As we mentioned earlier in the year, we’ve been awarded four prestigious 2011 Hermes Creative Awards for our work in design, social media and animation.

The Pixel8 team are thrilled to be awarded a Gold and three Platinum trophies as judged by judges from the Association of Marketing and Communication Professionals (AMCP) from over 4,400 international entries.

Our awards arrived in the office today and we couldn’t wait to get them on display. It’s the most recent in a series of great achievements by the Pixel8 team and a good sign of things to come. Our biggest thanks go to all those who worked so hard and gave it their all. The awards are as follows:

• Gold Award for Web Design: Accident Compensation Website (Design/Illustration/Graphic Design category)
• Platinum Award for Video/Corporate Image: Pixel8 ‘Powered by Smart Pixels’ animation
• Platinum Award for Social Media: Hotel Indigo Facebook & Twitter Campaign
• Platinum Award for Video/Internal Communication: Hotel Indigo Brand Refresh Journey Animation

Ed Thorne, Director of Global Brand Management for Hotel Indigo and Crowne Plaza at IHG spoke of the awards in relation to Pixel8’s brand refresh, “We’ve had great feedback from customers and our hotel colleagues alike, winning these awards not only confirms this feedback but it’s also a great boost for the team.”

In response to the success in the Hermes Creative Awards, Jamie Watson, Pixel8’s Joint Managing Director said, “These awards are testament to the way that the clients trusted us to deliver creative and effective marketing communications that reflect their overarching values and vision for the future.”

Hermes Creative Awards recognizes outstanding work in the industry while promoting the philanthropic nature of marketing and communication professionals. Judges are industry professionals who look for companies and individuals whose talents exceeds a high standard of excellence and whose work serves as a benchmark for the industry. To see all Gold and Platinum Winners in 2011 visit Hermes Creative Awards.

Crowne Plaza currently has 388 hotels open in 60 countries and 123 new hotels are in the pipeline.

Within just four working days the Pixel8 Social Media team launched the Crowne Plaza global Facebook with 43 elements including:

A custom-application microsite listing all hotels that works within a single page on Facebook.

All Crowne Plaza campaigns including PGA TOUR and BMW Motorsport sponsorships.

Hotel photo albums, worldwide special offers, latest news and two charity donation campaigns.

“Room Nights for the Brave” is the Crowne Plaza campaign supporting “Birdies for the Brave”, a PGA TOUR supported military outreach initiative assisting U.S. Armed Forces and their families. Crowne Plaza is donating one room night to Birdies for the Brave for every Eagle made at 8 PGA TOUR golf tournaments between 19th May and 3rd July, 2011.

Room Nights for the Brave launched on Facebook and Twitter at the moment play began at the Crowne Plaza Invitational at Colonial, on 19^th May. An “Eagle Counter” on Crowne Plaza Facebook displays the number of free room nights accrued to date. By close of play at Colonial, 231 free room nights had been accrued!

Pixel8 launched a second campaign to further support Crowne Plaza donations to Birdies for the Brave. The Crowne Plaza Facebook “Likes” campaign will donate up to $20,000 to the charity, one dollar for every “Like” on Crowne Plaza global Facebook until 3rd July, 2011. In week one of this campaign, over 1,000 people “Liked” Crowne Plaza’s Facebook and many positive comments were posted about the brand.

Please join Crowne Plaza in supporting the great work provided by the dedicated people at Birdies for the Brave, just visit Crowne Plaza Facebook and click the “Like” button.

Pixel8 are very pleased to win Platinum in the Social Media category at the Hermes Creative Awards for our Hotel Indigo Facebook & Twitter campaigns. We’re also proud of the Facebook and Twitter campaigns we delivered in record time for Crowne Plaza Hotels & Resorts.

Charles Yap, Director of Global Brand Communications at IHG described Pixel8’s achievements as “Epic work!”

One advantage of having the same agency provide both brand design and social media, is that the agency is already up to speed and on-brand before social media marketing begins. Advantages which IHG enjoys working with Pixel8 include our ability to provide immediate expertise across both traditional and new media platforms, staff that work out-of-office hours to accommodate Eastern Standard Time and quick turnarounds on custom campaign graphics.

For more information about Pixel8 please visit Pixel8ltd.com or call us direct. In the UK please call 0845 230 1336 – From the USA dial 011 44 161 228 6489 or contact us by e-mail today.

Crowne Plaza, PGA TOUR and BMW are trademarks of their respective owners.

The international competition is open to creative professionals involved in the concept, writing and design of traditional and emerging media. Judges are industry professionals who look for companies and individuals whose talents exceed a high standard of excellence, and whose work serves as a benchmark for the industry. There were approximately 4,400 entries from the United States and other countries.

Hermes’ prestigious Platinum Awards are presented for entries that are judged to be among the most outstanding in the competition. Platinum Winners are recognized for their excellence in terms of quality, creativity and resourcefulness.

For our brand design refresh work on Hotel Indigo, InterContinental Hotels Group (IHG) boutique hotel chain, Pixel8 was awarded the Platinum Award for the Hotel Indigo Brand Refresh Journey animation in the ‘Video/Internal Communication’ category.

Pixel8 won another Platinum Award for its Hotel Indigo Facebook and Twitter Campaigns in the ‘Social Media’ category. It’s the first ever Social Media Award for the Hotel Indigo brand.

Ed Thorne, Director of Global Brand Management for Hotel Indigo and Crowne Plaza at IHG spoke of the awards in relation to Pixel8’s brand refresh, “We’ve had great feedback from customers and our hotel colleagues alike, winning these awards not only confirms this feedback but it’s also a great boost for the team.”

Pixel8’s haul continued with another Platinum Award for the Pixel8 ‘Powered by Smart Pixels’ animation in the ‘Video/Corporate Image’ category.

Last, but not least was a Gold Award for our design of the Accident Compensation Website for Forbes Solicitors in the ‘Design/Illustration/Graphic Design’ category.

In response to the success in the Hermes Creative Awards, Jamie Watson, Pixel8’s Joint Managing Director said, “These awards are testament to the way that the clients trusted us to deliver creative and effective marketing communications that reflect their overarching values and vision for the future.”

Hermes Creative Awards recognizes outstanding work in the industry while promoting the philanthropic nature of marketing and communication professionals. Judges are industry professionals who look for companies and individuals whose talents exceeds a high standard of excellence and whose work serves as a benchmark for the industry. To see all Gold and Platinum Winners in 2011 please visit Hermes Creative Awards.

For more information about Pixel8 please visit www.Pixel8ltd.com or call us direct. From the USA dial 011 44 161 228 6489, in the UK call 0845 230 1336 or contact us by e-mail

Hotel Indigo, the InterContinental Hotels Group (IHG) boutique brand, currently has 38 hotels open in the USA, Canada, Mexico, Costa Rica, UK and China and 56 new hotels are in the pipeline. New Hotel Indigos opening in 2011 include Baton Rouge, New Orleans, Saddle Brook, Vancouver, Liverpool, Glasgow and Taipei; future hotel openings include Madrid and Manchester!

Pixel8’s Social Media Marketing consultants immediately identified a “pet friendly boutique hotel” niche and used twitter to promote the weekly Canine Cocktails party’s held at several hotels in the USA. The response was excellent! Dog owners around the world retweeted Canine Cocktails event dates and hotel locations, many added great comments, others asked if a Hotel Indigo could open in their city so they could bring their dogs to a Canine Cocktails party! The brand quickly won admiration and generated new business from travelling pet lovers.

To further engage twitter followers, Pixel8 developed and managed a series of Free Weekends for Two at Hotel Indigos, giving away free weekends to the first five callers. On each twitter giveaway campaign, the hotels phone lines lit up within a few seconds of the winning tweet. All the giveaways were completed within ten minutes, and the hotels booked new reservations by offering a special “sorry you didn’t win” room rate!

During Pixel8’s development of the Hotel Indigo brand Facebook, which includes a Photo Album, a Notes page, Book Online and links to TripAdvisor reviews for each hotel, the “pet friendly boutique hotel” niche was enhanced with Canine Cocktails photo albums displaying images from the latest events. As Hotel Indigo provides free dogs treats, large water bowls and $3 cocktails like ‘Salty Dogs’ and ‘Greyhounds’, both hotel guests and local residents are more than yappy to attend.

To further engage Hotel Indigos pet friendly Facebook fans, Pixel8 suggested and managed a campaign to donate funds to a US pet charity. The campaign included the opportunity to win a Two Free Nights plus Restaurant, Golf and Spa packages at the Hotel Indigo in Miami Lakes. Facebook fans eagerly supported the cause and spread the word to their friends, family and work colleagues; resulting in a $10,000 donation from Hotel Indigo to Adopt-a-Pet.com

In addition to creating and managing the content for Hotel Indigo social media marketing on Facebook and twitter, Pixel8 also provides search engine and social media reputation management services for the brand. This allows our client to spend more time doing what they do best!

Visit www.facebook.com/hotelindigo and http://twitter.com/hotelindigo

For more information about Pixel8’s Social Media Marketing services please call Pixel8 in Manchester on 0161 228 6489 – 0845 230 1336 or contact us by e-mail today.

Hotel Indigo, Facebook, Twitter and TripAdvisor are trademarks of their respective owners.

The campaign featured a live catwalk at fashion events in three major shopping centres in the North West of England. To promote the events Pixel8 designed the campaign using images from a fashion shoot supplied by Republic, and went on to design a grungy, rustic brown, chocolate design incorporating different shades of leaves to represent the Autumn season.

The campaign was designed to really stand out and attract all ages, particularly students, and fashion conscious shoppers who love to shop and be stylish.

For more information about Pixel8’s graphic design and branding services, call Pixel8 in Manchester on 0161 228 6489 – 0845 230 1336 or contact us by e-mail

The Manchester design and marketing agency’s brief includes managing graphic design for both print and online, promotions, event management, advertising, PR,  website redesigns and Facebook sites.

The five shopping centres Pixel8 will be working with are Market Place Shopping Centre, Bolton, Fishergate Shopping Centre, Preston, Middleton Shopping Centre, North Manchester and The Grange and Pyramids Shopping Centres in Birkenhead, Wirral. Pixel8 will report to Jennifer Morris, Group Marketing Manager at Warner Estate Holdings Plc.

Pixel8 has already recruited a retail marketing manager to work across the five centres, has launched an Autumn fashion campaign, and redesigned and redeveloped the five shopping centre websites, and deployed a Facebook site for each shopping centre.

Pixel8’s joint MD Jamie Watson, who formerly held marketing roles with both Sainsbury’s and Iceland, said, “This is a particularly exciting win as it allows me to get back to my roots in retail.

“Given the tough environment, it’s an exciting time to get involved. There’s lots of uncertainty given the increase in VAT from January, but we relish the challenge and look forward to driving both footfall and spend in the centres.

“We are looking forward to bringing a new creativity and focus to the centres’ marketing strategy in the run up to Christmas”.

For more information please call Pixel8 in Manchester on 0161 228 6489 – 0845 230 1336 or e-mail

Pixel8’s SEO Consultants in Manchester started working out on the UK Fitness Network website on 26^th. February 2010. By 28^th. May, search engine visitors had increased by 61% compared with the previous 12 weeks, which included the January rush of people searching online for exercise classes and gym memberships to fulfil their New Years resolutions.

Google visitors were up by 55% from 3,421 to 5,329 over the three month period, Yahoo! and Bing visitors increased by 255% and 40% respectively.

The initial SEO updates Pixel8 exercised on the website included pumping some iron into the website content, giving the News section a makeover, and doubling the SEO capabilities of the hundreds of not-for-profit leisure centres which are listed on the website.

Since the leisure centre updates were implemented, many of the leisure centre pages have realised a 100% increase in visitors, and Google visitors from the keyword phrase: leisure centres in London – has increased by 1,000%. The website is currently number one in Google UK for: exercise classes London.

David Hopkins, who administers the UK Fitness Network website on behalf of Proleisure said, “I was very impressed with how quickly Pixel8’s SEO team got up to speed on the project, and again by the speed at which the copywriting and web development updates were completed and put live. The increase in visitors to the website and the exposure for our leisure centre partners is fantastic.”

The UK Fitness Network is a charitable not-for-profit organisation owned by its partner members in London, Surrey, West Sussex, Oxon, Oxford, Buckinghamshire, Kent and Hertfordshire.

UKFN members can use hundreds of different gyms, fitness centres, swimming pools and take thousands of exercise classes using one membership card.

For complete details please visit the UK Fitness Network

The Pixel8 Design and Marketing Agency in Manchester, UK is proud to present “Powered by Smarter Pixels”, a short animated video showcase of our services.

See Powered by Smarter Pixels now on our home page at www.pixel8ltd.com

If you like our animation, please visit YouTube and click on the “Like” button to vote for us at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Kl4Dwz9lmY or tell us what you think by contacting us.

The animation was originally hand designed on storyboards by Pixel8’s creative team to showcase our top level service categories, called WOMGE…

	Web Design
	Online Marketing
	Multimedia
	Graphic Design
	Exhibition Services

Powered by Smarter Pixels also shows the high levels of creativity that Pixel8 consistently delivers.

As a small agency our clients get immediate access to our senior creative, technical and management staff. Our in-house design, development and production teams regularly deliver fast turnarounds because we’re not a 9 to 5 agency. We don’t clock off till your work is done.

Pixel8 is working smarter so your company can get all your design, branding and advertising requirements from one agency. We manage the complete process from concept to completion.

Whether you’re a small business that needs a new logo design or an international hotel chain that’s looking for creative corporate branding, call Pixel8 in Manchester because we’re Powered by Smarter Pixels!

Pixel8’s WOMGE services:

Web Design: Website design and development of SME and PLC websites, eCommerce and CMS websites, database development, blog designs, online brand guides and mobile websites

Online Marketing: Search engine optimisation, SEO copywriting, online press release distribution, social media marketing, email marketing, mobile website marketing and Smartphone applications

Multimedia: Animation, video, virtual tours, 3D page turning magazines, Adobe Director and Flash presentations and recyclable corporate PowerPoint presentations

Graphic Design: Logo design, corporate Branding, brand guide design and development, graphic designs for calendars, sales collateral, leaflets, brochures, business stationary, packaging design and product mock ups, t-shirt design and printing

Exhibition Services: Exhibition stand design, build and removal, light boxes, pop up and pull up banner, in-house large format printing for exhibition stands, vehicles and building exteriors.

If you want your advertising and marketing to work smarter in 2010 and beyond, call Pixel8 in Manchester on 0161 228 6489 – 0845 230 1336 or contact us by email today.