What’s it all about Alfie? You might have received one of our hard back books in the last few days – if so please let us know what you think! If not, please get in touch as we’d be happy to send you one!
Our new campaign showcases how DCE think differently, and leading up to our 30th anniversary next year, we’ve created our story as a ladybird style book.
The idea was the brainchild of David Cox, Chairman and the guys in our creative team leapt to the challenge in creating the content in a retro style.
Alfie is the office pup, owned by our Finance Director, Yvonne, and it seemed an ideal opportunity to bring Alfie to life by telling the DCE story through his eyes.
Instead of creating a company brochure, we began this project by researching size and typefaces used in the original books and then sourcing our own photography, which we adapted in Photoshop. We discovered that the classic pocket-sized mini-hardback Ladybird book measured roughly four-and-a-half by seven inches (11.5 cm by 18 cm). Early books used a standard 56-page format, chosen because a complete book could be printed on one large standard sheet of paper.
Through our connections we found exactly the right hard back book manufacturer, and engaged them to advise us on the type of paper we should use for the best results, and to keep the book as authentic as possible. Our Creative team then prepared the artwork to echo the size and format, modified photography images and illustrations and created a storyboard of content, whilst writing the story using the limited, and repetitive, vocabulary we’ve come to love from Ladybird books.
Ladybird books can be traced back to 1897, but they really came into their own as children’s books in 1914. In the 1960s and 1970s the books were heavily used by primary schools as they used reduced vocabulary and repetition, to help young children learn to read. In October 2015, it was announced that Ladybird books would be publishing its first series of books for adults. The eight books, which parody the style and artwork of the company’s books for children, include the titles :
The Hangover, Mindfulness, Dating and The Hipster, and many more.
For our project we were thrilled to engage Jon Owen, well known artist and illustrator, to help us create the much loved Alfie character. Using our storyboard Jon created around 20 illustrations capturing our cheeky hero in different guises, and positions, for us to drop into our photography. It has been an amazing project to work on, and one we are very proud of.
The campaign is rolling out throughout 2019, as we lead up to our 30 year anniversary in 2020, and we plan to have competitions, collectables and a lot of fun, which will culminate in our birthday party in June 2020. Throughout the duration of the campaign we’ll get to know our customers and prospects, who we hope will join in with the humour, and become part of our celebrations!
This campaign highlights the core of DCE – the way we think of things differently and, having enjoyed many years of success, we want to show the lighter and more creative side of the company.
Our clients are our friends, relationships are formed and enjoyed over the years we work together, and we hope that comes across in this light hearted look within the walls of our business, through the eyes of Alfie.
For your copy, please write in to alfie@dcegroup.co.uk, and tag #dcealfie in any posts and we’ll surprise you as the campaign develops.
We’ve had many hours of humour creating this campaign and we hope you enjoy it as much as we have!