Accrue News

Accrue helps Interserve Plc report a year of significant achievement and progress

Tue, 08 May 2012 00:00:00 +0100

Interserve is one of the world's foremost support services and construction companies. Following a successful creative pitch at the end of 2011, Accrue has now completed the design and production of Interserve Plc’s 2011 Annual Report and Financial Statements, as well as the company’s Sustainability Report.

Interserve required an agency that had the right blend of corporate reporting experience, creativity and strategic insight, which is why they chose us. Following close collaborative working between Accrue and Interserve’s Marketing Team, we developed a clear proposition or corporate ‘story’ that would act as the foundation upon which the Annual Report’s key content would be built. This story - ‘Every day, we’re planning, creating and managing the world around you’ - reinforced the positive impact and added value generated by Interserve’s activities. It communicated the fact that Interserve was much more than just a construction company; it could not only help build a new school or workplace, for example, but it could also help to manage the site’s catering, security, and maintenance, as well. This story led to the proposition, ‘Across the world, people wake to a new day. We help make it a great day’.

As well as encompassing this overall story and proposition within the Annual Report, Accrue also featured imagery, charts, graphs and ‘pull-out’ statistics to create an informative, clear and engaging document.

Running parallel to the Annual Report, was the development of the company’s Sustainability Report, that retained a similar ‘look and feel’, but with a different story that placed sustainability at the cornerstone of the business: ‘Sustainability – At the heart of everything we do’.

Helping Arnold Lodge School tell their unique story

Wed, 02 May 2012 00:00:00 +0100

Arnold Lodge is an excellent independent school in Royal Leamington Spa, who wanted help in telling people what was so great about their school.

We were approached because of our knowledge of the educational sector and our work on the 'distinct' project in Higher Education. Our approach was to run a workshop that captured the School's essence - a story - following a period of research and discovery. The outcome was a clear articulation of who, what and why the school was distinct from others.

"This is the first time we've ever sat around the table and all agreed what it is we wanted to say about our School".

Creative Balls� delivers top award for Oxford University Press

Wed, 02 May 2012 00:00:00 +0100

Accrue was asked to help Oxford University Press develop the concept and name for their new free parent support website for primary children – Oxford Owl.

Using the Creative Balls methodology and specific metaphoric thinking tools, Accrue helped the team define the overall proposition and online experience.

Oxford Owl launched in 2011 has become one of the most popular parent support websites, both within the UK and around the world.

As Rod Theodorou, Primary Business Director, Oxford University Press, explains, “Parental engagement is proven to be a huge contributing factor to children’s learning success and so we are delighted that Oxford Owl ‐ our FREE parent support website - has also been recognised by BETT. Since its launch in early 2011, it has become the most popular, teacher‐endorsed website to support parents with their child’s learning. With over 250 free eBooks, hundreds of fun activities, expert advice and practical tips for reading and maths in the primary years, it’s truly unique. We’re absolutely committed to providing both teachers and parents with free support when they need it most and look forward to continuing to develop Oxford Owl as part of this mission.”

The BETT awards took place on 11th January 2012 at Olympia, London.

Highly commended speaker at CASE 2010

Mon, 30 Apr 2012 00:00:00 +0100

Richard Gillingwater was recognised as an outstanding speaker at this year's 2010 CASE (Council for Advancement and Support of Education) conference in Manchester. Richard spoke on 'Engaging people with your story, internally and externally' and how storytelling is a powerful way to communicate even at a corporate level.

Storytelling workshops - Kingston University

Thu, 26 Apr 2012 00:00:00 +0100

Accrue has just run the first of several 'storytelling' workshops - designed to help different teams within Kingston University tell their story in a more powerful way. This follows Accrue's recent work on the brand story for Kingston University. The underlying objectives of these workshops were to:

Help them understand the power of story telling and what makes a good story
Start collecting stories which they can use in their communications
Enable them to use stories strategically in communicating key and challenging issues

What wasn't part of the brief, but was an outcome, was:

greater team spirit through sharing stories
realisation that stories can help unblock difficult challenges within the organisation

Read more - The Kingston case study

Accrue Creative Design helps NFU Mutual customers get more �Wealthwise� this Spring

Tue, 24 Apr 2012 00:00:00 +0100

Accrue Creative Design has just developed the Spring edition of a financial magazine for its long-term financial services client, NFU Mutual.

Entitled ‘Wealthwise’, the personal finance magazine features topical articles on tax tips and pension planning issues for NFU Mutual’s investment customers. Accrue designed the magazine layout and overall ‘look and feel, and sourced Spring-themed cover imagery to reflect the Spring time distribution date and NFU Mutual’s brand values. Accrue also designed a direct mail letter to be sent out to customers alongside the ‘Wealthwise’ magazine, as well as a parallel version of the magazine for distribution to NFU Mutual customers via the organisation’s local office network.

This work on the Spring edition of ‘Wealthwise’ follows Accrue’s work last year to refresh the overall design of the publication which culminated in the new look Winter edition that was launched in December 2011.

Oxford University Press select Accrue Digital

Tue, 10 Apr 2012 00:00:00 +0100

Following the successful launch of the Oxford University Press Global web site last year, which Accrue Digital helped design and develop, Accrue has been selected again to help build the new Oxford Educational online shop.

Accrue Digital's Managing Director, Tony Probert explained "We really enjoy working with the team at OUP. They have a very clear strategy of where they see the organisation digitally in the future. This is a great opportunity for us to work with one of the World's leading educational publishing houses to build an online shop that really stands out from the competitors".

Accrue Digital launches new client site monitoring system

Sun, 01 Apr 2012 00:00:00 +0100

Our clients' web sites are our passion, so we go to great lengths to ensure they perform to their full potential.

That is why we have just launched our new client site monitoring system, which is installed in our Leamington Spa office.

Designed to monitor our servers together with over 100 client sites, this system shows in real time their performance, alerting the technical team to any issues.

This initiative, along with our on-going partnership with our ISP, RackSpace, ensures we continue to provide an exceptional level of hosting and technical support to our clients.

Accrue launches new corporate web sites

Wed, 28 Mar 2012 00:00:00 +0100

As part of its on-going strategy of strengthening its digital offering, Accrue launch their new family of corporate websites.

Richard Guy, Group Managing Director, explained "Our new websites position us perfectly for the next phase of our growth. They demonstrate not only our digital expertise but will also be a key communication channel with the digital community".

Accrue's family of sites will increase over the coming months to include new mobile sites and a client extranet.

A new brochure for NFU Mutual that Vivaldi would have been proud of!

Tue, 27 Mar 2012 00:00:00 +0100

Accrue Creative Design has just developed a new commercial insurance brochure for its long-term financial services client, NFU Mutual.

The brochure features design elements, imagery, and copy developed by Accrue, as well as an overall proposition of: ‘four ways we do right by you – season after season’.

An image of a landscape scene split into four sections – one for each of the four seasons – runs throughout the document and helps to form four tabbed sections that underpin NFU Mutual’s overall offer:

• Local Presence

• Financial Strength

• Bespoke Cover

• Mutuality

The brochure - designed in an A4 format - is targeted at NFU Mutual’s commercial insurance customers. These customers predominantly include small to medium enterprises (SMEs), larger businesses and organizations, as well as the farming community.

The seasonal, landscape imagery represents a ‘look and feel’ very much in keeping with NFU Mutual’s brand values. Alongside the proposition copy, the imagery helps to reinforce NFU Mutual’s strong values and how it consistently delivers for its customers, ‘season after season’.

Accrue designs new Donor Report for Somerville College, University of Oxford

Fri, 02 Mar 2012 00:00:00 +0100

Accrue Creative Design has been selected by Somerville College, University of Oxford, to develop a new report that will shortly be sent out to the College's fundraising campaign donors.

Somerville College was founded in 1879 and fosters a pioneering spirit. Some of its high profile alumni include Baroness Thatcher and Indira Gandhi.

Somerville College asked us to develop a design that would be both informative and engaging, with the objective of inspiring existing and potential donors to contribute to the College's £25 million fundraising campaign. The 'look and feel' of the report needed to retain the traditional values of the College, whilst being forward-thinking in its overall style and tone.

We designed a logo device that featured on the cover and throughout the report to radiate a clear proposition for Somerville's fundraising campaign: 'Celebrating the Past; Investing in the Future'.

We wish Somerville College all the very best with their fundraising efforts and we look forward to working with them on other projects throughout 2012.

Improving presentation skills for designers

Sat, 25 Feb 2012 00:00:00 +0100

Accrue's Richard Gillingwater ran a unique training workshop for a group of designers at Pearson Publishing. Richard was invited in to help a design team improve their presentation skills.

What Richard offered was nothing like a normal training programme – how you structure presentation material or how you speak. Instead, Richard focused on the stories that played in people's heads before they presented. He focused on how the 'mindful stories' - thinking patterns that existed in people's minds - acted as barriers. He then identified the individual natural strengths amongst the team members and then helped them rewrite their 'mindful stories'. This approach really helped transform not just their presenting skills, but also their attitude towards presenting.

"This was a very demanding session as it required them to understand their fears", explained Richard. "The designers then had to detach themselves from their creative ideas and view things from the audience's perspective."

Accrue works with 'Distinct in H.E.' on new university initiative

Fri, 27 Jan 2012 00:00:00 +0100

What makes a university distinctive? This is a key challenge for all universities. Accrue will be working with 'Distinct in H.E.' to help develop a programme that supports universities in identifying and communicating what makes them distinctive. Accrue brings to this partnership a direct experience of branding in the HE sector, as well as a creativity programme (Creative Balls™) and corporate storytelling propositions.

Find out how to make your university distinct and compelling through storytelling

"Accrue's unique blend of sector experience, storytelling and creativity made them the ideal partner"

Distinct in HE

Retention, Retention, Retention! Accrue helps NFU Mutual paint a clearer picture

Tue, 24 Jan 2012 00:00:00 +0100

Long-standing client, NFU Mutual, recently instructed Accrue Creative Design to develop a new creative concept to be applied to a DL mailer that would be sent out to existing personal insurance customers.

The objective of the communication is to retain as many existing customers as possible by asking them to ensure they have all of the facts in place if they happen to compare their soon to end current policy with the so-called 'cheaper' headline rates of rival providers.

After a creative discovery session, we developed a new proposition to front the communication: "Some insurers paint a 'greener picture', but just look at the facts. When it's time to renew, remember it's the finer details that matter."

This main message was reinforced by the use of bold imagery consisting of a paint brush with grass-like, green bristles. Engaging copy on the inner panels of the DL helped convey the key reasons why customers should continue to renew with NFU Mutual and not look elsewhere for a so-called 'better deal'.

At the time of writing, the mailer is about to be distributed to tens of thousands of NFU Mutual's personal insurance customers across the UK, alongside their renewal documentation. So watch this space!

Interserve appoint Accrue as their reporting partner.

Thu, 12 Jan 2012 00:00:00 +0100

Interserve, one of the world's foremost support services and construction companies, has appointed Accrue to develop their annual, interim and sustainability reports.

In line with their strategic focus to deliver long term, sustainable shareholder value, Interserve has decided to produce a separate sustainability report this year. Accrue will also be producing an online version of the annual report.

Pacific Basin nominated for the �Best Reporting� category at the IR Magazine Greater China Awards 2011.

Thu, 12 Jan 2012 00:00:00 +0100

Pacific Basin, the HKEX listed shipping company, has been recognised by the investment community for their excellent reporting as part of a comprehensive and independent three-month-long research process that identifies the best corporate IR teams across a range of categories.

Companion Care Vets launch new identity

Tue, 13 Dec 2011 00:00:00 +0100

Accrue has developed Companion Care Vets' new brand identity. This was launched in their new Ayr surgery in Scotland.

Companion Care Vets are the leading veterinary practice in the UK and part of the same group as Pets at Home. Accrue has been working with them over the past 6 months to develop their brand identity and supporting visual identity that will be rolled out across their sites, as well as online.