Sara Cremer is to succeed Keith Grainger as CEO of Redwood, the leading content marketing agency that is part of the AMV Group. Cremer is currently the managing director and will take over when Grainger leaves at the end of June.

Grainger is leaving after ten years as CEO and 26 years at the company in total. He plans to pursue new opportunities in the burgeoning content marketing sector.

Cremer joined Redwood in 2008 with 20 years’ experience as a journalist and editor in consumer magazines and branded content. A judge for the Cannes Lions Branded Content and Entertainment category in 2012, she is widely respected in the content marketing industry for her digital capability, energy and results-oriented approach.

During Grainger’s term as CEO he led Redwood’s transition from a print-based contract publisher to a provider of multi-channel content strategy and solutions for clients including Barclays, Boots, Marks & Spencer, Volvo, Land Rover and Virgin Media.

Cremer said: “I’m excited to be taking the reins at such an important time. I have a great team around me, terrific clients to work with and huge ambition for our business.”

Cilla Snowball, AMV Group CEO, said: “Redwood is a great business and we’re grateful to Keith. Sad as we are to see him move on, Sara is waiting in the wings and ready to lead the business forward to the next stage of Redwood’s development.”

Editor’s notes:

·   Redwood is the UK’s most-awarded content marketing agency, creating multi-channel branded editorial and entertainment for some of the world’s leading brands. Clients include Marks & Spencer, Virgin Media, Land Rover, Barclays, Boots, Volvo, The Co-operative Group (Membership Services), Mazda and Fiat.

·  Sara Cremer is an award-winning magazine consumer and women’s editor. She was editor of Eve from 2004-2008; executive editor of new-product development at Emap Elan; editor of New Woman; and deputy editor of Men’s Health. She was the British Society of Magazine Editors New Editor of the Year in 2001 for New Woman.

For press enquiries call or email:

Dominic Mills on 07771 976316

Dominic.mills@redwoodgroup.net

Redwood

7 St Martin’s Place

London WC2N 4HA

Tel: 020 7747 0700

The newly-relaunched magazine for members of The Co-operative, published by Redwood, is looking for a commissioning editor.

The ideal candidate will be an all-rounder with a background in lifestyle magazines, a head full of great ideas, the ability to hunt down brilliant human-interest stories and an intuitive understanding of the Co-operative brand. You’ll need to be at home dealing with a wide range of topics, from food to funerals, and equally comfortable commissioning a story on banking or editing copy for a feature on electrical goods.

You will also need to be comfortable operating across a range of platforms, from print to web to social media, and have a firm grasp of how content can work across a variety of communication channels.

To apply, please send your CV and a covering letter explaining why you’re the perfect person for the job.

Applications to the editor, James Lawrence, at james.lawrence@redwoodgroup.net

Only shortlisted applicants will be contacted.

Closing date: 28 May 2013.

Redwood is an equal opportunities employer and therefore emphasises, in accordance with employment law that recruitment and selection decisions will not be made on the grounds of sex, marital status, sexual orientation, race, colour, ethnic or national origin, nationality, religion or belief, disability or age.

Please send your CV and portfolio to Finnie Finn, Senior Art Director. email: finnie.finn@redwoodgroup.net. Only shortlisted applicants will be contacted.

Closing date: 28 June 2013.

Redwood is an equal opportunities employer and therefore emphasises, in accordance with employment law that recruitment and selection decisions will not be made on the grounds of sex, marital status, sexual orientation, race, colour, ethnic or national origin, nationality, religion or belief, disability or age.

Recent research suggests that interactive video can now triple audience engagement time with content, and can be used to focus-group products covertly!

If 2013 is the year online video truly evolves, then interactive video is what’s next.

As part of Digital Shoreditch, Redwood is hosting a free event on interactive video, “Interactive Video: Finally Worth The Click?”. Come and spend a couple of hours picking the brains of some of the world’s leading producers of interactive video, courtesy of Redwood:

• Martin Percy (Unit9) has been making interactive films for over a decade with Unit9. He is both Webby and Emmy nominated and has worked with brands like Jameson, BT and Tate Modern.
• Ralph Cochrane (The Creative Grid and Loudsource) specialises in both social and filmic interactive projects. He’s worked with Coca-Cola and the Mobile World Congress.
• Mike O’Sullivan (The Collective) is behind the hugely successful ‘Experience ASB’ interactive video campaign that resulted in 100,000 people switching banks. He continues to work with New Zealand’s biggest brands.

Our mind-stretching evening will cover what interactive video can do, and how to achieve it:

• Using enhanced content to reveal genuine product insights
• Offering a new kind of emotional engagement with customers
• How to think about ‘story’ for interactive film
• How to shoot and produce for interactive film

The panel will be moderated by Ann Danylkiw, former Chief Creative Officer of interactive storytelling platform Memerge, now specialising in interaction and UX design for video and the Emotive Web.

Tickets are free, and can be booked through Eventbrite.

Boots Health & Beauty magazine has undergone an exciting redesign, including a gorgeous, unretouched cover. The commitment to always feature unretouched models on its cover shows Boots are leading the way in the glossy magazine market.

Launched in the March/April issue, the redesign has been developed in response to Boots’ new ‘Let’s feel good’ brand strategy. It brings to life ‘beautiful reality’ with its vibrant cover and inspiring imagery throughout, and is packed with compelling content that offers customers instant take-out on every page.

The new-look magazine amplifies Boots’ ‘Let’s feel good’ message, encouraging customers to take active steps to improve their health and wellbeing.

At last night’s International Content Marketing Awards, leading strategic content agency Redwood showed it was still the agency to beat, scooping awards for both its Mazda and Land Rover titles for the second year running.  Redwood also won ‘Best Retail Title’ for Your M&S magazine and was highly commended for Barclays’ internal magazine, The Globe, making it the joint most decorated agency of the night.

Land Rover Onelife, the bi-annual magazine that runs in conjunction with an iPad app and video, won the accolade of ‘Best International Title’ at the CMA’s awards for the second year running.  Translated into 14 languages and delivered to 36 markets worldwide, the magazine was awarded for its localised content and excellent brand extensions.  It was branded by one judge as “the best thing I’ve seen this year”.

Mazda’s international title, Zoom Zoom, retained its crown as Automotive Title of the year, being praised for its “creativity and effectiveness”.  Printed in six languages, with 13 versions distributed three times a year, the magazine and creative video content that runs alongside it serves 1. 5 million Mazda customers across the globe.

Marks and Spencer’s Your M&S magazine won Best Retail Title, being praised for being “simply beautiful and absolutely on-brand.”  The magazine is now the fourth-most read magazine in the UK, with over 3.5 million readers.  Last year Redwood also brought the award-winning title into the digital space with Your M&S e-zine.

The Globe for Barclays, also published by Redwood, was awarded Highly Commended in the Best Internal Communication category.

Earlier this year, Redwood’s Finnie Finn won a BSME and a PPA award for Art Director of the Year for the CIO’s I: Global Intelligence.  Redwood was also awarded a bronze award in the 2^nd Annual Lovie Awards for its “Mazda2 vs The Wall of Death” campaign for client Mazda.

Redwood has also been nominated for seven Digital Magazine Awards 2012 – more than any other agency – including three titles nominated in the Customer Magazine of the Year category.  Zoom Zoom has a total of five nominations including Editor of the Year for Nik Berg, Designer of the Year for Adrian Aldred, and Motoring Magazine of the Year.  Also nominated are Land Rover Onelife and BBDO Decoder, both in the Customer Magazine of the Year category.

Keith Grainger, CEO, Redwood comments:

“It’s been a really successful year for us again this year, with five big wins under our belt, and a plethora still to be decided.  We are delighted that this year the quality of Redwood’s work in video and digital formats is also being recognised and we look forward with excitement to seeing the outcome of our nominations for videography and digital magazines at the DMAs.”

Redwood has picked up a total of seven nominations for the Digital Magazine Awards 2012, including three titles nominated in the Customer Magazine of the Year category – more than any other agency.

Biggest winner was Zoom Zoom, produced by Redwood for Mazda, which grabbed a total of five nominations including Editor of the Year for Nik Berg, Designer of the Year for Adrian Aldred, and Motoring Magazine of the Year.

Also nominated are Land Rover Onelife and BBDO Decoder, both in the Customer Magazine of the Year category.

Duties & Responsibilities:
• To cut, edit and rewrite translated copy so it is suitable for a German, French, Italian, Spanish, Dutch, Japanese, Finnish, Chinese (Mandarin), Russian, Portuguese, Danish, Swedish, Norwegian, English, American English, Canadian English, Québécois French, Swiss French/German/Italian and Taiwanese audience.
• To implement client corrections at various stages of the production process.

Ideal Candidates:

• Will be fluent in English and one or more of the above languages.
• Will have current or very recent cultural knowledge of the countries where the magazine will be distributed.
• Will have previous experience as a sub-editor.
• Will be able to navigate Adobe InDesign (CS4) comfortably.
• Will be available to work from our Central London office over various dates throughout the year.

Salary: Competitive project rate – DoE
All sub-editors will need to work via a LTD company or be a LTD company

Please send your CV and covering letter to redwood.recruitment@redwoodgroup.net quoting ‘Foreign-Language Sub-Editor’ in the subject line

The opening keynote at Google I/O 2012 was two hours long, but there was enough packed into it that there were no lulls in proceedings. And there was plenty there that was relevant to content creators and marketers.

There was an update to Android (version 4.1, or “Jelly Bean”) which adds some nice new features and performance enhancements. Second, there was a the Nexus Q, a home entertainment devices that allows you to stream content from the cloud.

But probably the most important for content creators is the Nexus 7 tablet. This 7in device is anything except underpowered, runs the latest version of Android, and – perhaps most importantly – costs just $199 (£149 in the UK), which significantly undercuts the iPad and makes it more widely available than its closest equivalent, the Kindle Fire.

Google stressed the Nexus 7’s content consumption capabilities all the way through the keynote, showing how it worked with TV, films and even magazines from the Google Play Store. This is in contrast to how Apple pitches the iPad, where it consistently shows it off using creative software like GarageBand.

Will the Nexus 7 become a platform that content marketers need to consider? At this price, Google could sell a lot of them, especially outside the US where there’s little competition from other 7in tablets. We’ve already ordered ours, and intend to spend plenty of time working out how the device can be used for creating great branded content. It may not be an overnight success, but it’s likely to cement the 7in Android-driven tablet as the de facto alternative to the iPad.

But there are a few challenges that it needs to address if it’s to be a success.

First, there’s the lack of a retail channel. Apple has done extremely well with the iPad in part because people have the opportunity to see, feel and play with the device before buying. With a highly-personal device like a tablet, this really matters. (Update: Looks like there will be a decent retail channel – Engadget is reporting that PC World, Comet, Tesco and Carphone Warehouse may be stocking the product.

Secondly, though – and most importantly – there’s a perception that there’s a lack of decent content on the Play store, particularly outside the US. Google must address this if it’s to persuade people to buy, as a content consumption device without much content available really won’t sell well.

We always aim to create video that:
- Tell brand stories and marry them seamlessly with customer needs
- Deliver emotional engagement through expert storytelling techniques and editorial formats
- Generate customer response and social value

Our Strategic approach is developed not only from customer insight, brand understanding and online analysis, it also builds in content distribution as an integral part of the process. The emerging ubiquity of screens, and power of social media means having a defined process for distribution, that gets your video in front of the ‘right audience, in the right channel, at the right time’, is becoming increasingly essential for any successful video campaign.

Our Distribution strategy offers:
- Audience insights that shape the distribution strategy
- A defined distribution process to key social channels, blogger sites, video and media platforms
- Media buying / planning
- SEO / SEM strategy
- User journey planning
- Technical distribution

Have a look at our short showreel (above), which shows just a small selection of our recent work, and contact us if you want to have a chat about the results we’ve achieved and how our unique approach to brand video could suit you.