Turn Key Blog. Things we've done and the things we love.

Last Friday, the Turn Key boys donned their football boots and ventured up to Seacroft for the Lucozade Powerleague five-a-side competition.

After an eventful experience last year (for those who don’t remember, our designer Darren broke his wrist) Sean , Matt , Jac, Oliver, Oli , Scott  and Carl were more determined than ever to save face and put up a good fight. With the regional finals held at the one and only Wembley Stadium, this was a competition we really wanted to win.

Unfortunately though, the tournament didn’t go as planned. After warming up in the first game, we lost out 7-0, cue slightly embarrassed faces all round.

Our confidence wasn’t knocked though and the boys soldiered on through the second game, which was lost with a smaller goal gap of just 5-2 thanks to Matt’s excellent shot stopping and more shape on the field from the whole team.

The final game was the closest yet, Team TK’s determination grew and we missed out on a draw by just a whisker with the full time score 3-2.

Despite the fact we lost all three games, this year’s tournament was a moral victory for the TK boys! Although we lost, we improved every game and left the stadium with no broken bones and some great teamwork under our belt, maybe we just need to start training for next year’s tournament now…

We’re well into January now and 2013 is looking to be a busy one for the creative industry. Our team of design, PR, marketing and digital experts have put their heads together to predict the future trends that will be coming our way this year.

Jude Turner, Head of Digital

“My prediction is that data will become increasingly important – not just what we do with it but how we analyse it.

“As clients become more and more demanding regarding ROI for their marketing spend, we will have to show them how to understand their customers better – using social media, web analytics, email stats and search results – so they can give them more relevant and targeted content and better convert stats into sales!”

Leanne Bayston, PR Account Manager

“The digital sphere is changing the way we consume news and how businesses engage with their audiences. This will continue to evolve in 2013 and PR agencies which don’t embrace this will be left behind.

“We’ve already been working closely with our digital team to develop strategies for our clients. PR will continue to become more about two-way communication and engaging with an audience rather than pushing messages at them.”

Richard Colvill, Creative Director

“I’m starting to see a massive shift of interest into user interface design. This has come about since the iPhone etc and is a great way to showcase attention to detail and to make apps much more appealing. Our designers are all spending more time designing, crafting, shading and texturing user friendly graphics. This is something that all designers are putting their skills to, not just digital designers. These gorgeous buttons and elements are right up our street as they always utilise light and shade along with texture and depth, which is part of our house style.

“A bit of a digi prediction but I’m thinking that all web sites will be as exposed as possible, what I mean by this is that they will have all the options open to the viewer, similar theory to the iPhone. I’m noticing a lot more mosaic, grid and blog style sites. I predict that single page sites which utilise the scroll action only will come in to effect.

“Old-school print techniques have also come back in a big way. Foil blocking is almost a given on print jobs now, everything I see has a foil shine somewhere. I’m predicting that flat foils will start taking the crown. Other traditional print techniques like letterpress are also grabbing the designers spec sheets, with the options of many more colours than foils but still with the seductive impressed depth finish and fluo options.”

Mike Robinson, Head of Marketing

“With the market still in economic uncertainty, businesses are facing many challenges and making tough calls on budgets. In 2013, clients will no doubt continue to look for value, trust and real partnerships from their agency.

“Brands also need to think smarter about their customers – truly understanding their world is key to communicating effectively. Bringing this insight together with engaging messaging, content and creativity which truly connect people to the essence of your brand, will drive your business forward. So it’s those brands who strive to combine planning, insight and creativity that will no doubt come out top this year.”

So we’ve survived the end of the world and 2013 is set to be a busy one here at Turn Key. Before we start a new year of blogging about our client projects, events and antics outside the office, here’s a little look back at 2012 and some big moments at TK.

Last year was packed with change for us, we grew to a whopping 32 staff, welcoming new arrivals to every department (and some new babies for staff as well!). The PR department doubled in size and our expanding team of designers and developers were spilling out of our old HQ.

In July, we moved to the Victoria Foundry in Holbeck. The new office better reflected our creativity and the team began to feel very at home amongst the palm trees, beanbags and foosball table!

In August, we celebrated the summer with our annual away day . We headed to Nero Training near York for a day of Segway racing, raft building and fitness training. We then finished off with a slap up meal and TK awards ceremony at a nearby pub resulting in sore heads and happy memories all round.

As well as moving into a new office and welcoming new staff, we’ve also been lucky enough to start working with some new clients and in more sectors than ever before. There has been a huge variety of work coming through the business, in fact, in one week alone our team found themselves in meetings at a football stadium, a drilling site, a coffee factory and at the HQ of a Dragon’s Den contestant!

We ended 2012 with another memorable TK Christmas party with a special appearance from Father Christmas himself. After we toasted to a fantastic year at Brasserie Forty 4, the team enjoyed a well-deserved break to recharge their batteries for another busy one.

Happy New Year to all our colleagues, clients and contacts!

No day is ever the same for our Digital Account Director, James Wray . Here’s a little update on the sights he’s seen recently, including Ideal Heating’s stand at this year’s Retro Expo…

Sometimes working at a creative agency, you find yourself in places you never dreamed you’d get to.

Last week I was working on the latest album website for metalcore band Bring Me The Horizon one day the next finding myself at an onshore gas drilling rig near the Lancashire coast! The following day, Rachel Phipps and I attended Retro Expo at the Birmingham NEC, otherwise known as the UK heating industry’s event of the year.  Ceaseless glamour!

We were there to meet our client Ideal Heating and to see Turn Key’s artwork and animations for the Magnificent 7 campaign come to life on their amazing new exhibition stand.

As a career-long digital marketer, I’m used to seeing the fruits of my labour exist in the virtual world. However, it is still something really quite special when I get the chance to see work in a physical environment, particularly for me when it consists of an outdoor digital element too!

Ideal’s stand was the cream of the crop at Retro Expert, the most stand-out by far! Consisting of statues of huge rotating 7’s (marking the ‘7 year warranty’ campaign), a bar (always important in attracting visitors!), and beautiful canvases with the campaign messages. There was even a giant LED video wall (the kind you see at rock concerts) playing a specifically created animation including a timer, counting down in real time to the end of the 7 year warranty offer.

Take a look for yourself…

We’re all heading to see our Senior Account Manager, Rachel , grace the stage this week in Duets at the Carriageworks. Read all about her love of the spotlight in her very first TK blog…

Some children dream of being rock stars. Some astronauts. Others authors. Me? I always wanted to be on the stage. Fast forward a couple of decades and it’s less ‘name up in lights’ and more ‘name in a nice gold foil finish on a TK business card.’

Don’t get me wrong, I love the buzz of agency life and the big characters you get to work with on a daily basis, not to mention the adrenaline rush and excitement when a fantastic creative campaign comes to life. But my love of the stage has not disappeared.

So I thought I would take action (the ‘lights, camera…’ sort) and a few months ago I auditioned for a play, – a modern comedy/drama about love, loss and laughter, not too far removed from my daily existence! Cast as a dizzy, hedonistic soon-to-be-divorcée on a cocktail-fuelled evening in Spain with her soon-to-be ex-husband, it was a part made for me, and over the past couple of weeks I have been rehearsing hard for the opening night.

All this “am-dramania” has reminded me that, even though my childhood dreams of an acting career never materialised, they have actually stood me in good stead, helping me in my marketing career. Here’s a few examples of where they’ve come in useful:

• Presentations

To some a nemesis, to me a chance to satisfy some of that performance hunger.

• People skills

The huge range of characters you collide with in an amateur dramatic environment can be overwhelming. From the 90 year-old five times divorced women with a penchant for whisky to that almost-famous Sunday Times journalist who mined theatre groups for unsuspecting young and impressionable females. Interacting with these people has given me the skills I need to communicate with anyone and everyone.

• Confidence

There is nothing more scary than that moment before going on stage – you know you are about to bare your soul to the world and quite likely forget your lines and therefore be subject to a more-than-excruciating period of panic. Overcoming this fear has only reinforced me to face the trials of everyday working life.

So, my advice to others would be, whether your childhood dream was to be a rock star, author, astronaut or celebrity chef, pick it back up and go for it – you never know what it might teach you and where it could lead!

If you’d like to come and support Rachel in her next theatrical production, Duets by Peter Quilter is being stated this week at the Carriageworks Theatre. Starting at 7:30pm, performances will take place on Thursday 25th October to Saturday 27th October. To book tickets, click !

This summer Turn Key has been inundated with requests from savvy students eager for work experience opportunities in the creative industry. We were more than happy to have them on board, giving an insight into the worlds of marketing, PR, design, digital and business in general!

As well as Rich , Tom and Sacha who joined us earlier in the year (click on the name to read their previous blogs) we welcomed Lauren, Hugh, Greta and Katie who impressed us with their enthusiasm to get stuck in and bolster their CVs for the future. Lauren joined our PR team for two weeks whilst Hugh, Greta and Katie spent a week each assisting in every team, getting a taste of how an integrated agency operates and what our marketing, PR, digital and design teams do on a day-to-day basis.

Here’s what they had to say about their time at Turn Key:

Lauren Coles, PR student at Leeds Metropolitan University:

“Turn Key is an agency full of genuinely talented, imaginative and creative people. They truly care about their clients and show a real sense of understanding and appreciation for them. The attention to detail and true flair for what they do makes them really stand out from the crowd.

“I have never come across such a genuine and welcoming team! Everyone is so happy to be a part of Turn Key. But can you blame them? There’s not a single person who’s not got the bubbly TK personality and to top it off the new HQ is just lovely – how many offices do you know with trees, giant beanbags and union jack chairs?”

Greta Gilman, English Literature & History student at the University of Nottingham:

“Everyone in the office is really friendly and confident. No task seems to be too much of a challenge and they take everything in their stride, this attitude definitely boosted my confidence in my own abilities when set tasks. The ideas and thoughts they have come up with over the week are really innovative and led me to think more outside the box and not be afraid in my own abilities, I felt like part of the team straight away.

“I have always thought PR would interest me but had never really given it too much thought. After working at Turn Key I am 100% sure I am going to pursue it as a career after university. I feel like I fit in really well and have enjoyed every part of it, the only problem is the time has gone too quickly and I feel like I have so much more to learn. Watch this space!”

Katie Broadbent, Graduate in French with German at the University of Nottingham

“What I found most inspiring about the TK team was the way in which they interacted with each other. The team obviously get on well and it is clear their relationships are not only work-based. The environment is relaxed, yet busy and it is obvious that there is a strong work ethic.

“I have thoroughly enjoyed the whole week and working with the TK team has been a pleasure, everyone has been very warm and welcoming and enabled me to settle in right from day one. I especially enjoyed working on Google Analytics with Jude . It was really interesting following the evolution of a website and the effects a press release or feature can have on visitor numbers to it.”

Hugh Clegg, Sixth form student from Winchester

“It is obvious that the whole TK team really enjoy what they do and work very hard on projects! My week here has narrowed my future career focus down to graphic design and the art side of advertising and promoting companies. Shadowing Carl and then Paul made me realise how much work I’m going have to do to become as professional as those two. Everyone works so fast and hard yet still with so much precision and even with a smile on their faces!”

A big thank you to our summer interns for all their hard work. If you’d like to follow some of them on Twitter, you can find them at and .

I’m Sacha, a 21 year-old student studying International Business with French at the University of Birmingham and was recently lucky enough to spend a few days as an intern at Turn Key. Having just completed a year abroad, I was keen to get some more work experience under my belt to help with my future business career, and when I contacted Turn Key they were more than happy to help me out.

Interested in a career in finance, I was placed in the finance and operations department. It is here where all the company’s accounts are handled, as well as the general day-to-day running of the firm – which, trust me, is a lot of work! Being the freakishly organised individual that I am, I was immediately impressed with how well everything was managed. With only a small team working in this department, it’s impressive how hard they work to complete tasks, and I realised straight away that I had a lot to live up to!

Despite my placement at Turn Key being fairly short, I was given the opportunity to undertake a diverse range of tasks – from credit control (scary!) to completing and checking expenses forms (not so scary!). It was great to be trusted with these tasks and made to feel like a valuable member of the team – not just an annoying spare part! After just a few days I felt my confidence grow, and working within the finance and operations team has confirmed to me that this is definitely the type of career I want to pursue.

My favourite memory about working at Turn Key has to be the company ethos and the friendly vibe. Unlike previous jobs where I haven’t been able to stop looking at the clock, the days flew by and I found myself really wanting to stay!

So, I want to say a huge thank you to everyone at Turn Key, especially Vikki and Kirsty who’ve been more than welcoming and given me some invaluable experience. Although I won’t miss the early morning wake-up calls (I’m a student – it’s not in our nature to get up before 10am), I will definitely miss life at Turn Key and look forward to hearing all about its future ventures.

We all like to muck in at Turn Key, so when we were asked to complete a photo shoot for innovative mobile accessory company, MyBunjee, our team literally jumped at the chance to get in front of the camera – as well as behind it! Throughout the shoot the team were jumping about on skateboards and snowboards and we finished the day not just happy we’d got some cracking action shots, but that everyone was still in one piece!

The shoot went really well and you will be able to see the fruit of our labour on a brand new website and a host of marketing collateral very soon. However, in the meantime, here’s a sneak peek behind the scenes.

Thank you to our models, Oliver and Olivia for doing a great job!

Although Tiger Woods might not be shaking in his boots just yet, the standard of golf on display from the TK team at a recent charity event in Wakefield was more akin to Wentworth than West Yorkshire!

Raising a staggering £14,000 for Wakefield Hospice , the charity extravaganza at Wakefield Golf Club was the setting for Nik ‘Nicklaus’ Entwistle, Mike ‘Mcllroy’ Robinson and Chris ‘Couples’ Hughes to don their dodgy plus fours and swing into action to do TK proud. The trio were joined by Bret Smith from Depuy, making it a formidable foursome, on paper at least.

Despite the wet conditions, the TK team started off strong with Nik and Mike holing some audacious putts and pulling some majestic fairway shots out of the bag to keep the scorecard ticking over. Nik’s stunning tee-shot to within just four feet of the pin on the first par 3 hole was certainly one to remember (as if Nik would let us forget!). Chris was sadly finding every tree and bunker possible on the opening holes, but his moment in the sun (rain) would surely come later in the round.

The heavens really opened on the back nine and the TK team would have found more use out of a snorkel than a sand wedge. Chris finally got in amongst the action and picked up some points for the team as the conditions started to deteriorate badly. ‘Mystic Mike’ as he is now known, finished the round off by putting his psychic powers to the test and attempted to predict the scores for the final hole – before he’d even taken his tee-shot. Sadly the promised birdies – and points – failed to materialise.

A slightly sodden Team TK can only be praised for keeping their spirits high and sense of humour intact as they battled through the elements to complete all 18 holes.

Soaked to the skin, the boys trudged off the final green to make sense of the scorecard, dry off and spruce up ready for the evening presentation. Despite missing out on the first prize, the team achieved a respectable top five position, leaving Nik to claim his ‘nearest the pin’ prize and the raffle for good measure.

A great day was had by all and a big thank you must go out to sponsors Ashleigh Signs for laying on a superb event. No doubt the TK team will be gunning for glory again next year!

We just keep adding to the team here at TK. The latest addition is the very beautiful and very small (for now!) Archie Amos.

Congratulations to our lovely head of PR, Claire Davis, and her partner Ryan. The trio came in last week for the official first hugs session and the combined ‘oooooohhhhh’ from the girls in the office was probably audible three floors down in reception.

So welcome Archie –  show those parents of yours who’s boss!