News and blog

Digital media are completely reshaping the world in which we live and particularly the marketing industry within which we, here at Madhouse, work. We often get asked by clients what the differences are between this “new” digital realm and the traditional one that everyone knows and understands. In response, we thought we’d bring you a series of short blog posts about what digital means for the different areas of our business. To kick us off, planning director Clare Briscall talks about what digital means for planning.

Our regular Madhouse seminars have become a highlight of the Manchester marketing calendar, with a steady stream of regular attendees and newcomers all enjoying insightful speakers in an informal setting.

The next seminar, which takes place on November 30^th, will take a good look into the future, though we won’t be buffing up our crystal ball in order to get a good view of what lies in store. Instead, we’ve invited Andrew Gordon to peer into ‘The Future of Digital’ and help us all make the most of the opportunities ahead.

We experienced a nice bit of experiential marketing recently when we entertained our good friends and clients from Toyota at a swanky new restaurant called Australasia based in Spinningfields, Manchester.

Back in July we held the very first Madhouse best practice seminar on social media, and the response was phenomenal. As an integrated agency using social media for the benefit of our clients, we called on two industry specialists to give us their views on how social media can work for business.

We always like to see emerging technology here at Madhouse, and there was plenty on display at this year’s ad:tech exhibition.

Earlier this week, our friendly search giant released Google Instant to the world. This huge change to Google’s search engine delivers dynamic real-time search results as you type with no clicking required! (Collective “WOW!”). Google actually calls it “search before you type” because Google Instant predicts what you’re about to type and delivers search results based on those predictions. With predictive search and instant results, you can often get the answer you want much faster.

Are these changes going to affect the way we look at SEO? Only time will tell.

I’m personally very impressed with the changes and in order to demonstrate my enthusiasm, I’ve already submitted the new feature to rigorous scientific testing. As a result of which, I can now reveal the alphabet according to Google.co.uk…

I wasn’t sure what to title our latest blog, so why did I plump for the above? Well we all know how Carlsberg’s famous strapline goes, and as we at Madhouse hosted our first free best practice seminar earlier this month, it was a phrase that I couldn’t help bringing to mind.

Madhouse might be based in land-locked Manchester, but recently we’ve been immersed in a world of foam-crested breakers, sun-bleached hair and the salty tang of the ocean. Not that we’ve moved the studio to Bondi. It’s just that we’ve been creating a new surf-based website for the soft drink specialists Calypso.

When it comes to looking after ourselves here at Madhouse, we reckon we scrub up fairly well when we need to. Certainly, the clouds of cologne that billow round the office before any agency night out would suggest that we all take at least a little pride in our appearance. So perhaps that’s why we’ve managed such a great job on four prestigious personal care websites for Lornamead?