has been quick off the mark – as it’s already ranking as Tech Advisor’s ‘best vacuum cleaner in 2020’!

https://www.instagram.com/p/B7-XfSUjmE2/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link

 

New venue on the menu for chef Matt Healy

It’s been a busy time for Leeds chef Matt Healy and his team as they celebrated the launch of Grön in York.

Umpf handled the PR for the launch of their latest venue, which underwent a £50,000 investment.

We secured coverage across several regional and trade titles, with a total reach of 3.5m, including pieces in The Yorkshire Post, Staff Canteen, Big Hospitality, York Press and Business Insider.

Matt has become a well-established named in the Yorkshire dining scene, and the popular Scandi-inspired café concept Grön is the second venue for the brand, following in the footsteps of the original site in Oakwood. Matt also runs The Foundry in Leeds city centre.