Excitingly, the news today is that the Central Office of Information (COI), the Government's centre of excellence for marketing and communications, today named us as one of the nine communications agencies based in the North West of England to be on it's PR roster, selected out of applications from 250 agencies.

Well done MECH!

We know that "sponsorship" is a really good promotional technique, not to mention a great way of partnering up with other brands or activities that you might not normally be associated with.

Sponsorship is all around us all of the time these days, but for some reason this week more than ever, the theme of sponsorship seems to be reoccurring. It all began with the news on the Brand Republic website about Philips teaming up with the West-End musical Chicago in a ten month campaign to promote its epilator range, this caught my attention in particular because it is not a union I would have immediately put together, but after thinking about it, the sassy nature of Chicago could work really well for Philip's brand image.

This sponsorship news continued with our client UPS being named as the official sponsor of The European Tour, golf championship, through to another of our clients: Tsingtao becoming the sole beer sponsor of the world-famous Chinese Circus Opera, ‘Monkey: Journey to the West,’ as it opens at London’s O2 Arena this month.

In last thursday night's BBC2 TV programme: Credit Crash Britain, Food Fight: The Discount Boom, Gregg Wallace (co-presenter of Masterchef) asked if it’s possible to be very good and very cheap?

Our client, discount supermarket Aldi is defying economic down-turn and continuing it's plans to open one store a week. In the programme, Aldi claimed that cheap prices combined with people feeling the pinch is driving up their sales.

Their 4th television advert since September is out, featuring several hungry Santa's and the Aldi website is currently hosting their Christmas e-brochure which is definitely worth a look to help with meal planning over the busy holiday season.

If you currently find your pockets are deeper than your arms are long, then you should heed the advice of Gregg and his teacher friends from the programme, that indeed it is possible to be good and cheap, and Aldi is living up to all expectations.

We wanted to share with you an amazing website which McCann Erickson Japan have been developing. Ecodazoo is an interactive 3D Eco Zoo, where, with the option of being in English or Japanese, "you might be able to get some tips on how to live in a more environmentally friendly way".

The 3D effect is amazing, with there being a pop-up book for each of the four characters who have their own little story, which you can move around with your mouse.

This summer our PR team at Bonis Hall hosted a UK-wide roadshow for their client MEMEME.

One of the benefits of visiting the roadshow is that you could enter a competition in which not only could you win a whole load of lovely MEMEME products or over £3,000 of designer gifts, but one of the winning prizes was a VIP trip to see the set of Hollyoaks.

Congratulations go to Abbie Seed from Preston, the lucky winner of the Hollyoaks prize who, hosted by Katie Griffiths from the MECH PR team and Jo Howard, senior brand manager of MEMEME, visited the set last week with her Mum. Not only did they get a guided tour of the set of Hollyoaks, they also got to meet many of the stars of the show!

Look out for MEMEME Christmas activity in a Superdrug store near you starting on the 27^th November. More information to follow.