Pearls of Wisdom

As an avid listener of Radio 2 today Neil and I were working with the jolly chappie Michael Ball, affectionately AKA ‘The Ball’ talking to Life On Earth/Ashes to Ashes genius actor Phillip Glennister on the radio, keeping us amused in the background. We were both alerted to a message that The Ball had received from someone with a question to Phillip, the message was read out and then acredited to Helvetica Bold. The pair then commented on the said name and went onto say what a lovely and unusual name that was, as Neil and I were in fits of laughter. Unbeknown to The Ball and Phillip that the emal message that they had received had clearly had an error encrypted in it and instead of the person’s name, which they probably forget to write in, the font details has been displayed hence ‘Helvetica Bold’. Whilst The Ball said his goodbyes to Phillip and then put on his penultimate song, I quickly put together an email message to The Ball informing him of his error but how funny the ignorance of knowledge had made their comments and discussion regarding the name.

I was quite amased that he actually got this email before the end of the show and leading with great giggles, where you can almost see the tears that only The Ball can do on radio, he read my email out. I can now understand the joy that a comedian gets from making his audience laugh!

The moral of the story is that sometimes ignorance is bliss but if you do need a professional who knows the in’s and out’s of his subject, get in the right people for the job…so don’t ask opinion from The Ball on opening night regarding their signage… Ask Cre8ive Wisdom!

In a recent new business meeting I was asked what the difference is between strategy and tactics. I find that this question is asked frequently and I often relate it to the clients business in terms that they will understand, rather than have a stock answer. However, more often than not resently I have been using the following analogy to explain the difference.

Strategy is choosing a destination and a route to get there. Tactics is the mode of transport that will take you on the journey and the ticket price you’re prepared to pay.

Our friends at the BBC has asked us to publicise the following call for partisipants… If you fit the bill and would like to get involved, please use the contact details at the end of the post…

We are currently making a three part observational documentary series for BBC4 exploring the unique relationship between grandparents and grandchildren. Grandparents now play an increasingly important role in families – be it through child care, financial support or emotional support. We want to reflect issues that impact on grandparents particularly and on all three generations of their family in general.  This is a great opportunity to make a sensitive and emotionally intelligent series which gives a voice to a generation rarely heard from on television.

We are at early stages of research and are keen to hear from as many people as possible. To find out more, please contact Barney, Amy or Jo on 0207 267 4260 or families@blastfilms.co.uk

I have come across a number of Companies in the past few weeks that are well established (in some cases 6 or 7 years of consistant growth) but have started to find that the downturn is kicking-in and are not too sure what to do about it.

In an up market, it is possible to conduct business and gain opportunity without really trying that hard. The opposite applies in a down market and after a few discovery workshops with these Companies, it has become clear that that have been ‘making hay while the sun shines’ but now their lack of strategy is being found out.

If you haven’t got a business strategy or you haven’t looked at your old one in some considerable time, you need to make strategy your nuumber 1 priority. Strategy is the heart of business and provides the arterial route to the life-blood of your business.

If you don’t have a relevant and proven strategy pulsing through the veins of your operational and marketing activities- you are potentially at risk of receiving the sort of shock that can be very difficult to recover from.

Seek the immediate advice of a marketing strategist, not nessessarily a Cre8ive Wisdom strategist (although we’re obviously here if you want to engage), but most certainly a proven marketing strategist of similar credentials and check your business in for an examination.

When you start to grow again and begin to gather in more from your new business crop, even if the economic climate worsens, you’ll be glad that you took a dose of strategic awareness, as you plan for future growth.

On a recent visit to New York City and the bustling metropolis that is Manhattan, Wendy and I decided to see if we could avoid giving money to the global High Street brands in favour of more local, independent stores. We have always been fans of the conveniently-placed Starbucks; especially when visiting the USA, but after reading an article about how Starbucks coffee shop domination was forcing hundreds of independent coffee houses to close, while at the same time reducing the choice we have as consumers and standardising tea & coffee so much that we can’t ask for a medium coffee anymore - it has to be a ‘Grande’; we decided to see if we could get through a 4-day visit without giving in. 

At the same time we decided to avoid all of the franchise stores, the big chains and the global High Street brands such as McDonalds, Burger King (who have a company policy in Manhattan to mistrust their customers by only accepting bills up to $20) and Subways (although it really is hard to live without those Italian meatball subs!). Broadly speaking it was not difficult to find a good, local, independent alternative to these franchise-based stores, although it is surprising how many you have to walk past to locate an ‘Indy’. In Manhattan at least, the quality was high and the choice was wide, although prices were never cheaper than the global conglomerates. 

In avoiding ‘buying into’ these stores, we can claim a very small victory, but have to admit that in the grand (or the Grande) scheme of things, these brands are exploiting brand to dominate markets and if the average ‘Indy’ store had the sort of backing that the big boys have; they’d be doing exactly the same. So, from our point of view, this wasn’t a hippy protest again globalisation (although we do believe its gone too far) but rather an experiment to see if it was possible. 

What wasn’t possible was to avoid Coca Cola & Pepsi. Even if their lead brands were dodged, getting around without drinking something disguised as something else but then finding that it’s owned by Coca Cola or some other huge global drinks maker is very difficult indeed. There are also some brands that we would not want to avoid, such as a bottle of Bud or a the subject of many a mid-night snack a packet of Lays potato chips. Nevertheless the main object of the test was to avoid Starbucks and in that we can claim absolute success. More power to the independent coffee shop! 

Before leaving this subject, one positive point to make about the big High Street brands or the renown/well-known food brands that you might find in a supermarket, such as Heinz Baked Beans or Cadbury’s Dairy Milk. 

Even if we are trying to avoid buying them, we still all recognise them and actually use them as reference points. You know that you are on a main street if you see a McDonalds and a Pizza Hut vying for your trade. If you are walking around a supermarket for instance, you are much more likely to navigate yourself around the aisles following visual clues such as leading brands, rather than signage. You recognise that you are in the baked bean aisle because you see the Heinz tin; even if you then search around for a store own-brand or a lesser-known cheaper or more expensive brand. 

The next time you visit a large City, try to avoid the franchise-type stores and find a local alternative. By giving your money to an independent store rather than a global brand, you might just contribute to a slight redressing of the balance that has recently been lost. We’re not saying boycott these stores forever; just give it a go and see if you can!

Now is the time to strengthen your business strategy. If you are an established business seeing margins getting squeezed or your new business levels suffering at the hands of a global downturn, you need to take a fresh look at your strategic operational and marketing activities.

In the last ten years, many companies have made hay while the sun shines. In a strong upwardly mobile Market, it is easier to make good business levels with minimum marketing effort. However, in a downturn, every company looks to become leaner and meaner. Things become a lot more competitive and sales growth becomes a lot harder to achieve.

If this sounds in any way like your business, you need to look at your strategy now! Remember that cre8ive wisdom can help you achieve more. Also remember the following:-

Consolidate your status quo to find out where you need to grow.
Begin at the top and plan the time to understand the bottom line.
Set your goals and think ahead and remember what the wiseguy said.
Strenghthen your strategy; don’t settle for less and you’ll find the route to your success.

I wasn’t looking forward to the Olympics in China at all. I was pretty much against the 2012 Olympics being awarded to London too; as I think that there are far more important things to spend money on, especially in an expensive country where the tax-payer (including myself) ends up footing the bill. However, I have had a change of heart. 

It’s not the venues, or the atmosphere of the events that have captured my imagination. It’s not the show that the Chinese have put on or even the variety of sports on offer (which is great TV viewing) - it’s the determination of the competitors to have a go.

No matter what country they are from, what nation the represent and what sport they are taking part in, it seems that those Olympians taking part in the games are doing so with self-belief, effort and gusto. They are there for the right reasons and want to improve themselves and honour their countries and the competition itself. That is inspiring. 

It is also a great antidote to the big-money sports such as football. Don’t get me wrong; I love the sport and support Sunderland football club fanatically. I do however feel that professional footballers get paid far too much for under delivering and under achieving. Especially at international level… 

The inspirational efforts of Team GB at the Olympics is is stark contrast to the half-hearted efforts put in by the average English footballer. The rewards should go to those who put in the greatest effort. For me, those men and women who have committed themselves to the pursue of excellence at the Olympics should be rewarded more than the likes of Stephen Gerrard (who had one good match for England a few years ago) and the rest of the under achieving, money-focused soccer boys; who are no doubt proud to represent their country but take away the money and I wonder if their performance levels would improve or drop off the scale completely? 

The final power of the Olympics was that the England Football Team had a friendly match against the Czech Republic yesterday and I didn’t even bother to watch it. The Olympics coverage was much more positive and inspirational - so I think English International football has got a challenge ahead to find optimism and its own inspiration if it wants to bring people like me back from the brink of giving up on them.

Saying that; at Club level, the weekend is almost here so… Ho’way the lads!

Being a generally happy iPhone owner (already can’t see how I did without it - infact this blog entry is being ‘tapped’ rather than typed) I have noticed the lack of flash support and thought nothing of it until recently. Two facts have combined to make the lack of flash support an issue. The first is that we built the cre8ive wisdom website in flash and the second fact is the 7 million iPhone users number, which is increasing everyday by impressive figures!

These facts made me look into installing an application for my iPhone that would allow me to view flash content, only to find that there isn’t one; nor are there plans for one (from what i can gather).

I’m sure that this problem will be solved by some bright spark at some point soon, but in the mean time what about iPhone users who want to find out about our services or even contact us?

Well, this led to some quick, almost long forgotten HTML work on our site to create an iPhone friendly version of the site. It is not as slick or as fancy as the flash site, but at the very least, we are not excluding iPhone users from accessing our information anymore. I feel better if nothing else!

Happy birthday to Neil Armstrong today, the 1st man on the moon that is! and not our very own Neil Armstrong who incidently hopes to be the second Neil Armstrong on the moon…now that would be a great story!

I believe Neil doesn’t like to discuss his moon adventure so much these days, which is a shame given that 1st hand experience is the best form of knowledge…I suppose he feels he has said everything that needs to said, or does it add to the mystery and intrigue that his public crave. It’s a fine line between positive and negative promotion which he seems to have created perfectly. Another exponent of this intrique marketing build up has been with the alledged ”under stocked” new Apple iphone where you couldn’t get it for love or money for a number of the opening weeks…so you don’t think the carrier bag that displayed the words ‘Got it’ was a giveaway to the carefully crafted marketing ploy then? It did work though, brilliant!

On a mammoth client visit to Manchester, then Matlock Bath, then the Pennines and then to Leeds; I was reminded of the power of word-of-mouth marketing. One of my best mates Dan from Young Phillips Advertising recently visited Leeds to see his daugther at University in the City. Being a lover of the lavish Dan found some great venues within Leeds to drink and eat and upon his return told me how good these places were. This word-of-mouth recommendation then directly effected my choices when in Leeds myself and I checked out his recommendations; the many one of which was Bibis Italianissimo; a fantastic italian eating and entertainment experience within Leeds. http://www.bibisrestaurant.com

Wendy and I absolutely loved the place, we will eat there again when on another client visit in the area (next month) and would also recommend the place to anyone who wants to eat great food in a great atmosphere… Our word-of-mouth recommendation, which came from a similar one made to us; is therefore worth untold business to the establishment itself… That’s why word-of-mouth is the most effective form of marketing there is!

However, the one caveat is that the experience has to be good and the quality has to be high. When expectations are set within a word-of-mouth recommendation; they are set higher than average; so the delivery of the experience that the restaurant in this case made needed to be at least the same as Dan’s experience when he visited the establishment; in order to continue the forward chain of recommendation. It’s a further mark of Bibis as a business that Wendy and I were similarlly bowled over with our visit… and can therefore recommend it on…