Disciplines

In a nutshell, we’re an integrated brand response agency. That means we specialise in creating campaigns that both build brands and deliver response. Sounds simple but it takes a special skill-set to do it successfully. It’s not only more efficient from a budget perspective, it also creates greater levels of customer engagement. And we do it using whatever media is most relevant – online, offline, above- or below-the-line.

We believe that no two briefs are the same. So we’ll always recommend what will work best for you.

> Advertising on and offline

>> Responsive advertising is not all about full page ads selling 'novelty’ plates in the back of the News of the World. These days most brands need to make their above-the-line spend work harder.

That’s where BURN can help. We specialise in developing ads that build brands and deliver results and we’re absolutely comfortable doing this on-line or off-line. That’s why brands like lastminute.com and eBay have asked us to develop advertising campaigns for them.

> Branding

>> Whether it’s defining and building a brand from scratch, brand evolution or brand enhancement you’re looking for, we’d love to be involved.

Our speciality is brand response. We build brands and communications material that are optimised to deliver improved results. And that’s not idle chat. The results from our unique creative development process prove it.

> Consultancy

>> Sometimes people just want our advice, thinking and strategic planning. That’s how our relationship with O2 started for instance.

Our senior team have got a huge breadth of experience across a range of sectors – which means we can often bring a fresh and insightful perspective to your business.

> Data Planning

>> Our Data Planning department is headed by Juliet Sparkes – an industry legend.

We love data and the nuggets it provides. We’ve scoped and built databases and CRM systems, helped build effective segmentation strategies, informed profiling exercises, built models, sourced cold data, overlaid and appended and drilled and analysed for as long as we can remember.

Perhaps most importantly, we remove the mystery. Data is hugely powerful, although often complex. We aim to talk data in a simple, straightforward manner that focuses on the benefits not industry gobbledegook.

> Direct Marketing

>> BURN has got a strong heritage in targeted direct communications driven by data insight. We’ve delivered integrated DM campaigns for blue-chip clients amounting to millions of mail packs, emails, inserts and door drops per month and all developed to deliver optimum ROI.
Our unique creative development tool 'Proven Creativity’ was developed to sharpen communications and is especially powerful when used to inform DM planning. It recently achieved an ROI of £32:1 for a client and a conversion rate of 8%.

Couple this with our expertise in on- and off-line personalisation, and we will deliver better results for you through the relevance of our direct communications.

> Email Marketing

>> We’re passionate about email marketing. Just as DM isn’t an 'ad in an envelope’, email marketing is a precision craft. We’re often amazed at the emails we receive and the regular lack of invention and understanding.

We use data planning, 'Proven Creativity’, personalisation and modular tailoring to deliver real relevance. We can also develop and broadcast in-house which means we can reach your customers and prospects in record time.

> Experiential Marketing

>> We’ve organised, designed and managed brand experiences on behalf of clients for more than 15 years. That’s included trade sell-ins for Lynx, seminars and sales conferences for O2, branding and design for Vodafone’s flagship store and many, many others.

> Mobile Marketing

>> Whether you’re looking for a simple text / MMS campaign or a more complicated app or mobile advertising campaign, we can get you into your target’s hand in record time.

> Partnership Marketing

>> Creating, sourcing, negotiating, short listing and closing mutually beneficial partner deals and affiliate schemes is not easy. For many it’s the marketing holy grail. The brand affiliation, awareness, content and media opportunities available are huge – and often at an extremely attractive cost.

Many agencies will say they can deliver partnership marketing. If they say it’s simple, they’re probably fibbing. We have a tried and tested, proven process that has delivered partner marketing activity for many big blue chip clients including the AA, Barclaycard and the BBC. None of it was simple to achieve, but all of it delivered astonishing ROIs.

> Sales Promotion

>> We’ve got a hugely broad skill base at BURN. And Sales Promotion is a key tool in the armoury. It’s simple. Promotions work.

On pack, off pack, competitions, pricing, BOGOFs, prize draws, instant wins, insured promotions, loyalty schemes etc – we know what works best to achieve what objectives and the laws surrounding them. We’ve also got huge experience developing ground breaking promotional concepts for some of the biggest brands in the UK such as Heineken, Uncle Ben’s and Nestle.

> Social Media and Marketing

>> Creating fan pages, social apps and ad’s, affecting behaviour through social movements and campaigns, causing buzz and word-of-mouth – all very current and in vogue.

We like to think that we bring proven techniques and experience to these new areas and channels. New technology and leading edge culture excites us, but we’re pragmatic enough to advise when we think new routes to market are worth embracing or likely to be sub-optimal for the time and effort necessary.

> Sponsorship Exploitation

>> Sponsorship is big business. Fact. Brands invest millions associating themselves with teams, events and locations. Maximising the benefit from that investment can mean spending even more to promote the association but the payback is exponential.

We’ve successfully helped many brands including Holsten Pils and Heineken get the most from major sponsorship investments in highly innovative ways. We’d love to tell you about them.

> Trade Marketing

>> We don’t just understand consumers; we get under the skin of our clients’ business customers, their relationships and their needs. People often forget that business customers are also consumers – albeit they have different needs, goals and commercial objectives.

We’ve run hugely successful B2B campaigns in most vertical sectors. That’s one of the reasons that O2 use us to develop propositions and quarterly campaigns for the SME market and why Utell uses us to talk to thousands of travel agents in hundreds of countries in a wealth of different languages.

> Websites

>> We’ve scoped, designed and built websites, microsites, splash-pages and more for a hugely diverse range of clients; from AIG to eBay and Lexmark to lastminute.com. Compelling ‘front-ends’, complex ‘back-ends’ and everything in between.

Websites are mandatory for most businesses and integral to most integrated campaigns. We’re well versed in all aspects of architecture and user experience, as well as ensuring optimal search functionality and results.

> Viral Marketing

>> All great marketing is naturally viral – simple as that. However, recently there’s been a huge client appetite for work that’s shared and forwarded by customers. This is seen as cheap marketing. However, good virals are few and far between and many end up going nowhere so you can end up wasting money easily.

We’ve created edgy, online virals for Shark Energy Drink, practical how-to viral videos and clever social-change viral campaigning for our pro-bono client One Water. The key in all cases is to deliver something unique and powerful enough to reach the influencers in society as it will be these people who ultimately ‘feed’ the masses. That’s what we’re good at.