Sara Cremer takes over as CEO at Redwood

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

Free event: “Interactive Video: Finally Worth The Click?”

Interactive online video has been the quiet revolution in video for several years.  It is becoming a strategic tool — from simple click through on specific products to creating deeply engaging narratives.

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.

Health & Beauty magazine redesigns with natural look

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.

Redwood scoops three wins at Content Marketing Awards 2012

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.

see more

Redwood gets seven in Digital Magazine Awards 2012

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.

What Google’s Nexus 7 means for content marketing

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. see more

Redwood Mazda video hits over half a million plays

A video created for Mazda has received over 500,000 plays in its first week on YouTube, after a promotional campaign driven by the Redwood team.

The video pitted a new Mazda2 car against the fabled wall of death, and in addition to over half a million plays across several YouTube channels gathered over 1,000 likes on YouTube, over 500 tweets and was shared over 200 times on Facebook, making it a big viral hit for the car company.

The promotional campaign for the video made extensive use of the Redwood Mazda account team’s editorial contacts. This lead to it being featured on popular car sites such as TopGear.com, Autoblog, and Jalopnik. It was also picked up by key trend-spotting sites including Cool Hunting and Trendhunter, and it led to a feature on the science of driving a car around a wall of death on Wired.com. In the UK, coverage even reached the national newspapers, with the video featuring in the Daily Telegraph.

In addition to the main video, the team also created a behind-the-scenes mini-feature telling the story of how the stunt was achieved and how it was filmed.

According to Nik Berg, editor of Mazda Zoom Zoom magazine, the key to the video’s success was simply the quality of the content. “We created something that we thought would be fun and that people would actually want to see and share. Then we made sure that it was in the right places online,” he said.

Redwood has worked with Mazda since 2007, producing the multi-award winning Zoom Zoom programme. Zoom Zoom is Mazda’s multiple award-winning international customer magazine, distributed to 1.5 million owners in over 30 countries and in seven languages. Zoom Zoom comes out three times a year in print, e-zine and mobile versions, telling Mazda stories to a worldwide audience.

With a core of shared content, produced in close conjunction with Mazda’s global brand marketing division in Japan, Zoom Zoom also features tailored local content developed with each individual market. This ensures a strong global tone of voice together with local relevance.

Barclays launches Pingit mobile payments service

Barclays has launched Pingit, pioneering mobile service which lets customers transfer money using just a mobile number. And, as part of the launch, there’s also a series of videos, delivered online, designed to help customers use the service effectively.

The videos, which form a core part of the customer service for the new app, cover topics including registering and setting up Pingit, making a payment, and the security of the service in a way that’s visually interesting, friendly, and easy to understand and perfectly matches the Barclays brand look and feel.

Redwood launches mobile magazine for Mazda

With mobile internet use exploding, ensuring that phone users can get the content they want on the device of their choice is vital. Expanding on the award-winning digital editions of Zoom Zoom Redwood has launched the Zoom Zoom Lite mobile version. Deliberately pared down and fast to load, Zoom Zoom Lite was built for iPhone, iPad, Android and other mobile users who couldn’t access the Flash content of the e-zine. It’s rich in video and images and encourages participation through quizzes.

Decoder takes a behind-the-scenes look at CES

The latest issue of Decoder, the e-zine from BBDO and Proximity Digital Lab, has been released. “The Convergence Issue” is dedicated to exploring what this pivotal convergence of smart connected devices will mean for brands and consumers alike in the coming year.

The issue also takes a look at the best of CES 2012 – the world’s marquee event for all things related to convergence – and previews the bleeding-edge devices, innovations and trends of this movement yet to come.