26/11/14 Fresh Air Studios scoops two top awards for creative audio production.

Manchester, 12th November 2014: Plymouth based audio branding and communication agency, Fresh Air Studios, has won two first place awards for advertising and audio production, plus a highly commended award for Contact Centre Experience at the Audio Marketing Association of Europe’s annual conference.

The agency won first place for “Most Effective Commercial”, an award for production techniques, with an entry from its series of radio commercials produced for St Luke’s Hospice Plymouth entitled “Do Something Exhilarating”.

The top award for “Most Creative Script” also went to creative produced for a South West merchandising firm, RedRok. Whilst a highly commended award was presented to Fresh Air Studios for contact centre audio for Santander Private Banking.

Paul Philpott, Managing Director said:

“We deliberately entered a mix of local, regional and national creative for each of categories open to us. As an agency working with a range of companies, mostly nationally, but also SME; we wanted to demonstrate that no matter what the business size or brief, the same levels of creativity, expertise and best practice should be available to all. We are delighted that two of the top awards has been won using creative produced for SMEs, and that these clients were local to us.”

Judges consisted of some highly respected individuals in the field of marketing and business: Keith Barlow, a former regional director of The Chartered Institute of Marketing (CIM); Bryant Wilson, a judge from the On Hold Messaging Association of America who communicate in the USA regarding good contact centre experience; and Fred Ponsingnon, a Research Fellow in Service Management, currently based out of the Centre for Innovation and Service Research at Exeter University.

This year, the event was held at The Mere, a five-star luxury hotel and spa resort, just outside Manchester. The event brings together some of the big players in the areas of audio marketing, branding, customer experience and contact centre communications.

Most Effective Commercial

Winning the award for Most Effective Commercial, an award focussing on production techniques, was produced for St Luke’s Hospice, original script by Fuel Communications, and from a campaign called “Do Something…” The commercial featured a young man parachuting out of an aeroplane to raise money.

Executive Producer, Martin Burgess-Moon explains: “The idea was to create a brief moment of mystery, followed by the character’s anxiety, then ending with pride and exhilaration. 

The challenge was finding or creating a sound effect where we could have the buzz of the aircraft interior without making it immediately obvious what it was … until the character opens the door to make his parachute jump.  We also needed a young voice that was capable of acting well enough to project the nervousness and pride in what he was achieving. A final call to action was performed by a more mature female voice artist to introduce contrast.”

Comments from the judging panel included: “jumping out of the airplane really held your attention... sound effects and voice were very good” “Vocal tone induces a feeling of personal challenge and adventure, overlaid with the opportunity to be altruistic. Copy descriptively encourages would be fund raisers to become a hospice friend” and “A great piece: original, succinct, effective, fun and exciting!”

Most Creative Script

Winning the award for Creative Script was a more tongue-in-cheek style of writing for merchandising firm RedRok using comedy. Martin Burgess-Moon reflects: “We had a very free brief.  There was no specific product to push and there were no restrictions on duration or number of voices.  This was merely to be an exercise in pushing the brand. The script uses an amusing scenario of a customer attempting to seduce a salesperson, the comedy is all rather camp, with the branded products playing a role in the scenario.”

The commercial was a hit with the judges saying “Really well produced audio… The copy was easy to follow and fun to listen to.”   “Suggestive double-entendre copy catches the listener’s attention.”

“Pretty edgy - almost crossed the line!”   One judge also admitted “Not sure if it will be to everyone's taste. I personally found it pretty funny.”

Editor’s Notes:

Fresh Air Studios is an audio communication agency working in the areas of advertising, telecommunications and internal communications. The business strives to create innovative ways for companies to embrace audio in all forms of communication and branding. With a small production team, the business is proud of its client base consisting of 90% national brands.

An impressive statistic was recently discovered after discussions with key clients: it came to light that audio produced by Fresh Air Studios is heard more than 85 million times a year; across it’s productions heard on radio, high-use contact centres, IVR systems, mobile networks, internet and intranets.

AMA (Europe)

The Audio Marketing Association (Europe) represents the leading UK businesses responsible for providing audio branding and marketing solutions throughout the UK and Europe; consisting of agencies, production companies and technical experts. It is AMA (Europe)’s role to ensure that audio marketing customers benefit from consistently high standards of trading practice and product quality.

For further information contact: Paul Philpott, Managing Director, Fresh Air Studios  paul@freshairstudios.com   01752 229246

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