There’s definitely mischief afoot. In the space of 36 hours on 10th and 11th November, no less than 4 digital marketing and business award ceremonies take place. And guess what? We’re in all of them! It’s a conspiracy!!

Right now, we know that we’re shortlisted for the BIMA Awards (British Interactive Media Association) for the second year running, and for the DADI Awards (Drum Awards for the Digital Industries) for the fourth year running. As well as a category listing in the DADI’s Leisure/Travel/Sports for United Airline’s Optathlon campaign, Matmi and Jeff have been shortlisted for Agency of the Year and Individual of the Year, respectively. None too shabby that!

Fortunately, these two take place on consecutive nights, the BIMAs in London and the DADIs in Leeds. So far so good. But then, the inaugural Lovies Awards, a European version of The Webbys (the Oscars of the digital industry) decides it’s also going to hold its awards ceremony on the same night as the DADIs in London. And our local Macclesfield & Wilmslow Business Awards makes its presentations on the same night as the BIMAs in Cheshire!

Confused?

Oh yes – totally! It looks like we will have to send one envoy to London and another to Cheshire and Leeds, so please don’t give us any deadlines for 10th & 11th November! We also entered the EPICA Awards for the 1st time this year – but they’ve had the good sense to wait until 20th January. We may need until then to recover.

Joking aside though, it’s no hardship to enter and attend awards with highly successful campaigns like Optathlon and “Escape to Plastic Beach” for the Gorillaz/EMI Music. Yes, we’re hoping for some wins, not least to show the marvellous Matmians how marvellous they are, and to thank them for the blood, sweat and tears they shed on our behalf.

A big Thank You to all the award organisers too. Cross everything everybody – especially on 10th & 11th November. It could be an early Christmas (ugh – there’s that word again, sorry).

Humbly and hopefully, Penny.

To say that our Chief Matmian has the gift of the gab is an understatement, so where better for us to put him to good use than the odd speaker engagement?

That was our plan, but it’s also proved to be an underestimation because our very own Jeff Coghlan, CEO at Matmi, seems to be getting a reputation for himself as being knowledgeable and controversial on all matters of digital marketing.

His likeness to a chubby Johnny Depp means that he’s pretty memorable to look at too – but whether that will still be the case when he returns to work with a newly reset nose, we have yet to find out. Watch this space – and let’s hope it didn’t go horribly wrong!

So where can you see our leader in action?

• The new “Games for Brands” conference series, starting in London on 27th October.
• The “Your Business, Your Future” seminar in Manchester on 1st November pitching best business practice to other entrepreneurs.
• TEDx Liverpool on 7th November – in Liverpool surprisingly – part of the prestigious TED (Technology Entertainment & Design) global conference series.
• MoMoMcr on 14th November, the Mobile Monday Manchester forum of the global Mobile Monday network, exploring the subject of “Freepremium vs. Premium”.
• Integrate 2011 with How Do magazine on 7th December talking viral and advergaming to advertisers and digital marketers.

It’s simultaneously pleasing and humbling to be involved with events like this, especially when they’re part of a series and TED? Well, it’s legendary. Known for “Ideas worth spreading”, its speakers of the last 21 years include Bill Gates, Al Gore, Malcolm Gladwell (of Tipping Point fame), many Nobel prizes winners, politicians and visionaries of all denominations.

Speakers are tasked to make their presentation in the most innovative and appealing way inside 18 minutes, and with over 750 events scheduled in 60+ countries, the global TED network has become a library of all things inspiring, innovative and futuristic.

Over to you, Jeff. No pressure. Penny.

We think Philips is convinced of the power of viral games – with the stunning success of “Brilliant Brushers” (2009) and this year’s sequel “Cosmic Clean”, the Sonicare brand of toothbrushes has netted 18 million plus plays, making it one of Matmi’s most successful client releases.

Transferring the same treatment to home appliances made perfect sense to us and Philip’s advertising agency, WDMP, so the dynamic agency duo return to revolutionise the market in steam irons. Any why ever not?!

Aimed at 25 – 55 female audience, Philip’s PerfectCare iron range is designed to make one of life’s more tedious jobs hassle-free. A single setting will take care of every type of garment because instead of using the heat of the sole plate, it’s the volume of steam from the iron that does all the hard work.

Basing our concept on ironing that’s now hassle-free, we created the ”Iron Out” game for players to steam their way through life’s niggles. In the 3 level racing game, players negotiate their PerfectCare iron around hazards such as traffic wardens, trainers and teddies (the ones on the floor that you trip over….), jumping over baskets of washing to steam them instantly into a tidy pile of ironing, and collecting power-ups en route. The 1950’s style rather jolly music completes the scene of domestic harmony.

At the end of the game, players can post scores and enter to win a £1000 spa break – and a PerfectCare iron, of course – showcased on the Philip’s PerfectCare microsite.

“Iron Out” is only just ironed out, so we’re watching carefully for initial indicators of performance. Why don’t you take a look for yourself and let us know what you think?

We’re used to surprising other people with the player stats for our releases, but it’s not often that we knock ourselves out.

Released in 2009, “Brilliant Brushers” is one of our simplest games, but has been a jaw-dropping success. Aimed at 4 – 11 year olds and their parents with a dental hygiene message wrapped up in a fun way, it has had over 18 million plays lasting almost 7 minutes each on average. Wow! That is simply breath-taking.

Created for Philips to promote its Sonicare range of toothbrushes for kids, “Brilliant Brushers” now has a sequel in this year’s release of “Cosmic Clean”. Featuring our hero of the pearly whites, Sonic Simon, and his sidekick Sonic Sophie, the daring dental duo take off for a 3 level game to spread good dental hygiene habits throughout the cosmos. The aliens of the Moons of Molar, Planet Plaque and Comet Canine are in for a toothy treat!

In all seriousness though, fun and simplicity are not to be sneezed at as successful game mechanics. And if Matmi helps spread the word about good dental hygiene for a few million kids and parents around the globe, we can live with that.

Game on! Stewart.

After a great meeting with the good folks at TBWA New York during our trip earlier this year, we were delighted to get a call asking us to get involved in producing a series of games for the iconic Twix brand.

Twix, meaning “twins sticks” (hey, we know our stuff, y’know) has been around since 1979 and its current branding revolves around “Take a pause like you mean it”. Using this as our theme, we created a game concept based on the equally iconic game, Brickbreaker, and gave it a Twix twist.

“Feedbreaker” features 10 increasingly difficult levels, where using the Twix bars as your paddle, you break the bricks, catch power-ups, avoid the power-downs, enjoy the techno music (mostly) and send swag to your friends on Facebook so they’ve got power-ups ready for when they play. You may find your friends’ faces appearing randomly on the bricks as well which feels slightly bizarre – but the bricks make great noises when they break, so we reckon it’s all fine!

Games.com gave us a great review which bodes well for the next release, so standby for more classic chocolately fun! Stewart.