Agency round-up: Warbox; Impression; Tank PR

Nottingham’s Victoria Centre has appointed Warbox as its new retained creative agency as it prepares to celebrate its 50th anniversary next year.

Warbox, which is based in the city’s Lace Market, won a five-way competitive pitch to secure the retainer and will take the lead on all design and brand communication at the popular shopping destination.

A significant focus for Warbox in the coming months will be preparing a major campaign to mark 50 years since Victoria Centre first opened its doors to shoppers in 1972.

Sophie Hill, marketing manager at Victoria Centre, said: “It was very clear that the team at Warbox understood our centre and the different roles it plays in the lives of people in Nottingham. They shared their own stories and experiences with us, as well as speaking to many other people and used these experiences to create campaign ideas that celebrate our history but also what is to come.

“We look forward to working with the team as we continue to evolve our offering, particularly now as people head back to the high street, rediscovering our centre again.”

Mark Fensom, director at Warbox, added: “Being from Nottingham, I’ve grown up with Victoria Centre and it was the heart of my Saturday afternoons as a child. For me, this is a personally emotive win.

“It goes without saying that we’re both excited and proud to be associated with such an iconic name in the city and look forward to a successful working partnership together.”

Nottingham digital marketing agency Impression has announced a number of new client wins following a successful quarter.

SunLife is working with Impression to achieve on SEO after a successful project with the agency. Luxury bed brand And So To Bed has appointed Impression’s SEO services in addition to digital PR and CRO.

Impression has expanded its work with Rutland Cycles in the form of analytics and data insight work, on top of the existing and ongoing paid media relationship. The Wildlife Trusts has also appointed Impression to deliver a short term analytics project.

Mikey Emery, commercial director at Impression said: “It goes without saying that the pandemic has seen us all face unimaginable challenges. We recognise that we are very fortunate to be working in an industry that’s seen a lot of growth as people have had to quickly adapt to the online space.

“We set our sights on scalable growth this year, with an objective to level up and strengthen our positioning as a nationally recognised independent agency. We are on track to hit a 50%+ YoY growth rate in 2021 and adding such a great lineup of brands to our agency roster makes me both really excited about what is to come as well as immensely proud of what we have achieved over the course of the last 12 months.

“Whilst we’ve been fortunate to be in the right place at the right time, both the quality and quantity of work our whole team has been able to deliver for our clients is, without doubt, the single biggest contribution to our growth this year.”

A social media content specialist from Nottingham has shown his writing skills are not just limited to Twitter and Facebook after publishing his first book of fictional short stories.

Paralysis is written by Stuart Tongue, who works at digital PR agency Tank. Described as “a little book of nightmares”, it features a collection of 38 short stories inspired by dreams, nightmares and anxieties.

Tongue teamed up with local artist Laura Theilmann Nielson to create the illustrations for the book.

Available on Amazon in either paperback or Kindle versions, copies have already been sold internationally, including orders from France, Spain, USA and Canada.

Tongue said: “I originally started writing flash fiction as part of my creative writing course at the University of Derby. A few years later, I revisited the stories and started expanding them.

“I’ve suffered sleep paralysis and anxiety for many years and the stories have been based on these experiences and some of the related dreams and nightmares. I used horror as a way of desensitising some of my anxieties, so my work is certainly inspired by elements of classic, modern and b-movie horror too.

“The project started as something just for myself, fictionalising my thoughts, but being able to share the stories with other people is exciting and also really scary at the same time. For some reason, I’m just amazed every time I get an order!”

Tongue says he has already started work on his second collection, which will act as a continuation of Paralysis.