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BBC Radio 1 – New Music TV Ad

BBC Radio 1 have been championing all their specialist music presenters this week by showcasing them all in the daytime hours. So Zane Lowe (who usually is on at 7pm) has been presenting the breakfast show, along with Annie Mac, Huw Stephens and a load of other DJs.

And to support this, the new marketing campaign for Radio 1 has just launched including a new TV trail featuring Fearne Cotton and Zane Lowe. Great to see the new music output being given some big promotion too..

Of course – not everyone likes it….

Here’s the Fearne Cotton one:

Should you love the track ,the song is Antidote – Swedish House Mafia vs Knife Party. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lcdk3ghymzQ

And here’s the Zane Lowe version:

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BBC2 Christmas Animation

BBC 2 CHRISTMAS. IMAGE (C) BBC

I’m now feeling more Christmassy having seen the new animations for BBC2′s Christmas idents. The Jack Frost character seems to have been thawed out and replaced by scenes from an animated town.

The idents, created by Red Bee Media with 15 Badgers feature a number of iterations including “Turkey” and “Scientist”. They are slightly off the wall, but have a real sense of fun to them. I particularly love the intricate sound design and little design details in the animation – the sort of idents that you’ll see loads more in every time you watch.

Take a look and see what you think.

Related articles

• My TV Christmas Cracker: The Gruffalo’s Child (guardian.co.uk)
• Anti – Christmas: Christmas on E4 (jamesstodd.com)

Anti – Christmas: Christmas on E4

Last week I shared the BBC1 Christmas film - positioning BBC1 as the home of entertainment for the whole channel this Christmas. Unlike BBC1, Channel 4′s youth brand station E4 has a completely different feel this Christmas – as these short idents from Matt Layzell at Treat Studios show.

E4 (E stands for Entertainment) is aimed at the 15-35 age group.These animations have a distinctly uncomfortable anti-Christmas feel. But then, who says every channel needs look the same?

It seems these idents build on a fairly distinctive visual style that the channel used to promote various other elements of the output too – as shown in this wrapper for film content.

I really like seeing animation in TV idents – it worked so well for MTV for so many years – and in fact, the longer a channel does it, the bigger the impact. The animation doesn’t have to be in a single, distinctive visual style, but it has to be true to the character of the brand; in MTV’s case, the MTV letters become part of the personality of the visual identity. It’s the equivalent of radio stations trying to maintain an element of sonic distinctiveness through “heritage” musical logos.

The success of both a visual and audio identity is to sustain them over time. In a world where brand managers are always wanting the “new” – this is sometimes easier said than done.