Despite the heatwave we have been feeling all festive here at Hope and Glory as we launched the first IKEA UK Christmas press show.

Creating the event to show off their eye-catching Christmas 2014 collection to the long-lead media while also inspiring the creative types with some DIY ideas, we took over a central London location and turned it into a Swedish winter wonderland.

We ate a traditional Swedish breakfast, we listened to their spokespeople talk about the trends for this winter and how they came to choose the new products and we talked to over 50 journalists who were all excited to see the range. Pretty much everyone was there, from the Beeb to Bella and Best, from Good Housekeeping to Grazia, from Ideal Home to Instyle, Real Homes to Red, Stella and STYLE to the Sunday Times Home and from Woman & Home to Weekend,

We also got to share some information on the rather lovely Soft Toys campaign that the IKEA Foundation, Save the Children and UNICEF are teaming up on again this October with the simple promise to donate £1 to children’s education in developing countries for every soft toy bought.

Christmas stockings at the ready!

Following the triumphant success of our campaign to mark the £5 coin released by The Royal Mint to mark the first birthday of Prince George, H&G have been all hands on deck to continue the celebrations for the nation’s most famous baby.

After a fantastic initial sweep of national, regional, parenting and lifestyle coverage, we worked our magic by hosting a birthday party in the lovely St James’s Park, in front of Buckingham Palace.

The lavish affair was attended by 11 lucky families randomly selected from the 1,700 that were gifted with a lucky silver sixpence coin last year maring the arrival of their new-born on the same day as the future monarch.

Putting on a birthday party to remember, the one year olds enjoyed a luxurious afternoon tea in The Stafford London hotel.

Papped to perfection the birthday celebrations landed the £5 coin great pieces in the Sunday Mirror, Daily Mail, Daily Express and BBC.co.uk, to name a few.

The photos were also a huge hit with regional media and our Scottish party attendee, baby Ava, became a bit of a celebrity featuring in a host of regional media including the Daily Record, The Courier, the Herald and even the Daily Mail (again). Even the New York Post and Washington Post got in on the act (amongst around 100 pieces across the globe)

Never one to leave the party early, The Royal Mint team even managed to wangle a guest appearance for the £5 coin on ITV’s Good Morning Britain, containing full Royal Mint messaging.

As a result of the huge success of the campaign, all 7,500 coins sold out within a matter of weeks.

Job done.

This week we spent a lovely couple of fun filled days beside the seaside, putting the fun into car hire with the launch of the “Ultimate Deckchair” for the lovely folk at Holiday Autos on Brighton beach.

Helping to elevate their “Happy Holidays” campaign, we created, built and deployed the most technologically advanced bit of kit for the most committed lover of the sun.

Fully driveable, roadworthy and taxed-up – drivers can quickly find the perfect spot on the beach without lifting a finger, whilst keeping cool in the shade courtesy of the on-board GPS solar-tracking parasol and refrigerated slushy machine. Retractable towels, sun-cream, drinks and book holders provide the user with everything at arm’s length, where as a stereo system and built-in sandpit feature all the trappings of the seaside wherever the location.

A few snaps, some video and a couple of ice-creams later and we’ve already bagged pieces on the Daily Mail, The Express, Daily Telegraph, Yahoo!, MSN, Aol., Huffington Post and ITN so far – and  it won’t be long until we hit the open road and take the eager German sunbathers on at their own game.

Here’s the whole thing in action …

Loved these simple shots of people bursting out of a waterslide by photographer Krista Long. It’s a pretty simple concept. But curiously fun, engaging and entertaining all at the same time.

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We’ve been appointed by the utterly lovely people at Turner Broadcasting to work on a brand-spanking new channel, the launch of which we’re now plotting together.

There’s more about the whole shebang here if you’re especially interested.

truTV, ladies and gentlemen, will be Turner’s first foray into free-to-air telly and will include some top quality shows including Container Wars (amazing), Red Neck Island (incredible), Fear Factor (awesome) and a host of other larger-than-life shows and characters.

It is, in essence, a PR dream, with bags and bags of room for creative thinking.

Just the sort of brief we love.

The top and bottom is that we will be bringing to bear a programme of event-led, stunt-ridden and hard-working publicity for the newest addition to the Turner family.

Expect comedy, high jinx and a dash of all-American goodness brought to British shores as we kick off our campaign.

More news as it breaks … in the meantime we will bask gently in the warm glow of successful pitching.

If you haven’t seen the College Humour “if Google was a Guy” films, then you should.

So it’s a bit of luck that we’ve seen fit to bring them to you in one easy-to-view place, really.

This week we got our feet wet to demonstrate Sony’s new super zoom HX400 and HX60V cameras to the consumer lifestyle press.

Working with “Where’s Wally?” creator Martin Hanford, we made the world’s first off-shore art gallery – an exhibition that appeared to float on a London lake.

Safely situated on the shore, media and the public alike were encouraged to find Wally through the powerful Sony lenses – using the zoom to get an up-close and personal perspective on the images that lay 10 or 20 metres away from them in the middle of the lake.

While giving key media a hands on experience with the new camera we also managed to generate news from the fact that the public were competing to spot the man in stripes.

The ultimate treasure hunt made picture of the day in The Guardian and HuffPo, while we got cracking write-ups in the likes of the Daily Star, GadgetsBoy, MSN, Time Out, Stuff, Mail Online, Trendhunter, Yahoo!, WJLondon and whole host of photography press.

We’re also expecting new reviews (for cameras that have already launched) in the likes of the Daily Star, Metro, Evening Standard, Shortlist,  The Sun,  MSN Tech and Askmen.com, amongst others.

Beyond awesome news as we have been shortlisted for a beyond-all-hope-and-expectations five PR Week Awards.

We are properly over the moon, chuffed and very proud.

Our work for the Big Bang (this, this, this and this) is up for Best Not-for-Profit and Best Public Sector Campaign. Our work for Meantime is up for Best Integrated Campaign and Best Marcomms under-£100,000. And the agency team as a whole is up
For Best Small Consultancy.

Couldn’t really get better as far as we were concerned. So we will once again say a MASSIVE thank you to everyone involved in all the work that has landed this haul – but most of all we’d like to say thanks once again to the clients that backed our ideas with their money and the folk across the team who created some utterly memorable work.

Paul Smith has been capturing a rather unique town for most of his photographic life.

Hit read more to find out what makes it unique …
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This week we’ve been promoting The Royal Mint’s latest collection of coins. This time, a limited edition run of landmarks on £5 coins (although they may cost you rather more).

The coins are the first in a collection of coloured coins that mark major British landmarks.

Given the designs, it seemed pretty natural to us to come up with some cunning imagery to make the launch famous in the media. So it was that we worked with one of our favourite snappers, Mike Buck, and hit the streets of London to capture the perfect angle on the statue of Queen Victoria outside Buckingham Palace, the Houses of Parliament and Tower Bridge.

He did us proud and we got some shots that fired the media imagination.

Along with a DPS piece in the METRO, we bagged pieces across the Daily Telegraph, Daily Mail, Daily Express and Evening Standard. Alongside there were scores of lovely online and regional pieces with over 50 additional pieces thanks to the lovely people at PA who whacked the story out on the wires.

Amazing what a good piccie can do, eh?