Through the years

At Absolute, we believe in great ideas. We also believe in developing great ideas for our clients. We help them build their brand through the right channels, whether that’s digital or print. Our clients trust us, and because of this we develop great relationships. With our 15th year birthday just around the corner, we wanted to showcase just some of those great ideas we have produced over the years.

So let’s go right back to the beginning, in October 1999, Absolute Media Solutions opened its doors and began creating bespoke Interactive CD-ROMs. We worked with the likes of the Dubai Tourism Board and the makers of Pokemon! The company did really well and things were going great, but like anything it had to come to an end, due to a little thing called the internet! This inevitably led to the death of the CD-ROM.

So over the years Absolute has had to change their approach, while still keeping great ideas at the top of the list. We picked up clients such as Intel, who commissioned us to produce an infographic to communicate how embedded internet and connected technologies have grown since their inception back in the 60s. We produced a complex matrix of line work consisting of several interlocking "trees" along a vertical timeline. Each tree is colour coded for each "branch" of technology.

We also still had a strong obsession with digital, and created web experiences for some great tourism and sports clients such as the Barbados Tourism Authority, Go Lakes, Marketing Lancashire, Royal Birkdale Golf Club and Thruxton.

However the one that stands out from the crowd was when we got the opportunity to work with the boxer, Amir Khan. We were asked to help Amir's presence online, as well as creating official merchandise which could be sold online. We picked up on a few key pages were we knew we could create something a little bit special. For the statistics page we created a detailed and fully animated infographic highlighting Amir's career as well as creating a fights page that plots all of Amir's fights in an interactive timeline.

Despite the tight deadline, we were proud of the work we produced and were even more thrilled to pick up a handful of awards such as the Awwwards SOTD, and nominations at the DADI and MI Awards. This was a great landmark for the agency and made clients and agencies take notice of our little chapel in Horwich.

E-commerce is a strong service that we offer here at Absolute. We have gained a wide span of clients that have come to us to help them with their sales and stand out in their market. We have worked with the likes of Dolci Follie, a lingerie client based in London. We also work with Wallpaper Central, based in Blackburn. For both clients we manage their stores and push great ideas to increase sales and ROI.

We have also built up great relationships with education clients, such as The University of Manchester, The University of Bradford to name a few, creating online platforms for them both. We have also been successful in joining the University of Manchester’s agencies roster, which is a great achievement for our agency.

We don’t just work with universities, we also work with a handful of high schools, such as Giggleswick School. We have worked with Giggleswick for the past 5 years. Over that time we have worked closely with the marketing team and they trust us with their brand. We have worked on their print collateral, which includes prospectus, stationery, and annual fund, as well as their website. We packaged everything up into their very own brand bible. The 72 page brand guidelines ensures the brand stays coherent and consistent as their brand grows and develops.

We also love the challenge of working on projects that might not seem that attractive. We worked recently with a doner meat manufacturer called Sultan. We helped them define their brand and positioned them as the “The King of Doner”. From this we created some tasty premium packaging as well as all their brand collateral. From here we created an advertising campaign that involved a days photoshoot, to help bring our ideas to life.

We also love helping charities. Trust Music is a perfect example of this. The brief to Absolute was to capture the passion that the children have for their music, and the passion that all of the team at the charity have. We started by positioning Trust Music as an inspiring charity that is inclusive and from this, developed the line ‘Put your heart into music’. This was then a good steer for creating the heart-shaped headphones brand mark. We met with the inspirational children involved in the project when we held a photography shoot, where we had over 30 children playing instruments and singing their little hearts out. To make sure the brand remained cohesive going forward, we produced a set of brand guidelines that were easy to follow, easy to understand and contained all the necessary assets to help the charity become more recognisable as a worthy organisation.

And finally the latest project we have worked on, which is arguably one of the best pieces of work we have produced as an agency. We had the pleasure of working with a Burlesque Supper Club based in London called The Wam Bam Club. Their old brand had become a bit disjointed and they needed to define who they are. We helped position them as a “feast of fantasy” which fitted them perfectly. Then we began the creation of their brand marquee which is a clever idea of taking the W in their name and a corset and mixing them together. Perfect!

Once we were happy with the brand as a whole, we now needed some clear art direction for their new responsive website that we were tasked to produce. We called on the photographer Guy Farrow and down to London we went to carry out a photoshoot that included burlesque dancers, whips on fire and a couple of buff boys!

The result is a stunning website that is fully responsive and has already been nominated for few awards, which which couldn’t be happier about!

As an agency we are still growing but continue to make sure "great ideas" are at the heart of everything we do.