Love to open shop in Shanghai

The independent agency, which currently only has one office in Manchester, is launching in Shanghai on the back of several clients, including Diageo's Johnnie Walker, and "industry figures",  Love's creative director Dave Palmer told Campaign. Other clients include Nike and Syco.

"We actively wanted to open in Shanghai, rather than Hong Kong or Singapore, despite the difficulties involved, to demonstrate our full commitment to China. Right now our biggest challenge isn't winning work, it's locating the right talent," said Palmer adding that the agency planned on having four to six people manning the China office in the first year.

Love has already chosen its premises in Shanghai and are ready to start active recruitment. "We're going to populate it from the UK initially, but our long term plan is to grow a very strong core Chinese element rather than an expat presence. We're still looking for a general manager or a strategist or account director role to run the office. We've also hired a Chinese-born designer who's currently working in the UK and will return to China."

The agency recently launched a live-motion action capture combined with CGI animation TVC for Johnnie Walker's Gold Reserve, following their success with the award-winning Johnny Walker house - a brand embassy located in Shanghai, co-created by Love and Singapore-based Asylum.

"One of our former clients moved to Diageo China and gave us the opportunity to pitch for the Johnnie Walker house in partnership with Asylum. It was a bit of a long-shot but we did the research in Scotland, came up with the idea while Asylum did the interior design and we won," said Palmer.

Besides projects for Diageo, the agency has also completed three projects for Nike and worked with a Chinese retailer in Northern China (brand name undisclosed) to create a new youth retail brand. "The work has included developing a brand identity, defining brand behaviour, store design and 3D model making," said Palmer.

According to Palmer, Love's differentiator and appeal is its independence and versatility. "We are a mix of graphic designers, art directors, digital designers, coders, copy writers and producers. Yes, we can do advertising, yes we can build websites, and yes we can design everything from packaging, posters, books and even furniture."