We’re celebrating today having been successful in our pitch to become the Charles Kendall Group’s new digital agency.

Established in 1945, Charles Kendall is a complete, end-to-end supply chain management group. With decades of specialist experience, their eight individual businesses includes Charles Kendall Freight, one of the world’s leading freighting companies. The other group businesses are travel, event management, procurement, consultancy, packing, marine and aviation.

A private, family owned business, they’re trusted with contracts valued in the millions by international businesses and organisations including the World Bank, as well as the governments of the UK, US, Oman amongst other countries worldwide.

We’re looking forward to working on positioning them as a global force to be reckoned with in 2010.

Our website for the UK’s leading speaker bureau and talent agency www.jla.co.uk has won a Gold award at the MIMAs last Friday in the category for best website.

The Meetings Industry Marketing Awards (MIMA) was launched in 2002 to raise the standards of marketing in the meetings and events industry and to recognise the marketeers. The 2009 judging panel was made up of industry leaders from a wide range of businesses including Ogilvy, Honda UK, Aviva and Barclays.

The photo above is of Jeremy Lee, founder of JLA collecting the gold award onstage.

Read our full case study here.

We’ve been working with the UK team at Prime Focus for the last 5 months developing the digital side of their global brand consolidation launch. We’ve just put the first phase live at www.primefocusworld.com.

We built in Drupal, utilising buckets of Flash and AJAX. There are gigs of slick video content to browse featuring everything from VFX for Quantum of Solace, Dragonball: Evolutions, Harry Potter and Superman Returns to Kasabian & U2 pop promos and car ads. If you’re short on time check out the house showreel, it sums up their prolific output succinctly.

At a packed Odeon in Leicester Square last night, founder Namit Malhotra announced the transformation of its global facilities into a single global company under a new Prime Focus brand. This includes the consolidation of Prime Focus London, blue and Machine (UK), Post Logic and Frantic Films VFX (USA) and Prime Focus Group in India. This enables the Prime Focus ‘global digital pipeline’ by seamlessly interconnecting the 15 Prime Focus offices around the world.

London was chosen for the first launch event, the rebrand will continue to be unveiled through launch events in Los Angeles and Mumbai. Should be noted that certain members of the Catch team are still recovering from the one last night!

We continue to work with Prime Focus on a number of other equally exciting projects based around their new launch – watch this space.

We’ve been enjoying working with the world’s most exciting global IT consultancy Thoughtworks this month. Sworn to secrecy, we can’t say anything, but suffice to say it’s global, it’s exciting and it will change the world.

Not heard of Thoughtworks? Perhaps you’ve visited a site they’ve developed, Guardian.co.uk and E4.com to mention a couple small ones.

A super friendly and dynamic bunch, “Thoughtworkers” come in all shapes and sizes, if you are really geeky like us, you’d be star struck by their chief scientist Martin Fowler godfather of object-oriented development and aglie methodologies.

Watch this space.

You know your brand is firing on all cylinders when you have a new website launched one week, and the following week Esquire magazine is rating you amongst the top 10 burgers in the capital.

Always one step ahead at Catch, we’ve known for some time The Diner does the best “sloppy-joe” style burgers this side of the pond (we were regulars long before we were their agency honest!). Now Esquire has blown the cover on our one of our favourite lunchtime spots (just around the corner in Soho), by giving their special burgers their seal of approval.

Read Esquire’s article online here www.esquire.co.uk/2009/07/londons-10-best-burgers.
Read more about how we made The Diner website here.
Visit The Diner website at www.goodlifediner.com.

We’re proud to announce that Prime Focus (@prime_focus), one of the largest end-to-end post production services companies in the world, has chosen Catch as their digital partner.

Having worked on everything from Kasabian & U2 pop promos to high-end commercials, and films including Quantum of Solace, Dragonball: Evolutions, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix and Superman Returns amongst many others, Prime Focus have won multiple awards for their work.

With offices in India, USA and Europe the publically listed Prime Focus are a one stop service provider for producers of advertising, broadcast and feature films.

So to say we’re excited to be starting work with their team in London on a large top-secret digital project is something of an understatement.

Can’t say any more that this I’m afraid… watch this space.

Chances are you’ve had a night out in a Barworks venue. Either The Slaughtered Lamb, Hoxton Square Bar & Kitchen, Electricity Showrooms, Under The Westway or Two Floors. They are all great venues, with a cutting edge music policy, quality food and great live acts… soon they’ll have a digital marketing strategy that does the brand justice.

We’d like to welcome aboard Barworks to the Catch client roster. We’re looking forward to working with Philip, Andreas and the team over the coming year to completely redevelop their suite of websites. It’s all under wraps at the moment, watch this space!

This freshly released email marketing benchmark report for 2009 comes as highly recommend reading for marketers, advertisers and publishers alike who use email marketing is a part of their digital strategy.

Produced by Australian firm Returnity it’s based on data from nearly 100 million emails, 12,000 campaigns, 450 clients and 18 industry segments – they’ve certainly done their research.

You can download the PDF (1mb) directly by clicking here.

Here at Catch we design/manage/send tens of thousands of emails a month for clients including AXA, Crest Nicholson, Executive Offices Group, JLA and Lucida PLC. We’ve promoted everything from the Chemical Brothers playing in Trafalgar Square for Beck’s Futures to “Dancing Pig” John Sergeant’s speaker engagements post-Strictly Come Dancing.

If you are interested in talking more about how we can put our experience in email marketing to work for your business then give me a call on 0207 494 3554 or email me at jonathan@catchdigital.com.

The PRWeek Awards are widely accepted by the PR and communications sector to be the equivalent of the film industry’s ‘Oscars’, and if PR is your game then you shouldn’t need any prompting to click over to the www.prweekawards.com and complete your entry.

The Categories have been revised for 2009 and the new Global Public Relations category has been added to reflect the growing internationalisation of the industry, the first step to PR greatness (not to mention untold recognition) is entry!

Catch designs, manages and hosts 19 awards websites for Haymarket Media Group. For the four most prestigious of these (Campaign BIG Awards, Media Week, and Campaign Photo and PRWeek) we also provide a bespoke entry platform facilitating registration, entry upload, online judging and payment.

We have a new addition to our team, Matt Collins joined as a Web Technologist. Matt’s globetrotting experience includes being a creative-type at Dare, jetting off to Germany for Scholz and Volkmers Summer School, and even a stint at Momentum Worldwide not forgetting his time as a freelancer on some great projects. With a multimedia degree under his belt Matt has both creative and technical skills and is a self confessed geek.

Random fact: Matt is a qualified Kayaking instructor and used to spend his summer breaks teaching teenagers on lakes in the Brecon Beacons.

Potentially embarrassing track alert…

Music plays a big role in our office culture here, we’re practically powered by Last.fm. We’ve had our own profile for a while, but only now have taken the plunge to “dare to share” the soundtrack to our day with visitors to our website.

The new “Last.fm” tab on the catchdigital.com homepage relays the tracks we are currently listening to LIVE. So now there is no hiding from those weekend warm up tracks on Friday afternoons… (you know who you are) – just because it’s a Friday doesn’t mean that The Neverending Story theme is acceptable.

Now if only I could name and shame our DJs individually…

Continuing our work with JLA, the UK’s leading speaker and talent bureau, we’ve just launched the JLA Feedback Forum – the first ever space for event professionals to share opinions on talent.

Also launching this side of Christmas, (the finishing touches are being done as we speak) MyJLA, a password-protected area where JLA clients can collaborate and manage their enquiries in real time.

These two significant steps forwards for JLA’s digital presence goes some way to showing their commitment to remaining The UK’s biggest specialist agency for keynote, motivational and after dinner speakers, conference presenters, awards hosts and cabaret for corporate, industry and public sector events.

Visit www.jla.co.uk/feedback-forum/ to
find out more or read our case study on their new website.

What a night… The Campaign BIG Awards at Grovesnor House on Wednesday were far more than nefarious industry backslapping, they showed that digital is finally recognised as an integral part of advertising in the UK, not just an “honourable mention”. With BMB picking up a Gold and Silver BIGGIE(?!) for the iPint – still the best iPhone app IMHO (though our new one will pick up the gong next year, if only we were allowed to enter…).

Of course the only mention we got is in the back of the ‘book of the night’ with credit for all our digital work (read case study here) entering work would have strictly been a conflict of interest what with being involved with the judging n’all. (Take note those attempted bribes fell on deaf ears, you know who you are).

The Catch table witnessed our neighbours BBH wearing out the carpet traipsing up to the stage to collect 1,2,3… ?? Numerous awards – we lost count. Anyway, a great time was had by all, measurable by the extra bacon sandwiches and coffee in the office the following morning.

You can see all the winner and finalists (using the Catch made™ Haymarket awards platform) online at www.campaignbigawards.com/2008.

We’d like to extend a warm welcome to Billiter Partners, the latest addition to our client roster. Formed by individuals with extensive experience in finance, intelligence and law, Billiter works for corporations, institutional clients, and high net worth individuals worldwide.

With offices in both London and New York, Billiter provide bespoke solutions enabling business intelligence reporting, providing deal critical information and research to aid investment decisions and protect commercial reputations.

We are looking forward to working with them this year, beginning with a transactional site.

The UK’s leading speaker bureau and talent agency JLA have just launched their revamped website designed and produced by Catch Digital.

It features 800 entries including over 100 new names – with a Google Suggest style search facility, Speaker Q&As, Client Comment pieces, a huge resource of new video clips and downloadable high-res stills, full updated biographies, ‘Amazon-style’ alternative suggestions, external links and details of Speakers Breakfasts and other JLA showcases – including footage from September’s Real Variety Show.

JLA appointed Catch Digital as its digital partner in 2008 after a pitch involving 12 agencies including WorldArchipelago, Heat Design, Logic plc and Design Motive.

Catch continue to work with JLA on Phase 2 of the project including “MyJLA”, a password-protected area to manage enquiries, and the “Feedback Forum” – the first ever space for event professionals to share opinions on talent.

Visit www.jla.co.uk or read our case study.

Serial overachiever and all round nice guy Ross Williams heads up the uber-successful whitelabeldating.com, a multi-million pound business that provides dating software, payment processing and consultancy for some of the world’s most successful consumer media brands.

Ross approached Catch with a view to us branding him online. He’s a busy guy and wanted his own blog to share his experiences with those who’ll listen.

With a love of life in the fast-lane, sports cars and technology the site needed to be slick, remotely updateable and reflect who he was as a person, letting people know where he’s been as well as where he is heading (not to mention showing off the multitude of awards and accolades he has picked up along the way).

Using a mash-up of deep-linked Flash, Twitter, Wordpress and our own custom CMS modules this is one trick site, enabling Ross to update it via his phone from anywhere in the
world.

See it in action here www.rosswilliams.co.uk.

Much fuss has been made of Alan Yau’s stylish new restaurant Cha Cha Moons. Can the man do any wrong after Satsuma, Busaba Eathai, Hakkasan, Yauatcha and Sake no Hana?

After the sheer opulence of our Christmas bash at Yautcha (more 1000 year old egg congee anyone?), the foodie in me was keen to try it out, and having a small Chinese contingent at Catch HQ what better excuse to go check it out and see if it up to their high standards – that and it being just around the corner.

So was it any good?

Personally it was a bit too much like Wagamamas with a Gok Wang makeover for my liking.

Chic it is, Yautcha it aint, but then I am a fussy foodie. Give me Chinese Experience (lunch only) on Shaftesbury Avenue any day.

Catch is providing the technology powering the inaugural Campaign BIGAwards. Our awards entry platform is facilitating online entry, payment and judging for over 1,500 entries (and counting!).

The awards are chaired by Nigel Bogle of BBH, to see the complete list of 70 judges including Mark Cridge, Trevor Beattie and Rory Sutherland visit this link.

The awards ceremony itself is on October 22 2008, at Grosvenor House, the Catch team will see you there! We wish you the best of luck.

After a fiercely contested pitch we are proud to announcethat Catch has been chosen to reposition JLA’s brand online and we’d like to officiallywelcome them onboard as our latest client.

JLA are recognised as the leading full service speakerbureau and talent agency for corporate and industry events, theFinancial Times rates them as “The UK’s leading bureau” and the Independentwrites “JLA have opened up whole new avenues in corporate entertainment”.

We’re looking forward to working with them over the coming year.

Being recognised as “amongst the best web design companies around the globe” by Web Hosting Search, was certainly an unexpected surprise. We’re not sure who they are, but
it’s nice that they recognise us. We’re very envious of the main URL’s Google Pagerank!