Between the 20th and 22nd May the instore industry will be visiting Earl’s Court for the Instore Show.

In partnership with Instore Magazine, the Instore Show is a must for brand owners and marketers who are looking to increase their share of voice and drive sales.

With the opportunity to find out about the latest innovations in merchandising and POS, it’s always a source of new ideas and aha! moments that can be translated into real business results.

The Jupiter team will be there at G49, next to the conference theatre.

If you want to find out more about what we do and and how our creative communications expertise has helped our current clients, come and have a cup of tea with us.

Even better, if you give us a flavour of your brand’s challenges and opportunities and we’ll happily share our initial thoughts.

We look forward to seeing you there.

Boots has a fleet of over 1,000 LGVs and trailers, distributing to 1,500 stores across the UK and Ireland from head office in Nottingham. We were asked by Boots to rethink the branding of the fleet in order to maximise their marketing potential.

Our solution was a series of simple graphic ideas, which promote and enhance the Boots brand by linking it to the road environment. Each design features a clever play on words to link the key Boots areas of beauty, healthcare, photo services, cosmetics and baby with road use.

The reaction from our Boots team and their customers has been very positive – the simple humour and design make Boots seem warmer and more friendly than brands with standard corporate advertising.

The campaign has also been shortlisted in The Motor Transport Awards 2008 for the Livery of the Year Award, the results of which will be announced on 2nd July.

Have a look at the beautiful work of Emma Hack, an Australian who taught herself to paint.

Her work is inspired by ornate wallpaper designs.

The real wow factor is that her chosen canvases are bodies and some of them took a painstaking 19 hours to create.

There’s a growing trend for consumers to mix old with the new, to scout out the best bargains in second hand shops and then team it with the latest cutting edge fashion item.

I’ve seen an interesting new brand called Loop Kids, created by a mum who recognised just how much stuff you can acquire, use a few times (or never at all) and then bin.

The brand taps in perfectly to the concerns of consumers about the planet and also turns the norm on its head – that shopping for second hand has to be in a jumbled and tatty environment.

Her London store has been carefully designed and merchandised to appeal to the yummy mummy brigade.

It’s chic, bright and a million miles away from dusty racks of odds and sods at knock down prices.

We may have thought it bizarre viewing graffiti art in a cosy gallery in prestigious Knightsbridge 15 years ago, but this is where I visited the recent Banksy exhibition.

The space itself was intimate and understated – you could feel close to the controversial, political and witty work while being positively encouraged to use your camera.

There seems to be a growing appetite for Brit street art, with Banksy leading the charge. The adoption of urban art by established galleries has given it a new cultural and social gravitas as well as a bigger price tag. A Banksy mural originally commissioned by a club in Brighton listed a guide price of £150,000 - £200,000 at Bonhams recently. With street art now reaching these astronomical prices, it’s no wonder that some debate a loss of integrity or ask if it remains true to its cultural roots.

For me, being able to view his work in this environment makes it more accessible. For many years my experience of his work has been through books, the internet and newspapers. Many of us haven’t had the privilege of seeing his spontaneous and contentious work in the real world.

I recently read the anonymous artist is understood to be in talks with D&AD to take a senior role in the organisation. Could it be the top job left vacant by Michael Hockney last year?

I’m a lover of textile design, always have been. It’s often an inspiration in my work. So I was over the moon to read that Celia Birtwell has applied some of her recent fashion designs for Topshop to home textiles for the first time.

The pretty oversize floral patterns will be available to buy as metres of fabric for you to make your own cheerful curtains and cushions.

The new range, called Pop Story, uses four patterns from the seventies that she used in her hugely successful collection for Topshop. The four designs selected for the first fashion-based home textile range are Candy Flower, Mystic Daisy, Pop Check and Posh Dot. Her reignited success from her collaboration with Topshop should make this the ideal time for her to build on her home textiles business.

The streets are alive with bright, beautiful, joyous colour. On a recent trip to see what a shift in season had brought to the high street I was overcome with the abundance of colour, it was everywhere. Like someone had waved a big magic wand, spring had arrived.

If there’s anything that will lift your winter blues it’s a trip down to Knightsbridge. Harvey Nichols ‘Futuristic Flower’ theme for Spring looks like another world. The giant neon triffid sculptures grow and wind around mannequins, forming tangled cocoons that dangle perfume and accessories from spiraling tendrils.

Harrods has gone colour crazy with a botanical feel. Their ‘Senses’ theme is a spring wonderland complete with grass carpet, orchids and butterflies. The beautifully illustrated decals are a dreamy vision of strawberries, ferris wheels, pussy cats and perfume. One vivid set features a Mathew Williamsonesque dress sculpture made completely of butterflies and surrounded by a litter of gorgeous shoes in shades of citrus and pink. The Fendi window brought a bit of an edge and some attitude to the whole display – with its graffiti covered walls and plastic teddy bears it had a trendy Tokyo feel.

Fortnum and Mason have opted for their trademark theatrical piles of luxury. The windows are positively dripping with opulence and the odd bit of wit here and there. The colour here was more candy and fairy cake icing, displayed on statuesque pillars – the whole thing looked good enough to eat.

So if you’re looking for a bit of escapism from the toils of work, the mortgage crisis and news of an impending recession, visit Utopia, on a high street near you. It’s blooming marvelous.

A big thank you to all who came along to the Jupiter & Friends event last Thursday.

The Jupiter team and their clients enjoyed a fascinating session run by Pippa Rees, personal branding expert.

She shared the reality about how personal appearance in the workplace really does count and how changing your clothes can lead to transformational changes in your success.

With practical hints and insider knowledge from the world of image management for celebrities and politicians, there was plenty to think and talk about.

www.stylecompany.co.uk
www.nakedambitionlive.com

Achieving Recommended Agency status is a real symbol of excellence. So we’re delighted to announce that Jupiter is now on the RAR list.

Each year the Recommended Agency Register (RAR) undertakes a huge research project in association with MRUK Research. Their purpose is to gain a really independent insight into the skills and abilities of creative agencies.

The idea is that truly independent information can help businesses looking for a new agency to work with – they can be sure that any agency on the RAR list has received a glowing report from its clients. RAR surveyed several of Jupiter’s key clients and asked them what they think about us in five important areas:

Creativity and innovation
Account management
Value for money
Strategic thinking
Overall professionalism

Having scored well in every area, we were awarded Recommended Agency status.

Over recent years we’ve seen increasing mass media coverage of the effects of global warming. But the reports come at a cost: ‘global warming’ is now a phrase that has lost a lot of its impact, and has become more of a droning nag.

Ubik has produced an inspiring piece of motion graphics for MTV switch to address the problem. MTV 3650 sends out all the right messages, and takes the viewer back to school to teach them a thing or two about the effects we are having on our planet.

I was really impressed with the way that it combines 3D and real life footage in a seamless and playful way. The tone is very subtle, and this helps emphasise the alarming message at the end.

It’s a great piece of motion graphics and one of the best I’ve seen that addresses a very serious issue. It will get admiration for its execution, but I hope people take the message it delivers seriously. Take a look at the spot and see what you think.