Lauren Luke: The Real Deal

For the last year I have been working on a fascinating project. Truly creating a brand from scratch and watching it go to market.

On Monday the first make up kits by You Tube sensation Lauren Luke went on sale on the site bylaurenluke.com. The brand was created by Anomaly and the site by Dare. 

I know a lot of agencies are trying to go down the same avenue as Anomaly in creating their own products. On the one hand it is definitely worth it. The feeling of creating something and watching it grow is very special. But the idea, the marketing, that's the easy bit. The production / distribution / finance - all these things are where it gets hardcore. If you think you can handle that go for it - but it's not for the feint hearted.

Lauren is a single mum from South Shields who first uploaded a make up tutorial to You Tube in the summer of 2007. Just a smidge under two years later she has hew own brand, a range of products, a book deal, a column in the Guardian and a Nintendo DS game deal inked.

All that has been done without a single penny, and I truly mean not a single penny, being spent on media. I remember not too long ago many industry luminaries saying you could never build a brand online. Try telling Lauren that.

It's very easy for us to chalk the launch down as another day in the office but for Lauren this is a genuinely life changing - and brilliant - experience. You never know it might be one for the industry too.

What's going to win the Digital awards this year?

It's about that time, not quite squeaky bum time, because lets face it awards are not as important as football but all the votes for the big awards shows, bar Cannes, will be in. If you were a betting man you could do worse than check out Michael Lebowitz's top 5 campaigns  of the year that he picked out for Forbes magazine.

I judged the Art Directors Club with Michael this year, he was chairman of the One Show and I'm pretty sure headed up Viral at D&AD so there is nothing out there he wouldn't have seen. One piece of work that I hadn't seen on his list was a great banner for Axion a belgian bank. The concept is wonderfully simple, stick a band in a banner. Use the space restriction to your advantage. I really like this. I am on record as saying that banners are dead as a creative medium. This is the only banner campaign I have seen in a year or so that I wish I had done. Maybe there is life in the old dog yet?

What makes it all the more galling is that Flo and I had this idea a few years ago. It was kind of different, it was a mini band that lived in an app that sang the news and stuff like that - but close enough for us to know that we can never resurrect it. Another one bites the dust! And another example of the fact that it's easy to have ideas - what's hard is making them happen. Congratulations to the agency in Belgium for doing just that, I'm sure they will be on a podium near you soon.