and therefore definitely couldn’t spell !!

We were kindly invited by our friends at The Times with whom we worked very closely to develop the www.timesspellingbee.co.uk website which proved to be a vital window to the world in promoting the whole event going forward. We even managed to be nominated for a Webby !!

They say the best ideas are the simplest and without doubt a National Spelling competition for schools seems obvious, but never before has an initiative been undertaken of this nature in the UK. Hats off to The Times and especially to the Editor James Harding who has been the driving force behind the realisation of this competition, although in his speech he did credit his girlfriend Kate with having come up with the idea !!

So he’s a gentlemen as well as a scholar !! Top marks James…

Congratulations to everybody who competed in both the heats and the final with the winners being St Martin’s School in Middlesex who have already made an appearance on BBC Breakfast this morning !!

Life will never be the same again……..

www.timesspellingbee.co.uk

Times Online tasked I-D Media with developing an Interactive Guide that demonstrates how to use the new digital archive, which contains over 20 million articles from the Times and the Sunday Times, dating back 200 years!  

With a target audience comprising a wide cross section of the public, The Flash 8 application has been designed for accessibility and ease of use, with graphic text boxes that reference Post-it® notes as a way to clearly differentiate between the TimesArchive engine and the Interactive Guide.

To use the archive, go to http://archive.timesonline.co.uk/tol/archive/  

I-D Media unveil the results of the Sunday Times Style and Beauty Awards on TimesOnline, an annual event that culminates in a feature that lists top products as selected by the voting public and the Editor’s Choice.

The digital consultancy developed the interactive application that lets the public vote for their favorite beauty products. With 12 sections covering 31 product categories – everything from Best Hair products to Best Fragrances, and from Best Black & Asian Make-up to Best Men’s Grooming ­­– and a Lifestyle Test, the site has been designed for ease of use, with free giveaways to the first 3000 voters as incentive. The Awards and the voting site launched to the public in April and I-D Media was also tasked with creating the actual Awards site in which the results will be presented back to the public.

The results from each page of the questionnaire and Lifestyle test will be captured, analysed and presented to the public on TimesOnline 11^th May.

With in excess of 23000 responses to all or parts of the questionnaire and of that near to 16000 registered, the campaign has been un unqualified success.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/specials/style_beauty_awards/

Times Online has commissioned I-D Media London to build a series of monthly interactive brain training puzzles as part of a cross-media partnership with Nintendo DS Lite and their Touch! Generations range of software titles for the DS console. 

This is the first time that Nintendo has marketed its brand through a tie-in with TimesOnline and the 9-month long campaign includes an interactive microsite and advertising in both the online and print editions of The Times and The Sunday Times.

The goal is to promote awareness of the benefits and fun of puzzle games to an adult demographic and the campaign microsite, developed by I-D Media, sits in the Surprise Yourself page of the Life&Style section of TimesOnline.co.uk, that promotes the health benefits of a number of different types of brain training games. 

Each of the 9 games in the campaign will test a different aspect of brain training from numeracy and information processing to short-term memory and all games are based on Nintendo’s Dr Kawashima’s Brain Training™ series. The success of the first two games ‘Simple Sums’ and ‘Stroop Test’, which included DS Light console prize draws, has create high expectations of the campaign and I-D Media is launching ‘Memory Test’, the first of the new batch of games, on 30^th April. ‘Memory Test’ is also supported by a prize draw in which registered users who play the game will have a chance to win a trip for two to Tokyo.

Says Dave McDougall, Creative Director at I-D Media, “the design and development challenge for us is to create highly playable games that draw on the principles of Dr Kawashima’s Brain Training™ series for the DS platform and that are deliverable in a browser”.

The game site includes a choice of games that increases with each month, instructions and a league table to create an air of competitiveness. An optional invitation to register is given after gameplay and gives the user a place on the league table and automatically enters them into a prize draw that runs in conjunction with each new game.

Dan Harris, Deputy Editor, Special Projects at TimesOnline says “We are absolutely delighted with I-D Media’s commitment and professionalism on this project, which so far has been second to none, and we are very much looking forward to working on the forthcoming interactive puzzles with them”.

This work builds on a long-standing relationship between I-D Media and TimesOnline, in which I-D Media has developed a number of online applications that promote various initiatives, including The Virtual Sommelier for The Sunday Times Wine Club, an interactive timeline for Wimbledon, a commercial partnership with IBM, and “The Blair Years” commemorating ten years in office.

www.timesonline.co.uk/surpriseyourself