Two Cents

There’s a lot of love in the BCM Sydney office following the news that we’ve been successfully appointed to the Mills & Boon account to handle social media for the iconic brand, as well as the redesign of all Mills & Boon romance novel covers, to be rolled out nationally.

Harlequin is the number 1 romance fiction publisher in the world, selling over 130 million books a year, with a worldwide readership of 50 million women.  In Australia, more than one in every five paperbacks sold is published by Harlequin.

We’re thrilled to be working with Harlequin on the Mills & Boon brand to rekindle the affair with loyal readers, and look forward to showcasing our skills in social media as we introduce the brand to a new, younger audience.

The whole team waits with ‘breathless anticipation’ at the work that will be produced.

Paul Cornwell is a Partner at BCM

Each year, it’s reported that about 70,000 Sydney-siders pound pavement from the city to Bondi in the world’s biggest fun run.

What they don’t mention is how many of the rest of Sydney’s population are affected by a rather powerful condition called City to Surf guilt.

There are hundreds of thousands of people for who the City to Surf is simply a regular pre-Spring reminder that they’ve once again failed to get off their arse and get fit.

These people will always need excuses and if ‘the need to get fit in the privacy of your own home’ can be one, then so be it.

That’s the thinking behind this full page press ad we ran for Radio Rentals’ fitness equipment.

It was conceived and put together in a couple of days and ran for an unprintably cheap price in the Sun Herald on the day of the run (thousands of free copies were handed out in Bondi too).

We thank a good and fast acting client and will be keeping our eyes peeled for further topical opportunities.

Geoff Reid is BCM Sydney’s Creative Director

Today I have reached the final day of my internship here at BCM in Sydney, which has left me filled with a mixed bag of emotions: sad (to leave), proud (of what I have achieved), happy (to be going to finish my last semester of uni ever), enlightened (from what I have observed and the tasks I have completed), and finally excited as I have now re-confirmed my decision to work in advertising, and further confirmed my interest into the strategic planning field.

Since starting here two weeks ago, I have had the chance to meet a lot of interesting people with such a wide range of skills and talent, who were ever so helpful and welcoming towards me from day one. I’ve got to work on a few big scale clients including Radio Rentals, Sunbeam, and Artline. I got to work in a range of different departments including: Account service, Media, and Creative.

Although we get to work on real life clients at university, it still does not compare to the calibre of work that is done here at BCM. It has been great to see behind the scenes of how an agency functions from how meetings are booked to how pitches are pitched. From just observing the work done here in Sydney, it is inspiring to see the constant thinking, and innovative ideas that are developed here.

Since I started on my first day doing research on the current clients, my eyes and ears suddenly appeared to become more open and absorbent, as I have realised how competitive this industry is. Gerry had asked me to check the news websites as well as Adnews and B&T each day, and although I am already a current user of those sites, I only seemed to use them when I needed something, but it has now become my new daily habit, and I now feel weird if I haven’t done my morning lap around the news sites. So thanks Gerry for giving me another reason to procrastinate whilst avoiding uni work!

But all in all I have had a great two weeks here at BCM in Sydney, and I hope to possibly return to do another two weeks here in my next break in September. Thank you so much to Gerry for giving me this opportunity and making it all possible, and thank you to everyone at the BCM team in Sydney for being so kind and making the effort to give me an insight into your lives. To all of you I didn’t get to meet in Brisbane – I hope I will get to meet you one day.

Melanie Thorne Charles Sturt University Student

A quick head’s up to all Two Cents readers that BCM will be appearing on one of Australian TV’s most popular programs, The Gruen Transfer, on Wednesday night.

We were invited to appear on the popular ‘The Pitch’ segment, where two agencies go head-to-head answering an off-the-wall creative brief.

Creative Director Nick Ikonomou headed down to Sydney recently to film the spot. He wasn’t allowed to tell anyone who won though, so we’re all pretty excited to see the outcome!

Be sure to tune in tonight (Wednesday) at 9pm on ABC.