The sales team from Fresh Air Studios have just returned from a successful Network Central Event at The Future Inns, Plymouth.

The exhibition and networking event brought together 70+ businesses, and many more visitors, to experience a whole host of mini-exhibition stands… of which Fresh Air Studios presented their award winning On Hold Marketing production service.

Consisting of 6 multi coloured retro telephone handsets, visitors simply picked up a phone to listen to different styles of telephone on hold marketing productions.

Attracting over 50 visitors (excluding the other exhibitors who also visited the stand) there was a lot of interest as Alison Anderson, Audio Branding Consultant explains: “It was great to give practical, real life examples of what can be achieved with on hold marketing. Whilst Fresh On Hold Marketing was the key service we wanted to promote, we also talked with businesses about their marketing objectives and exchanged ideas about how companies in Plymouth could use audio, and creative ideas to promote their services. The stand was certainly one of the most eye catching.”

What is On Hold Marketing and Telephone Branding? We’ll tell you, in less than 60 seconds…

It’s been a busy week for Fresh Air Studios’ MD, Paul Philpott, as news spreads of their prestigious Audio Marketing Association (Europe) award for Best On Hold Marketing Production.

One of the highlights so far was talking to Gordon Sparks on BBC Radio Devon this morning about the award, and about how many businesses in general could improve the customer experience they provide.

Gordon and Paul chatted about the importance of marketing, branding and giving a high level of customer service – no matter what the industry. Especially in the current climate, businesses (of any size) cannot afford to lose calls and miss out on promotional opportunities.

In the light-hearted nature of Gordon’s programme, they also talked about Greensleeves, the annoyance of “beep beep” and some classic songs for On Hold (if only they could be legally used). Bringing it back to business, it was also emphasised that tacky music, beeps and silence can be detrimental to a business and ruin all the effort that’s been made up to that point of creating a good impression.

We hope to update this blog entry soon with some audio of the broadcast… meanwhile, here’s a photo.

Follow Gordon on Twitter @SparksyOnRadio

Fresh Air Studios & Plymouth Pavilions Takes on the On Hold Industry – and Wins!

Plymouth based audio production company Fresh Air Studios has walked away with the prestigious ‘Best On Hold Marketing’ award at the Audio Marketing Association of Europe annual
conference, for their creative work on Plymouth Pavilions’ on hold telephone messaging.

The ceremony held at Staverton Park, Daventry earlier this month witnessed the Plymouth based company taking on productions for some of the biggest brands in Europe. Judged by the Chartered Institute of Marketing, feedback including “branding is good”, “copy concise” and “convincing calls to action” all helped to bring the award back to the city.

Receiving over 100,000 incoming calls last year to their Arena, Leisure and Conference facilities, Plymouth Pavilions first instructed Fresh Air Studios to enhance their existing on hold customer experience back in early January. The brief was to create a system that would deliver the best possible customer service through audio prompts, that would answer frequently asked questions, whilst also delivering key business information and giving the customer an informative flavour of the alternative shows and services the venue can offer.

Marketing Officer at Plymouth Pavilions, Robert Maltby said: “We know how long some of our customers can be on hold when tickets for a high profile show are placed on sale, it’s the nature of the business when you have a big star coming to town.

Only recently, tickets for pop favourites One Direction were placed on sale and we received over 43,000 calls in just in 1 day! Always looking to improve our customer service we decided to use this to both our own, and our customers advantage, by working with Fresh Air to introduce informative and concise messaging. As a result, our on hold system is now key to the success of our business!

Fresh Air Studios certainly delivered, and when we heard that they had won the award we were so proud, especially when they mentioned the impressive list of national brands we were up against. It just proves you don’t need to be a massive national brand with huge budgets to deliver better on hold customer service. Well done Fresh Air, you’ve done the Pavilions andPlymouth proud!”

Managing Director at Fresh Air Studios, Paul Philpott said: “We are absolutely delighted with this award, especially winning with a production for Plymouth Pavilions. We genuinely believe that business of all sizes can benefit from a professional sounding telephone system. It’s shocking how companies spend a lot of money on advertising yet forget to invest in the most important method of contact: the phone.

With Plymouth Pavilions we wanted to replace the old audio system with something that would keep callers informed of new shows, exciting announcements and entertained whilst waiting to speak to an agent. The comments from the judges show we’ve achieved a good balance, and created something compelling.

The key piece of advice I would give to any business owner, CEO, MD or Marketing Manager is to put themselves in their customer’s shoes… call their own company… and live the customer experience themselves. Asking: who is the voice on the welcome message? Have I been cut off because the transfer was silent? Is a tacky rendition of Greensleeves really representative of my brand?”

The award winning production team included Lisa Hartwell (Scriptwriter) and Sally Williams (Voiceover).

Listen to this month’s Telephone On Hold Marketing Production here

Fresh Air Studios has just completed audio production work the Plymouth City Centre Company’s 2011 Plymouth Winter Festival campaign.

The campaign will promote Plymouth as one of the top destinations in the South West this year for shopping, entertainment and the best in festive family fun.

Working from a story-board brief submitted by the Plymouth City Centre Company, Fresh Air Studios defined the audio identity which would feature on both the television and radio campaign. This included voiceover casting and festive music casting – bringing creative elements together to encapsulate the feel of the Plymouth Winter Festival.

Working alongside the powerful combination of visual creative agency N9 Design, and animation experts Mutant Labs, Fresh Air Studios provided the sound track to match N9 Design / Mutant Lab’s stunning animation which will air on ITV1.

For the supporting radio campaign, Fresh Air Studios produced commercials for leading Plymouth advertising agency, Sigma Marketing who also provided media planning services.

Voiceover artist, Susan Winder, who was casted to voice the campaign said “I love the atmosphere of Plymouth at Christmas and look forward to the bustle of the late night shopping. It’s great to be part of such a special occasion.”

Plymouth Winter Festival TV Ad from N9 Design on Vimeo.

Listen to the radio commercial:

Fresh Air Studios has just been awarded WINNER of Best On Hold Marketing 2011, as part of the Audio Marketing Association of Europe’s annual conference held in Daventry.

Judged by panelists from the Chartered Institute of Marketing, Call Centre Helper and Sheffield Business School the awards ceremony also presented Fresh Air Studios with runner up for Best Contact Centre IVR.

2011 was the first year of the awards which aims to recognise excellence in different areas of audio marketing and branding. Categories included Best On-Hold Marketing, Best Contact Centre IVR and (to add a little humour to the ceremony) there was even a category for Best Out Take which was judged by conference candidates as part of the Gala Dinner.

Amusingly, Fresh Air Studios was also awared runner-up in the Best Out Take category.

The panel included well respected marketing professionals working through over 120 entries:

Jonty Pearce – Editor at Call Centre Helper. Formerly Innovation Director at Avaya and Head of Consultancy at Lucent Technologies Inc, and editor of Presentation Magazine.

Keith Barlow – Director of The Chartered Institute of Marketing, responsible for the professional development and support of Members in the Midlands.

Colin Gilligan – Professor of Marketing at Sheffield Business School from 1988-2006. He now has an Emeritus title within the university, as well as a Visiting Professorial post at Newcastle Business School. Having left the University to go back into full-time management development and consultancy, he is now working with clients in Europe, Africa & the Middle East. He is the author / co-author of eleven books. His latest book, The New Consumer, in which he takes a radically different look at today’s changing consumer, is due for publication in 2012.

Fresh Air Studios have completed audio branding for premier banking brand Santander Private Banking.

The work sees Fresh Air Studios defining an audio brand style guide which will apply to Santander Private Banking’s customer facing communications, such as IVR, Contact Centre and On Hold Marketing.

Fresh Air Studios Managing Director, Paul Philpott explained: “It is extremely important for a brand like Santander Private Banking to have a clear identity in order to position itself in the marketplace. The challenge for us was to create a style guide which would emphasise the high end service that Santander Private Banking provides its customers, without appearing too stuffy or old-fashioned.

The business regularly deals with high net-worth customers, who demand excellent standards of customer experience and care. We are extremely pleased to be chosen by Santander Private Banking’s project agency to carry out such an important branding exercise.”

The work included scriptwriting and ‘refreshing’ of the IVR and methods used by the business to interact with its customers through the medium of telecommunications, creation of a printed brand reference guide and a voice casting exercise to find the new “Voice of Choice” for the brand.

Fresh Air Studios Resident Voiceover Artist Lisa Hartwell hits New Heights.

It’s not that often in the studio that we can honestly say that we’ve done something that we’ve not done before…but when it does happen it’s very exciting.

Fresh Air Studios voiceover artist, Lisa Hartwell, was chosen as the voice of a building in China!  As people check in to the new super hi tech building, it’s Lisa who’s voice the English Speakers will
hear.

Lisa said “I’ve provided the voice for many different types of audio production, but being the voice of a building is a new one for me. I understand the screen will have an avatar of some sorts, which I’m sure will look nothing like me.”

At Fresh Air Studio we have a team of resident voiceovers,  who are available  for ISDN commercials, corporate, multimedia, voice prompts, and of course buildings! They are also available for use by other independent media producers.  Visit www.freshairstudios.co.uk/aboutus/voiceovers for info and demos.

After the success of their quarter 1 Audio Brochure on itunes, the Grand Theatre Blackpool has launched its 2011 qtr 2 season with an Audio Brochure produced by Fresh Air Studios.

The audio production service provides theatres, museums and other attractions with a cost effective way of expanding accessibility to marketing material. It also provides a compelling way of finding out more about a venue for all. Simply pop in the CD, or download the mp3s, and you can hear more about the venue with ease.

Using the popular Podcast service provided by iTunes, the Grant Theatre Blackpool’s audio brochure production can be “subscribed to” by anyone wanting to know more about the wide ranging programme that the Grand Theatre Blackpool has to offer.

As well as producing the audio for the production, Fresh Air Studios will also be providing hosting services to ensure high availability of the download.

To find the download simply search for “Blackpool Grand” in iTunes.

Fresh Air Studio’s Lisa Hartwell will be coming to a lounge near you….

Great news for one of our resident voiceovers Lisa Hartwell who can be heard on the brand new Wii You Draw television advertising campaign, running on many of the major channels such as ITV 1.  She even made an appearance in a break during TV Burp.  Well done Lisa!

To listen to Lisa’s showreel visit www.freshairstudios.co.uk/aboutus/voiceovers or for TV voiceovers please contact us direct for agent information.

Plymouth Pavilions Freshens up its Phone System

Plymouth Pavilions is the South West’s leading entertainment, concert, leisure and conference venue who Fresh Air Studios have been working with for many years.

As the venue celebrates its 20^th Anniversary with a vast array of top quality acts performing this year, they looked at different ways to market their facilities and shows.
With a telephone ticketing line where callers can often be on hold for several minutes there was a perfect opportunity for on hold marketing.

Fresh Air Studios have created a unique on hold marketing production that gets updated every month so that the focus can be changed to reflect marketing needs, as well as providing all the standard venue information.

For more information on our standard on hold marketing packages please visit www.freshonhold.com or contact the team on 01752 229246.

Have a listen to the February 2011 production: