The ATTIK (latterly known as ATTIK) was a British creative agency founded in 1986 in Huddersfield, England by James Sommerville and Simon Needham. [1] They are best known for their progressive and influential graphic design style, [2] their series of "Noise" experimental design books, [3] and their work for clients including, Coca-Cola, Sony PlayStation, MTV, Toyota, and Adidas. [1]
ATTIK was founded by Sommerville and Needham in Sommerville's grandma's attic bedroom, with the help of a £2,000 grant from Prince Charles' The Prince's Trust. [1] By 1990, the company employed eight people and had moved to a rented office space. Sommerville and Needham had also begun experimenting with the newly released Adobe Photoshop software on their 8 kHz Macintosh Plus.
In 1992, future partner Will Travis joined the company. By early 1995, ATTIK had grown the Huddersfield team to 25 people, and later that year they opened an office in London, having secured work with Sony's PlayStation brand. Sommerville set up a New York office in January 1997, followed by Travis opening a studio in San Francisco in 1998, and Needham establishing a presence in Sydney in 1999. By the end of 2000, benefitting largely from the Dotcom boom, the company was turning over $20 million and had 160 staff across its studios in Huddersfield, London, New York, San Francisco, and Sydney.
The economic crash of 2001 hit the company hard, and based on the advice of new board member Ric Peralta, 115 staff were let go in order to keep the business afloat. The London, New York, and Sydney studios were closed, leaving Huddersfield and San Francisco as the only locations running. Between 2002 and 2003, the company was in survival mode. However, in 2003, two clients helped to secure the business' immediate future – Scion, a new brand from Toyota launching in the U.S. – and the Camel cigarette company in Europe. In 2004, Peralta and Travis were made partners and the Huddersfield office moved to Leeds. A new office was opened in Los Angeles, and New York was reopened.
In 2007, ATTIK was acquired by the Japan-based Dentsu Network. [4]
The San Francisco studio continued to serve as Scion's advertising Agency of Record in the U.S, [5] and ATTIK Leeds partnered with Coca-Cola on series of brand and design initiatives. [6] In 2012, Sommerville decided to leave the business, citing “a distinct lack of alignment of thinking”, and the company's UK operations were wound down. [7]
In April 2015 it was announced that the company would be absorbed by Dentsu following the loss of the long-running Scion advertising account, effectively bringing an end to ATTIK's existence after 29 years of operation [8]
Coca-Cola, or Coke, is a carbonated soft drink manufactured by The Coca-Cola Company. Originally marketed as a temperance drink and intended as a patent medicine, it was invented in the late 19th century by John Stith Pemberton and was bought out by businessman Asa Griggs Candler, whose marketing tactics led Coca-Cola to its dominance of the world soft-drink market throughout the 20th century. The drink's name refers to two of its original ingredients: coca leaves, and kola nuts. The current formula of Coca-Cola remains a trade secret; however, a variety of reported recipes and experimental recreations have been published. The drink has inspired imitators and created a whole classification of soft drink: colas.
Coca-Cola Vanilla is a vanilla-flavored version of Coca-Cola, introduced in 2002 but subsequently discontinued in North America and the United Kingdom in 2005, only remaining available as a fountain drink. It was relaunched in the US in 2007, in Denmark in 2012, the UK in 2013, and Canada in 2016. Vanilla Coke has been available in Australia since its initial introduction in 2002, being produced by Coca-Cola Amatil. Originally announced as a limited edition in the UK, it became permanent for several years; however, it was again discontinued in the UK in Summer 2018. Despite this, the product has still been distributed in related brands Diet Vanilla Coke and Coke Vanilla Zero.
Fanta is a brand of fruit-flavored carbonated soft drinks created by Coca-Cola Deutschland under the leadership of German businessman Max Keith. There are more than 150 flavors worldwide. Fanta originated in Germany as a Coca-Cola substitute in 1940 due to the American trade embargo of Nazi Germany which affected the availability of Coca-Cola ingredients. Fanta soon dominated the German market with three million cans sold in 1943. The current formulation of Fanta was developed in Italy in 1955.
Jolly Cola is an original Danish soft drink dating back to 1959. Jolly is owned by the limited company 'Dansk Coladrik A/S'. Jolly Cola is now produced by Brewery Vestfyen, which also produces Jolly Light, Jolly Time, and Jolly Orange.
The Cola Wars refer to the long-time rivalry between soft drink producers The Coca-Cola Company and PepsiCo, who have engaged in mutually-targeted marketing campaigns for the direct competition between each company's product lines, especially their flagship colas, Coca-Cola and Pepsi. Beginning in the late 1970s and into the 1980s, the competition escalated, which gave this cultural phenomenon its current moniker of Cola Wars.
Tab was a diet cola soft drink created and produced by The Coca-Cola Company, introduced in 1963 and discontinued in 2020. Coca-Cola's first diet drink, Tab was popular throughout the 1960s and 1970s. Several variations were made, including a number of fruit-flavored, root beer, and ginger ale versions. Caffeine-free and clear variations were released in the late 1980s and early 1990s.
Castle Rock Entertainment is an American film and television production company founded in 1987 by Martin Shafer, director Rob Reiner, Andrew Scheinman, Glenn Padnick and Alan Horn. It is a label of the Warner Bros. Pictures Group division of Warner Bros. Entertainment, itself a division of AT&T's WarnerMedia.
Fresca is a grapefruit-flavored citrus soft drink created by The Coca-Cola Company. Borrowing the word Fresca from Italian, Spanish and Portuguese, it was first introduced in the United States in 1958. Originally only a sugar-free diet soda, a sugar sweetened version has been introduced in some markets.
The Coca-Cola Company is an American multinational beverage corporation incorporated under Delaware's General Corporation Law and headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia. The Coca-Cola Company has interests in the manufacturing, retailing, and marketing of non-alcoholic beverage concentrates and syrups, and alcoholic beverages. The company produces Coca-Cola, the sugary drink for which it is best known for, invented in 1886 by pharmacist John Stith Pemberton. At the time, the product was made with coca leaves, which added an amount of cocaine to the drink, and with kola nuts, which added caffeine, so that the coca and the kola together provided a stimulative effect. This stimulative effect is the reason the drink was sold to the public as a healthy "tonic", and the coca and the kola are also the source of the name of the product and of the company. In 1889, the formula and brand were sold for $2,300 to Asa Griggs Candler, who incorporated The Coca-Cola Company in Atlanta in 1892.
Odwalla Inc. was an American food product company selling fruit juices, smoothies and food bars founded in Santa Cruz, California in 1980 and from 1995-2020 was headquartered in Half Moon Bay, California. Odwalla's products included juices, smoothies, soy milk, bottled water, organic beverages, and several types of energy bars, known as "food bars".
Sony Pictures Entertainment Inc. is an American diversified multinational mass media and entertainment studio conglomerate that produces, acquires, and distributes filmed entertainment through multiple platforms. Through an intermediate holding company called Sony Film Holding Inc., it is operated as a subsidiary of Sony Entertainment Inc., which is itself a subsidiary of the multinational technology and media conglomerate Sony Group Corporation. Based at the Sony Pictures Studios lot in Culver City, California as one of the "Big Five" major American film studios, it encompasses Sony's motion picture, television production and distribution units. Its sales in the fiscal year 2020 was reported to be $7.16 billion.
Anchor bottler is a term used by cola beverage manufacturers for their major bottlers around the world.
Coca-Cola Zero Sugar is a diet cola produced by The Coca-Cola Company. In some countries, it is sold as Coca-Cola No Sugar.
Relentless is the brand name of an energy drink created in February 2006 by The Coca-Cola Company. In the year ending 2010, sales of the product in the UK increased by 28 percent. After a deal on 14 August 2014 seeing Coca-Cola purchase a 16.7% stake in Monster Energy, the ownership of the Relentless brand was transferred to Monster Energy and Monster Energy's non-energy brands transferred to Coca-Cola.
Royal Tru is a carbonated fruit-flavored soft drink brand owned by The Coca-Cola Company that is only available in the Philippines. The brand was introduced in 1922 by the original San Miguel Brewery. Since being acquired by Coca-Cola's Philippines unit in 2007, the brand has become the Philippine counterpart of Coca-Cola's Fanta brand.
Coca-Cola Freestyle is a touch screen soda fountain introduced by The Coca-Cola Company in 2009. The machine features 165 different Coca-Cola drink products, as well as custom flavors. The machine allows users to select from mixtures of flavors of Coca-Cola branded products which are then individually dispensed. The machines are currently located in major Coca-Cola partners and retail locations as a part of a gradual and ongoing deployment.
Sprite is a colorless, lemon and lime-flavored soft drink created by The Coca-Cola Company. It was first developed in West Germany in 1959 as Fanta Klare Zitrone and was introduced in the United States under the current brand name Sprite in 1961 as a competitor to 7 Up. Sprite comes in multiple flavors, including cranberry, cherry, grape, orange, and vanilla.
Lexicon Branding, Inc., is an American marketing firm founded in 1982 by David Placek. It focuses on selecting brand names for companies and products. The company devised the brand names Pentium, BlackBerry, PowerBook, Zune, Swiffer, Febreze, Subaru Outback and Forester, Toyota Scion, DeskJet, Dasani, OnStar, Embassy Suites Hotels and Metreon, among others.
Glaceau Smartwater is a brand of bottled water owned by Energy Brands. Introduced in 1996 in the United States, by 2016 it was one of the top five brands of bottled water in that country with sales worth nearly $830 million in 2017.
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