WIG? - Opinion.

Cats are awesome!

Why?

They're soft.

They're domesticated.

They make great entertainment on youtube.

Good company for watching TV with.

Easy to love and look after.

So much cooler than dogs.

WIG? - Place.

'Services

We have a multi-talented, multi-discplinary team in our Manchester office, who all understand the importance of delivery high quality, creative communications that delivers results. Creative Concern is a full service agency with a broad portfolio of services including:

Strategy development: developing and delivering communications strategies, marketing plans, brand strategies and research projects.        

Brand development: our creative team are constantly working away devising and implementing brands for organisations, companies, charities, hospitals, regeneration bodies, destinations and campaigns.

Graphic design: from business cards through to billboards and brochures, our designers provide an efficient, intelligent design service covering print, exhibitons, advertising and design for online, digital and film graphics.

Video and film: we direct and produce films for DVD, events, exhibitions, online, advertising and virals using our in-house broadcast standard production facilities.

Website development: high-end website programmers, coders and front end web designers, working on projects ranging from blogs and small brochure sites through to large scale integrated CMS systems.

Multimedia programmers: motion graphics, Flash animation and multimedia development including presentation tools, film graphics and online tools.

Public relations: an experienced team of media and stakeholder PR professionals devising and delivering PR strategies, running high-profile media campaigns, providing crisis PR support and managing the reputation of our clients.

Copywriters: a copywriting, editing and proofing service covering news journalism, magazines, online content, brochures, feature writing and advertising copy.

Exhibition design: extensive experience in interior and exterior exhibition and display systems from simple pop-up banners through to installations, roadshows and exhibition design.

This list is already long but isn't exhaustive. Our approach is to buid a multi-skilled team who can work across different platforms to deliver your communications needs.'

WIG? - Place.

'Our Ethical Approach

Creative Concern is an ethical agency with a strong commitment to continuous environmental improvement and sustainable development. We recognise that day-to-day operations can impact both directly and indirectly on the environment. We aim to minimise our environmental impact through good management and by adopting business best practice wherever possible.  Creative Concern works to integrate environmental considerations into our business decisions and adopt greener alternatives wherever possible, throughout our operations.

Our environmental policy outlines the actions we are already taking to reduce our environmental impact. We've still got more to do and we are currently mapping out the extent of our carbon footprint before putting together a plan to become an even greener business.

In all our activities we aspire to:
Actively reduce the environmental impact of what we produce for our clients. Prevent pollution to land, air and water. Comply fully with all relevant legal requirements, codes of practice and regulations. Reduce water and energy use. Minimise waste and increase recycling. Identify and manage environmental risks and hazards. Involve customers, partners, clients and suppliers in the implementation of our objectives. Promote environmentally responsible purchasing. Provide suitable training to enable employees to deal with their specific areas of environmental control. Improve the environmental efficiency of our business travel. Establish targets to measure the continuous improvement in our environmental performance.'

WIG? - Place.

'Client Testimonials

We work with our clients as partners to deliver on their objectives. Here are a few thoughts from some happy Creative Concern clients.

"BBC North has worked with Creative Concern since the move of 2,300 staff to MediaCityUK in Salford Quays was first announced in 2007. There have inevitably been lots of changes to the project along the way (including the name!) but Creative Concern have stuck to their original vision of the BBC North brand and creatively developed it along the way. Throughout this development, we faced the big challenge of unifying a number of disparate and well established BBC brands under a compelling and sensitive umbrella brand - which Creative Concern used their expertise and understanding to achieve.

But for me, the real beauty of the BBC North brand is its versatility - it works across all our channels (film, website, briefing packs, newsletters etc) resulting in a cohesive, joined up approach to our communication. Creative Concern worked tirelessly, to often unreasonable deadlines(!) to achieve this but it's really paid off, we now have a strong brand which reflects our vision and mission, is used by all our Leadership team and across the BBC and has been used internally as an example of excellent branding.

Not only that, it's a pleasure to work with Creative Concern, their flexibility and attention to detail is second to none, teamed with outstanding creativity and first-class design."

Josie Cahill, Internal Communications Manager, BBC North

"I have worked directly and indirectly with Creative Concern over the last 8 years. In every instance I have found their approach professional and realistic. They back this up with unflagging optimism, humour and the delivery of quality work. They are also prepared to go the extra mile."

Keith Jones, Regional Director, The Forestry Commission

"Manchester Forward was a challenging publication to pull together, not least because of the breadth of information that was required from a range of sources. Creative Concern worked with us to deliver ‘information download’ workshops which captured a range of content from partners and stakeholders. Hours of discussion were then transcribed, analysed and categorised into chapters, before the process of articulating the information began. Creative Concern’s copywriting and design capability is first class, and led to the creation of a document that delivers on every level. However, it is the intellectual vigour that they bring to a project which really sets them apart."

Rachel Combie, Director of Strategic Marketing, Marketing Manchester

"ENWORKS have used the services of Creative Concern for a number of years, and have developed a trusted relationship with them. This work has covered a broad spectrum of activity and has included web site development, design, and content management.  As an organisation with very strong environmental credentials we actively seek suppliers with similar standards, Creative Concern demonstrably meet these standards."

Todd Holden, Programme Director, ENWORKS

"It's a pleasure to work with an agency that takes the time to understand your customers, your product and your values to create a brand that is fresh, relevant and valuable. They are easy to work with and are meticulous in their attention to detail. Our recent rebrand roll out was completed on time, to budget and resulted in over 90% of our customers surveyed telling us our new information suite was well designed and easy to understand."

Mark Simmons, Marketing Manager, Riverside

"Creative Concern planned and delivered a project critical to our future development. They brought a fresh, comprehensive and effective solution that supported our organisational objectives and delivered practical results we could incorporate into our business strategy.”

Rebecca Turner, Head of Knowledge Management, Envirolink Northwest

"Having worked with Creative Concern regularly over the last eight years, in several different jobs and on many different projects, I know that I can rely on them for creative work of the highest standard, delivered on time by a team that is a pleasure to work with. Most recently they organised a complicated media launch for me that involved taking TV, radio and print journalists out onto the Irish Sea in a small boat. As always, the organisation was faultless and led to some great publicity, and thankfully no one fell in. I always look forward to working with Creative Concern because I can trust them completely."

Matthew Sutcliffe, Communications Co-ordinator, Irish Sea Conservation Zones

"Creative Concern have helped change perceptions of Wythenshawe through the Real Lives campaign. Their strategic approach has inspired the local community and helped give them a united voice to tell their story in their own words. They have given access and support to many members of our community to speak to the media on the issues they feel passionate about."

Nigel Wilson, Chief Executive, Parkway Green Housing Trust

"Creative Concern, at very short notice, produced a beautiful range of postcards with information about our sites. The postcard format worked well.  Thanks so much for pulling out all the stops to get them together at such short notice - they were a great asset to us on the stand and I'm sure will be very useful in conjunction with future work."

Hayley Skipper, Arts Officer, The Forestry Commission

Our brief to Creative Concern was to develop and produce a logo and website for Re-Use, Explore, Discover (RED) that would engage and ‘involve’ those individuals and organizations coming into contact with the initiative. Without doubt what has made our programme so successful is the way Creative Concern was able to take this brief, translate it and develop it in such way that the communication of the programme was very concise, clear and engaging. The work they produced for us has been so successful RED has become the UK outdoor industries voice for the promotion of‘re-use’ of apparel, footwear and equipment. We are incredibly thankful to them as their work has enabled us to have a dialogue with a considerably larger audience than we originally anticipated.

Don Gladstone. Founder of Re-Use, Explore, Discover'

WIG? - Place.

'How we work

Good communications should be a collaborative and creative process. We work with our clients as partners to really get to grips with the brief, set the priorities, agree the deliverables, identify the target audiences and measure the results.

Clued-up: We regard knowledge gathering as the first step towards delivering a communications solution. We pride ourselves on getting to know your subject, analysing the data and delivering intelligence-led solutions.

Head-stretching: Our aim is to stretch the creativity of a brief as far as possible to ensure your ideas and work stands out from the crowd and has the right impact.

Multi-disciplinary: We are a full service communications agency. From video, multimedia and web development to print design, media relations, strategic planning, advertising and copywriting – Creative Concern has the skills and the experience to provide a full communications service.

Penny pinching: Creative Concern is transparent in its pricing structure and will negotiate on your behalf with any partner agencies to ensure you get the best deal available.

Objects of beauty: We strive to create communications which are effective, powerful and beautiful. We want people to remember and cherish our communications, not ignore them.

Walk the walk: We aim to walk the walk, not just talk the talk. Creative Concern believes passionately in sustainable development, and actively seeks to minimise its environmental impact in all the work we do.'

WIG? - Place.

'Creative Concern was borne out of a belief that communications could change the world. It’s eight years on and this belief remains at the core of our business; it’s what gets us up in the morning. We summarise our approach as: communications for a sustainable future.

We are a creative communications agency, based in Manchester's Northern Quarter, providing design, digital, film and strategic PR and marketing services. Over the past eight years we have grown from a team of 2 to 23, working with over 60 clients on a diverse range of issues. As a company, we are driven by our ethical outlook as well as our ideas and creative edge. We care about what we do. We deliver projects with intelligence and enthusiasm across different disciplines and platforms.

Creative Concern is a new type of agency. We are as likely to be making a film or devising a media campaign, as we are developing a new brand identity or planning a social media campaign. We are a genuinely multi-disciplinary team, working across a range of media to develop powerful and effective marketing and communications. Whether the job is to lead a rallying cry for action, engage the community through consultation or delivering a viral advertising campaign, we have the skills and the team in place.'

This is the ethics of Creative Concern which I have taken from the 'About Us' page on their website. This really captures Creative Concerns positivity and describes the companies aims.

WIG? - Place.

Why is Creative Concern Good?

1. It's close to home.

2. They were very welcoming.

3. The studio is amazing.

4. All the work they do benefits the area of Manchester and its surrounding areas.

5. They will not take on work that could have a negative effect on the environment or the people of the area in which the work is being used.

6. They didn't ignore me, they got me involved with lots of different projects and allowed me to come along and see lots of locations where their work would be used.

7. Nice relaxed environment to work in.

8. They checked up on me regularly and helped me develop my working skills.

9. They showed a massive interest in my work and they work of others that I had found.

10. They never had a negative attitude, they always had a positive response to my ideas and my work and gave me consistent constructive feedback.