At Carousel, we have an ethos: Where Eagles Dare. The classic movie is all about triumph over adversity and follows a closely knit team who pull off the ultimate mission – where failure was a certainly – but nothing is impossible for this team! So, it slowly became the unofficial Carousel motto. And this year, we dared where others didn’t. We made the impossible possible. And we worked our absolute socks off.
So we decided to write a year in review blog. Not because we wanted to show off, but because we did some really great work and we’re so proud of everyone in our team and…actually yes we are absolutely willing to show off.
As we welcomed 2017, we packed our stuff and moved to the Northern Quarter, the home of independent businesses, great bars and the spirit of independence. We also welcomed ten new members of staff to our ever-growing team to keep up with the demands of new business and introduce some new skills to our offering. We also maintained a Top 20 spot in the Pro North Top 50 agencies and won a PRCA Award for our work with Intu Trafford Centre: Little Black Graphene Dress
Whilst we continued to go from strength to strength with our current clients, we also won a host of new clients and projects in 2017 including Moda, BlowLtd, Tatton Park, Hermes, The British Music Experience, Xtrax, How The Light Gets In, East Coast Concepts and Little Tikes.
Festivals are a big part of life at Carousel and in 2017 we looked after nine huge outdoor events, including Festival No6, bluedot, Sound City, Victorious, Truck and Y Not. And for mini festival goers we headed up campaigns for Rave a Roo and Geronimo. As well as hosting hundreds of press and bloggers on site, the team also looked after all media relations in the run up to the events, generating hits across a wide range of national & regional press, broadcast media and specialist music titles.
The senior team have a long heritage of working in the toys and games sector and 2017 proved to be a bumper year for our client MGA. Back in February, we launched LOL Surprise by unboxing the UK’s biggest toy unboxer. We also developed a digital strategy that grew the social media channels to double the KPIs, as well as gaining an amazing 19.5k followers on PopJam. LOL Surprise! later went on to become the one of the best selling toy in the country and won a prestigious Dream Toy in November.
For our retail clients, we arranged press showcases, blogger nights, Christmas light switch ons, new product launches, celebrity PAs, book signings and seasonal activations like The Garden at The Bentall Centre in Kingston.
Our hardworking press team for beauty clients Currentbody and BlowLtd organised London press launches throughout the year, getting product straight into the hands of top beauty writers. We achieved over 50 national newspaper review and features as well as hits in top women’s glossies, on key beauty blogs and even made it on to This Morning with Phil and Holly for the PMD Lip Plumper.
In between all of the hard work, we made the most of the 2pm office bar opening and managed to enjoy several team socials, including a trip to Blackpool Pleasure Beach, the Crystal Maze and Breakout Rooms.
2018… We are ready for you!
