Channel 4’s biggest event calls upon Single Malt for branding and creative

Brand consultancy and design studio, Single Malt, was chosen to design the branding and creative for Channel 4’s biggest event of the year, the London Upfront.

Single Malt was the creative studio behind last year’s event, London Upfront 2018, which was curated by Rouge Events. The event went on to win a Drum Award for the B2B Experiential Brand Campaign/Event of the Year.

The challenge for the North West creative studio was to evolve the 2018 branding and ensure that the 2019 Upfront was bigger and better.  

This year also saw the first ever Upclose take place. The pre-event saw a select number of 120 individuals brought together to discuss important topics facing the media industry.

With over 100 individual pieces of design work, Single Malt managed to bring to life Channel 4 programmes through Rouge Events experiential zones. This saw famous shows such as SAS: Who Dares Wins, The Great British Bake Off and First Dates presented interactively to over 1200 guests. 

The work ranged from the quick, small format print for food and drink menus, through to large format floor to ceiling vinyl pieces. Alongside this, the design team at Single Malt turned a generic shed into an E4 Branded Sweetshop and created the design for a BT Sports Bar. All of this was topped off with a Tokyo themed restaurant, an F1 Simulator area and even an Escape to the Chateau experience! 

From testing their courage in the SAS Challenge with Ant Middleton, or petting the adorable and highly crowd-pleasing dogs in The Dog House – the experiential zones gave guests the opportunity to get involved and tangibly experience their favourite programmes. 

The event went on late into the evening with acts such as Professor Green, Craig David, Mabel and Sigala providing musical entertainment.

At the event, which took place at London’s iconic Roundhouse, CEO Alex Mahon and her senior team gave a sneak peek of future programme launches – including ‘Justice’ a brand-new documentary series looking into the UK’s criminal justice system. 

The night also saw the reveal of Channel 4’s Diversity in Advertising Award 2019, a brand also designed by the creative studio. The award aims to improve diversity in advertising consistently year on year. The Upfront event revealed that the 2019 award will represent the LGBT+ community, a theme chosen because this community is massively underrepresented in the advertising industry, appearing in only 3% of commercials. 

Barry Jones, commercial marketing and events lead, had this to say: “After an award winning event in 2018, we knew Single Malt would be up to the challenge of building upon and evolving this headline event for 2019. 

"It’s the biggest event in the Channel 4 calendar and so the brand and design work is of the upmost importance to us. It’s fair to say that Single Malt went above and beyond to meet and smash our expectations. No job was too big or too small, no matter the deadline! 

"It’s always a fun and painless job to work with the team at Single Malt and we look forward to continuing our partnership throughout 2019.”

Rebecca Hull, creative leader at Single Malt, said this about the event: “When the 4Sales team told us that their Upfront was being held at the Roundhouse for a second year we knew we had to make the branding and experiential design even better than last year. 

"With the team prepped, we set out to create an evolution of last year’s identity with even more Channel 4 personality. In addition we had the equally challenging task of creating a complimentary sub-brand for their intimate pre-event, Upclose alongside the main branding. 

"Working on over 100 pieces of design, each piece was individualised and designed to complement the programme it was portraying, or the themes from Channel 4 itself through engaging and interactive design. 

"Attending the event allowed us to proudly see all of our hard work and determination come to life. As always we are extremely proud of the work we produced, and of course our working relationship with Channel 4. The chance for our team to work collaboratively and push the brand restrictions was definitely a project which we have all enjoyed, driving our creativity and pushing our boundaries.”

Photos by Will Johnston Photography