Indigo
Even in difficult times the like of which we are apparently travelling through (or have travelled through if you believe the man Darling – and whatever you say about his performance the black and white head hair combo remains disturbing) you can’t keep an animal like InterContinental Hotels Group down.
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Baxter
As the Castrol job didn’t actually kill us we thought we would wedge a bit more action in before Christmas and in line with our policy of only having clients with one word in their company name (less chance of spelling it wrong – although an incident with Vodaphone a few years ago might disprove that) we flicked through the M4 Corridor Yellow Pages and turned up Baxter, who actually turned out to be a rather large and lovely pharmaceutical company.
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iLead
The banks are the source of all evil they say. Not in our book. What about goats cheese and avocado, to say nothing of ginger cake (obviously everything else Ginger is beautiful, especially Steve who has looked especially festive all through January with his reindeer jumper and Xmas socks on). Or liquorice. That’s not only evil tasting but just look at it, it’s dark, and possibly possessed by the devil. As is the M1 around Luton.
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You Bring it to Life - 2
About four years ago we wrote about You Bring it to Life, an incredible journey of excessive eating and Airmiles (I was briefly a BA Silver card holder on the back of it – cheers..), of creative tantrums and a bill from a certain consulting firm that could have funded the 2012 Olympics. A global brand engagement and change program that the client called ‘such inspirational, professional and emotive work’ and then went and spoiled it all with ‘and you guys crack me up’.
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Child health cover
We’ve always had a bit of an issue believing that only advertising agencies can make adverts for the television. It’s clearly rubbish – as are most of the adverts. However, we’ve recently softened our stance on this life critical issue to such an extent that our Head of Language development, Ed ‘how exactly did you pull that Jasmine totty’ Tansey has started to wear black polo shirts and tight black jeans, almost like a real agency. Actually, I could see a new tag line there for us (currently we have Thinking that’s more refreshing – which is a little bit clever) – Juice – almost like a real agency.
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Openreach
So the truth is I know almost nothing about this project.
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Candlewood Suites (sweets)
As part of our ‘get out now and do something’ (GONADS) for people other than InterContinental program 2009, we have, over the last few months, been developing a rather lovely interactive training program for the good (mainly American) folks at Candlewood Suites.
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Environment Agency
We like out of the blue phonecalls, although the mystery of where people get our number from has never been properly resolved (we did end up in the South Wiltshire Yellow Pages once by mistake when a sales call offered us a free slot under ‘plumbers’ – (and we’re in Oxfordshire – which, if you’re American is a whole different world (3 miles away)).
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Sleep Advantage
There’s a lot of utter b*ll*cks talked about ‘fully integrated communications’ (i.e everything looks like it was designed to fit together, gosh, radical), ‘cross-platform’ (i.e you can play it on lots of different things rather than just a Betamax player, err, handy), multimedia (err, you mean, like, cross-platform?)
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Vodafone Immigration
Having been long term subscribers to Vodafones fine network (sorry Orange, but the girls in the office had nothing to go with the colour …) we are obviously delighted when there’s an opportunity to claim back some of the continuing ‘investment’ (i.e line rental) that we have afforded them over the years and send them some invoices (sadly not monthly).
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Crowne Plaza Podcasts
We’ve recently spread our little Oxfordshire wings and taken some pretty crazy decisions. Like talking to people in the InterContinental Hotels Group other than InterContinental.
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InterContinental Meetings
We seem to have had a bit of a run recently of esteemed clients and FoJ (Friends of Juice) going, err, bust. RIP Woolworths (where to buy clothes pegs is bothering my mum), RIP Zavvi (our office manager has a £50 gift voucher she is willing to take offers on). These are not good things and absolutely not connected in any way with the work we did with them (our lawyers insisted on that bit of copy).
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Carbon Creditz
Grass Roots plans for world domination have been widely discussed and documented on this website. Believe me, in years to come people will look back and wonder how they got away with it, why no one noticed, and how much better it is now that they run everything and David Evans (MBE) is appearing on both Question Time and Crimewatch (in the popular ‘do you recognise these men slot’).
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Orange - Brilliant Service
Once upon a time we all owned colour and it was free. And then along came Orange™ with their clever advertising and liberal use of bus shelter poster technology, and all of a sudden that was gone.
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Baddies Video
In our continuing quest to go bust quickly we sent our finest operative called Guy, Guy off to make a movie for 'Big Life Enterntainment' with some of his increasingly large group of rock and roll friends. What we also did was give him a budget of £1.25 (to include his bus fare, lunch and a haircut), along with our tiddly HD camera and a wind-up torch as a lighting kit.
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Tigra
Becky our Senior Producer is not only very efficient, knowledgeable and never wrong but she also has hourly deliveries of new clothes. So when our new friends at Brooklands Publishing came along with would what could be called a relatively ‘compact’ budget and asked us to make a video for the Vauxhall website...
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Work it
Music videos offer the perfect combination of making a fat loss and being creative, and so it was with no hesitation that we took on this job and the peerless opportunity it gave us to burn some used fifties at the same time.
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Crowne Plaza
Regular readers (have you nothing better to do? How about flossing?) will know that we have spent heavily on our sophisticated marketing and sales systems at Juice. We now have phones that ring, and that seems to be working really well.
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Nissan GTR
Obviously we are God fearing at Juice. In truth though he rates slightly lower than
- the bank (who think we’re a bit strange as we made them take their jackets and ties off in the car park when they came to see us before we allowed them in the door – I mean, a client could have mistaken them for a bailiff)
- the VAT man (who appears in our lives at the most awkward moments)
- the book-keeper (who is convinced we’re on the fiddle)
- the office manager, Ginny (who is coolly efficient but if you leave your teaspoon in the sink is best avoided for several weeks).
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Sound Guide
The thing about our friends at InterContinental is that they have a great way with toilet roll – have you checked out how nice and soft it is (the one with the puppies I reckon – how many free soft toys must they have back of house?) and how the end is always neatly pointy. (Don’t try this at home if you have more than two bathrooms, it could in a messy divorce as a result of a lot of microwave meals due to timing issues).
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SID
We heard shocking news during this project. Apparently some of her majesty’s subjects ain’t entirely honest guv and have been known to steal from various esteemed financial organisations, most esteamy of all being The Nationwide Building Society (friends of Juice).
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Maybe Tonight
You know you’re getting old when
1) Radio One sounds like it’s not been tuned properly, even on a digital radio, and
2) you can only watch the music video we have just made with the sound down.
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A Day in the Life
We are really pleased to have been asked by the amazing Dame Hannah Rogers Trust to produce a new film to support their fundraising efforts.
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Service Soccer
A long time ago (well, just over a year actually) we were asked by our friends in aprons to help them with their customer service challenges.
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Local Business Training
The great thing about the fact that we own the company is that we can do absolutely and totally what the hell we like. So if we want to go and film all day in a Barclays branch in somewhere called Coventry-upon-the-M6 and play with HD cameras then that’s exactly what we will do.
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Merger launch film
So we’re halfway through this job. It’s a really smart animated story about a dad telling his kids (handily called Heidi and Marty) about what he does for a living. And the client calls (Alison, that’s you…) and says ‘I’m a little concerned that Heidi looks like a little pig’.
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GM Conference
It’s 12 long years since the General Managers of InterContinental Hotels and Resorts all got together to swap stories of bed linen and vol-au-von.
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New Juice Towers
A long time ago, when we were two (people), we hopped around from free office to free office, leaving a trail of failed businesses (Blue Egg Studios anyone?) and empty Jaffa Cake boxes made into masks.
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Castrol Oil Training Toolkit
A long time ago we helped Castrol Launch their new range of engine oil "Edge". Apart from giving Nick an appendicitis it was a great success.
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Franchisee Roadshow
Juice don’t do events. But if they did they would probably be a bit chaotic.
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SAP Conference
We spend shed loads, more like large double garage loads of money with Vodafone every month. Becky and Deane both have quite serious mobile phone habits, and the geeks in Juice Too like speaking to people on them too as it means they don’t have to look anyone in the eye.
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The Way Ahead
So, one day we’re sat in the office with not much to do. And during that nanosecond Grass Roots ring and say that Barclays (a bank apparently) might want a video to use at a conference and then they might want some more stuff for a training programme.
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Xcite sales training DVD
There are some jobs that come along when the client goes, something like, ‘I’ve got £8.50 (including the VAT) and a box of After Eights with a sell-by date of September 1998, is there any chance of a really fancy and clever DVD with loads of video, some extremely pink graphics and plenty of loud music that no-one over 30 could possibly like. And any chance of it in two weeks?
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Williams F1 2007
A long time ago. Before Steve was bald (but not before he was ginger), and before we had set the World Jaffa Cake eating record (which still stands today)
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Insights
Debbie from BP is a little bit mad, and alot ginger, we like her. She asked us to teach lots of bods at BP how to be insightful.
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IVCA Awards 2007
Regular readers of this drivel will know that there is something of a running joke with regards to the IVCA, our esteemed trade body. They are all lovely, but in truth we have used them as an excuse to get drunk and wear nice frocks once a year (Steve for some reason seems to practice every weekend) at the annual awards ceremony.
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Hector, Nectar
This is probably the seventh time we have written about our animated/live action programme for BP which is designed to encourage the site staff to ask for the Nectar card. But there are no apologies from here. Because now it is complete, and out there, and they paid (lovely), and they like it (even more lovelier).
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Abbey Conference 2007
We’ve gone a bit financial services sector this month. In fact with this lot (formerly known as the artist Abbey National), Barclays and Nationwide it’s clear we’re planning a bank job. In fact, HSBC (our bankers (careful)), it must only be you who we pay money to…? But we’ve seen your videos and frankly maybe you are beyond help…?
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BandQ Mystery shopping
Yet again we’re angling for a discount. It’s that time of year when you wheel out the BBQ only to find that the lid’s leaking and the gas burners have disintegrated.
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Our Town
Ginger and Bald is underrated. Except at Juice where we realise that it means a vast brain, and fewer interruptions from members of the opposite sex.
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Anti- Fraud Video
Internal, employee fraud is as serious as it gets for a financial institution. With billions of squids flowing through their systems on a daily basis the temptation to filter a few off as an employee is pretty strong.
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Imagine
It’s wicked when we get the chance to play with LOADS of lights, lenses, bits of railway, gaffer tape and cables, as well as buy some furniture from Habitat which not only works for the ad, but also goes really nicely in my redecorated lounge (spot that cunning wheeze Mr Taxman…).
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In Room Promo
And now the story can be told. A story of lavish hotels, astonishing weight gain and a serious attempt to retake the colonies. A tale of lost luggage and deported clients. A rollercoaster ride of reluctant cows (some of which had four legs), and silk pyjamas. The journey of a lifetime, through mountain and forest, war zone and desert (actually mostly just dessert in truth).
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Brand Engagement
OK, so we went to see IC and Deloitte (their consultants and keepers of the money (every one of them good looking, clever and taller than the average (even the short ones)) to talk through some ideas for something or other that now escapes me
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Guest and Staff Promises
This is where it started. One day Grass Roots rang up and said they had this possible job for some bunch of hoteliers we had never heard of (we believed that Travel Lodge were at the top of their game…). And there might be a video
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GBJABBER
The Juice mission statement: Comedy is paramount, work happens when we’re out of comedy……(i.e. rarely)
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Paddock Club 2006
WilliamsF1 are probably winner of our longest serving client award. For which they win, our love, respect and all the Jaffa Cakes they can eat (have you tried the Cadburys version – they are all good).
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Q2 - 2006
There is a viscous rumour that last year we made something of a mess of this programme. and honesty being the best policy means I cannot lie and pretend that our dumb-@r$e camera op did actually press ‘record’ on the camera.
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Father, Son
We were recently asked to act as production unit for Director, Anna Gabriel, As part of just released ‘Play – The Videos, Peter Gabriels’ DVD Greatest Hits collection
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Dealer FacilitiesLaunch
When the most high profile (and best) BMW dealer in the country opens two new state-of-the-art servicing facilities in central London, they need to find a way to let their thousands of customers know, without shipping them all to Battersea and Nine Elms, however much fun that would be..
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Back in the USSR- St Petersburg
Grass Roots, who have been running this major trip for largish fizzy drink maker Coke for many years to general delight. This year they foolishly asked us to accompany them and produce a record of the promotional trip for their top licensed trade customers.
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Best of AmWay Europe
It’s great when an old friend calls unexpectedly after a period of inactivity (and even before they received the now legendary Juice Christmas DVD single – see archive…)
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Promotional Series
It’s nice to work with lunatics. It brings out the best in us. This lot have clearly escaped from the local asylum.
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2005 Retail SPU Conference, LA
Some of our clients are surprisingly normal. Some are heading towards madness. Some are, without question, certifiable.
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Quality Quickly
As fuel prices continue to rise we have further developed our strategy of only working for people where we have a clear need for a decent discount to carry on in business. Hence our stalking of BP for the last few months – not only is their petrol some of the finest on the market, but their coffee and breakfast croissants are equally covetable.
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The World Speaks Data
Sometimes even the biggest players in their market have difficulty explaining where their business fits in.
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Pride 2005- Putting Members First
With an in-house Starbucks selling very fine coffee at wonderfully subsidised prices it’s no wonder that we spend so much time at Nationwide.
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