A strategic approach to marketing and communications is vital to the success of any brand. But sometimes a little instinct can pay off.

This weekend, Derby County take on Nottingham Forest at Pride Park.

Exactly six years ago, a few minutes before half-time during a typical blood-and-guts encounter between the bitter local rivals on a blustery Derby day, the Forest keeper was preparing to hack the ball up the field when a Kenco coffee cup blew on to the pitch and landed in its path, spinning the ball in the air…

The bamboozled Forest keeper mis-kicked it straight into the path of Derby striker Paul Peschisolido (Pesch), who pounced and scored – sending Derby on the way to a famous victory.

As Derby’s head of communications, I was watching events from the dugout area. Sensing a PR opportunity, as the half-time whistle blew I ran on to the pitch and collected the cup. After the match I collared Pesch in the players’ tunnel, asked him to sign the cup and took a photograph of him clutching it.

That night we launched a competition on our website for fans to devise a slogan for a t-shirt featuring the image of the player holding his trophy. Forty-eight hours later, the garments – sporting the words ‘This cup beat 11 mugs’ – were on sale online and in the club shop. Mugs and posters followed, with the strapline ‘Vend it like Pesch’. A DVD of the match, called Forest: Gone With The Wind, flew off the shelves. National media coverage of the stunt also drove sales.

Tacky? Perhaps. But we managed to turn coffee into coffers during some dark financial days for the club.

Forest were near the top of the table then – the Rams were fighting relegation. Derby are the bigger club these days, at least on paper.

Then again, paper teams win paper cups and I hope that, this weekend, we won’t be forced to wake up and smell the coffee.

Whether it be family members and friends traipsing around their living rooms in full costume while reciting the lines or stop-motion animation using cardboard cut-outs or toys, each scene is meticulously recreated with 15-second bits made by fans that are stitched together to match the 1977 original.

In 2010 it won a Primetime Emmy for Outstanding Creative Achievement In Interactive Media.

Every second, one hour of video is uploaded to YouTube. That’s 24 hours every 24 seconds… or a decade every single day. Discover more time-bending stats at http://www.onehourpersecond.com.

I have to admit, when I first saw the More4 rebrand visuals a few weeks ago I wasn’t overly excited – a nice enough visual mark with some obvious potential for TV and animation.

But having seen the rebrand fully developed to TV graphics and idents I’ve changed my mind. I expected to see clunky old train station style flip animation, but the final execution is beautifully fluid, and much more flexible. The programme info pages are clean and functional, but the identity really comes alive when the hand-built ‘flippers’ inhabit real-world scenarios, such as this lovely abandoned fishing boat.

See more visuals and idents on IdentityDesigned.com

As a big comics fan – I found it interesting to see that Landor have recently rebranded DC Comics as part of their current shake up to attract new readers. My first thoughts are that it’s nice to see some good design in a field that is usually filled with some terrible graphic design (with noteable exceptions), surrounding often stunning artwork. Although I am getting bored by identity systems that are so flexible that the logo can be ‘anything you want it to be’ (Aol comes to mind recently), seeing this in the context of a company that is no longer just about comics but is a huge entertainment industry makes sense to me.

Here’s some more examples of it in action – I think the page turn device for the ‘D’ in ingenious, and reflects the history of the company in relation to what’s beyond it – now a much more interactive and multimedia space… I’d be interested to see how other, non-comic readers view it…

Christmas decorations full of gelatin, carrots, balloons, cans of pop, you name it this boy shoots it. I’d love to see a video of this stuff. More of his work on here:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/8763834@N02/sets/72157622985983435/