Enigma is a dynamic, Newcastle-based integrated communications company, specialising in marketing, advertising, media, interactive, design, strategy, PR and events
There haven’t been any tears for “the good old days of celluloid” from the Enigma creatives since the arrival of our amazing Red Epic camera.
From Enigma Digital leader Glenn Cogan to our very own “kickass” filmmaker, Creative Director Jamie Lewis, the team is embracing the new technology without so much as a glance over its shoulder at the old, putting paid to filmmaking’s reputation as a romantic, nostalgic art.
Jamie, who many people would know as the producer, director and star of the award-winning movie Mikey’s Extreme Romance, says the camera is, as you’d expect, “epic”.
“When you have technology like this at your fingertips, you definitely don’t miss the old stuff,” he says.
Used for movies like Avatar 2, The Social Network and The Great Gatsby, the Red Epic has the most advanced processor of its type in the world and can capture slow motion footage at up to 300 frames per second.
“The Red Epic gives you such cinematic, rich images, we can manipulate and work with what’s been shot to a degree that’s never been possible before.
“As a director, I see the camera giving us more flexibility in the edit suite. It opens up the creative possibilities for us as an agency and gives our clients an end product of exceptional quality.”
Glenn agrees.
“The Red Epic has already proved its worth over and over again and has been running hot on various shoots since its arrival. It’s great we can now offer this to our clients” says Glenn.
It seemed everyone at Charlestown Square’s exclusive Spring Summer Fashion launch fell a little bit in love with Pyjama King Peter Alexander and his new season collection, including the local media, with the event covered on NBN News and several times in TheNewcastle Herald.
At the new season launch to talk to the fashion media about his rise to fame as the man who made sleepwear fashionable, Alexander proved to be as warm and cuddly as his irresistible, trademark PJs.
As part of its Spring Summer Fashion Campaign, Charlestown Square treated Newcastle’s fashion media to an afternoon of luxury with an exclusive launch organised by EnigmaCorp and the GPT team. The afternoon was hosted by Charlestown Square fashion stylist Natalie Baker in the Gold Lounge of Reading Cinemas, with a panel of fashion experts who gave the media a taste of the trends to come.
We ensured journalists were treated to an afternoon to remember, beginning with artisan invitations created in our studio, high tea and champagne, gift bags, interviews and photographs with Peter Alexander and a limousine ride home.
Charismatic and full of fashion anecdotes, Alexander talked to the room about his career, which began with a “crazy idea” and lots of hard work at his mother’s kitchen table.
“Twenty years later I’m still a good Jewish son,” he told everyone. “Whenever I get off a plane, the first thing I do is ring Mum to tell her I’m safe!”
A large hole in the bottom of a helicopter floor might put some people off flying in it. Not so for our intrepid Enigma Digital leader Glenn Cogan, who finds it the perfect peephole for taking photographs from the sky.
A recent shoot saw Glenn taking advantage of such a hole (achieved by removing a floor plate) when he took to the big blue yonder in perfect weather to take a series of shots of residential projects in the south west of Sydney for Enigma client Landcom.
Landcom is a state-owned corporation that designs sustainable communities by master planning and facilitating infrastructure that supports residents.
On board with our client and Enigma account manager Luke Tuckerman, Glenn used two cameras during the shoot, capturing the area with shots for Landcom to include in a report for the NSW Minister for Planning and Infrastructure.
Secured to the chopper (which also had one of the doors removed) with a cable, Glenn was able to shoot a vast area for Landcom, taking in a range of Landcom developments over the greater Sydney area.
“Despite how it sounds, it’s perfectly regulated and safe – the photographs speak for themselves,” Glenn says.
We love a brand challenge of any size. So when Mitchel Hanlon Consulting, a 15 strong multi-disciplinary professional services company based in Tamworth came knocking asking us to help refresh their brand, we were only too happy to help.
For a busy, fast growing company like this one, branding often comes second to the needs of their own clients. However, with a multitude of services on offer at Mitchel Hanlon Consulting, from property and land development, engineering services and project management to environmental, surveying, planning, agricultural and ecological services, the need for a consistent and striking brand was clear.
Our challenge focused around creating a brand and design that was contemporary and reflective of the company’s values, while remaining accessible and relevant to their local client bases.
Working closely with the client, our aim was to position Mitchel Hanlon Consulting as an industry leader; progressive, innovative and above all approachable. Since our relationship began 12 months ago we have worked across a range of collateral to develop and enhance the Mitchel Hanlon Consulting corporate and brand identity, including flyers, letterheads, business cards, newsletters and business templates.
However the biggest element of the brand refresh was the overhaul of the Mitchel Hanlon Consulting website and the development of a dedicated Facebook page. Creating a strong online presence was key to enhancing the brand. We were able to maintain the brand presence throughout the website while ensuring the site was easily accessible and user-friendly for clients.
For any company, regardless of size, delving into the world of social media can be a daunting task. Luckily, with help from our talented digital team, Mitchel Hanlon Consulting took the plunge, resulting in not only a great looking and functional Facebook profile but also some great results!
As many of you may have heard already, there’s been some big changes here at Enigma. Recently we were all excited to welcome ten new team members following our merger with fellow Newcastle creative agency, Peach. With new faces appearing in both our account service and creative teams let us introduce our new talented team members!
It hasn’t taken long for our new Peachy friends to feel at home, all settling quickly into their new environment.
From left to right: Jessica Lantry, Tania Norgrove, Megan Duncan, Ben McInerney and Michelle Kelly.
Starting with account service, we’re excited to be strengthening not only our client service offering with new team members but also our finance and media teams.
Jessica Lantry – Account Manager
With over five years’ marketing experience across a broad range of industries, Jess brings an immense level of enthusiasm and dedication to the Enigma account service team. In her role as Account Manager, Jess will work across a number of clients while continuing to focus on the Klosters Group key account.
Tania Norgrove – Office Manager/ Personal Assistant
Previously the friendly face and voice of Enigma Peach, Tania has now moved into the role of Office Manager. Apart from her duties running the busy Enigma office, Tania will also act as PA to our Managing Director, Lisa Sutton Gardner.
Megan Duncan – Account Manager
Over the past 4 years Megan worked her way through the Peach ranks to the position of Account Manager. Working across a range of clients including Newcastle Council and Mirvac, Megan’s strong work ethic, hands-on experience and creative flair make her a favourite with both clients and colleagues alike. Ben McInerney – Media Manager
Apart from a good sense of humour, Ben brings to Enigma in-depth experience in both emerging and online media as well as traditional media. Having worked on such clients as Universal Pictures, Moet Hennessy and Barclays, Ben adds considerable media muscle to our media team.
Michelle Kelly – Senior Accounts Assistant
Michelle brings years of experience, a cool head and a friendly smile to our finance team. After crunching numbers for the STW group for many years, Michelle finally decided to make the move to Newcastle and is a welcome addition to our finance team.
We also now have additional firepower in our creative team with a dedicated copywriter, web developer and three new art directors.
From left to right: Josh Andrews, Matt Plummer, Tony Phillips, Matt Dawe and Cameron Todd.
Josh Andrews – Art Director
Having worked for several high profile design studios in Sydney and more recently a two-year stint in Melbourne as Head of Art for George Patterson Y&R, Josh brings his considerable talent, experience and impeccable dress sense to the Enigma design studio.
Matt Plummer – Art Director
Recent AWARD school graduate, Matt’s skill, passion and experience offers our clients a strategic approach to every piece of creative. Matt loves nothing more than cracking briefs and delivering top class ideas.
Tony Phillips – Art Director
As Peach’s Head of Art for many years, Tony brings across his exceptional experience and eye for detail to the Enigma team. With a great passion for design and long history producing memorable campaigns, Tony relishes any design challenge.
Matt Dawe – Copywriter
After cutting his creative teeth at multi-award winning agency Droga5, Matt’s thrilled to be bringing his creative imagination and knack for stringing words together to the Enigma creative team. As our new dedicated copywriter, Matt is looking forward to offering our clients big ideas and killer copy.
Cameron Todd – Senior Web Developer
Master juggler, jack-of-all-trades – call him what you will. When it comes to digital, Cam can do it all. Cam joins our digital team as senior web developer working across everything online from design through to development on websites, eDM’s and applications.
Enigma is proud to be a Leadership Partner for the first-ever TEDxNewy event on Saturday 12 November.
TED is a nonprofit organisation devoted to ‘ideas worth spreading’; local, self-organised events are branded TEDx.
Enigma will provide post production work, which will involve editing and uploading all of the speakers’ presentations to the TEDx YouTube channel to encourage the spreading of ideas. Enigma has also created bespoke 10-second introductions that will play before each speaker.
Enigma Creative Director Jamie Lewis said each bumper animation would celebrate Newcastle’s iconic elements – its architecture, its environment and its creative edge.
“All local footage of these key elements has been dynamically shot using Enigma’s new Red Epic camera, which was used to film The Social Network and the upcoming The Great Gatsby,” Jamie said.
“Symmetrical line art and geometrical shapes will be animated into the footage to give a representation of networking between two elements, evolution, symmetry in the environment, beauty in the city’s decay and modernism in architecture, technologies, design and entertainment.”
Enigma is proud to be a sponsor of the TEDxNewy event, which will feature a selection of Newcastle’s leading visionaries who will showcase their ideas live on stage and also online.
TEDxNewy’s theme for 2011 is ‘Shock of the New’ and is designed to ignite new ideas, thinking and direction for the city of Newcastle, Australia and the world.
Enigma staff will attend the event and live-Tweet ideas and opinions from Newcastle’s top thought-leaders.
For further information and the event’s schedule, visit www.tedxnewy.com
Here’s the local Luna Park version.
Essentially, it’s wearing your Facebook login ID as a wrist band and checking in or ‘liking’ and updating your status from a pre-set number of options so as you can continue with your brand experience whilst simultaneously sharing it with your social network.
This style of true on-off-line integration is surely the next leap forward, combining the best of two macro trends the trendwatchers have been talking about for sometime now; Near Field Communication (NFC) and Location Based Advertising (LBA).
All this combined with the ever changing, always growing phenomena that is Social Media…
This area moves so swiftly, it’s a wonder anyone can keep up! But it sure is fun trying.
There’s your little tech / SocMed bite for the day.
Hat tip to @mumbrella for the heads up and the links.
With electronic media gaining more traction every day, it’s great to see that old world publishing isn’t going quietly into the night and continues to innovate.
One would have thought that innovation in the book world was near impossible, with no significant changes between the printing press invention and the advent of the eReader, however, more and more are starting to take notice of the flip-back book.
This Dutch invention takes a standard novel and shrinks it to about 12 x 8cms and orients the book sideways compared to the traditional binding, making these flip-backs perfect commuting reads.
Titles are still sparse but the price is predicted to give you change from a redback when they hit stores before Christmas.
That does raise a good question though — with Angus & Robertson, and Borders now out of business — who is left to sell this huge change in book format? Maybe we’ll just have to use Amazon…
The much aligned punctuation mark may have had it’s day in the sun as the namesake University has discouraged usage in it’s latest official Style Guide.
Whilst not whole heartedly dismissing the comma preceding ‘or’ as well as ‘and’ in a serial list, they do recommend that internal communication and press releases do away with the favourite of many an author.
In a lot of cases, the Oxford comma can remove ambiguity. For instance:
My usual breakfast is coffee, bacon and eggs and toast.
Is this bacon + eggs & toast or bacon and eggs + toast?
The Oxford comma removes this ambiguity:
My usual breakfast is coffee, bacon and eggs, and toast.
That being said, in this day and age of digital communication, and 140 characters or less is there room in the modern world for old-school grammar or should we try and preserve the last bastion of the Queen’s English?
Check out the Independent (UK) for more info, or hit up Twitter — there’s more than an opinion or two there. Don’t forget to let us know what you think in the comments section!
When the Enigma team get together to launch a campaign, they go hard. GPT Charlestown Square wanted to increase traffic through its Fresh Food and Convenience Market and, thanks to “Super Service Suzie” and the team, that’s exactly what happened. Price Busters was a hectic 12 weeks that saw Enigma pull off 12 photo shoots, 13 TVCs, 13 Press ads, 13 live radio reads and 600,000 flyers.
Charlestown Square’s fresh food range is huge and the prices competitive, with weekly specials to make household budgets sing.
Enigma’s mission was to blitz the market by spreading the word and drawing shoppers to the centre to experience the ease and variety at Charlestown Square.
We knew good product and genuine savings were the perfect attraction and came up with Price Busters – a campaign based around some incredible weekly specials.
This idea, when combined with strategically placed media, amazed everyone with its success. On the first day of the campaign, Woolworths sold out of its advertised product – Huggies nappies – that day.
Rump steak, milk, bread, eggs, Kit Kats and jam proved just as successful, with Hunter Valley Growers Market selling 1700 jars of black cherry jam in a week.
Super Suzie (AKA account manager Suzie Ninevski) said the campaign was hectic, but “hugely successful and completely rewarding”.
“It was a great team effort – our media team worked really hard to secure great placements and our edit suite was running hot to produce the TVCs,” Suzie said.
“Not only did we manage 12 photo shoots, 13 TVCs, 13 press ads, 13 live radio reads and 12 flyers dropped at 48,000 homes, we also produced EDMs, online ads, counter cards, centre signage, coupon vouchers for a daily giveaway and floor decals.
“It was a team effort that began with strategy and ended in success for our client.”
