I’ve just got back fro the US and every time I visit, I’m reminded what great customer service looks like.

I can never work out if it’s just the way the Americans are or if they are very well trained and incentivised. To the reserved English, the glowing friendly and outward American can however seem OTT.

I’m sure the tipping culture provides some focus but it’s much more than that.  I had plenty of occasions to think that they are altogether more positive, friendly and polite than we are, it’s not every country where two young snowboarders would ask if I minded if they drank a beer on the chairlift (although it didnt run to offering me one) however, there are plenty of folks in the UK who have good manners too – I suspect that there are just a lot less of them.

There are so many instances where I am underwhelmed by the service I receive in the UK that my default expectation is to be disappointed. How fantastic it is therefore on the rare occasions that I am overwhelmed, and how many people do I then tell about it – I can’t stop!

If this is the case then why don’t more companies on this side of the Atlantic give stand out service – it attracts a growing legion of brand advocates,  is the best form of brand development and is just good practice. Standout customer service has to be a major focus for every business that wants to succeed.

Connected white goods have been talked about for years and finally it has become reality. Samsung’s new RF4289 fridge on demo at CES 2012 really moves things along. The thing is, with us all wandering around glued to our mobile devices, is this all a bit to much?

I’m not sure it is. You see the fridge in our house is the central magnetic repository for everything important in our life, from the family calendar to the latest artistic creation from my 3 year old. So could Samsung be leading the start of something that becomes thing to have?

Over Christmas i was asked by a friend how do you embed the video player from Youtube using the iframe method without it sitting on the top of everything in the page and covering up important things like menus.

Now i have never been asked this question before and to be honest i always thought the answer was common knowledge and therefore the reason I had never been asked it. But the person who asked me this question is someone with serious programming pedigree and it made me think, does everyone know you can pass parameters such as ‘wmode’ to YouTube in the iframe URL?

Here is how to do it:

A standard block of code produced by clicking YouTubes embed button will look like this:
<iframe width="560" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/AwJxQcf426U" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

If you want to tell YouTube to display the video player with wmode=transparent your code should look like this:
<iframe width="560" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/AwJxQcf426U?wmode=transparent" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

If you want to tell YouTube to display the video player with wmode=transparent and to autoplay your code should look like this:
<iframe width="560" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/AwJxQcf426U?wmode=transparent&autoplay=1" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

A full list of other parameters can be found here

Two huge print jobs are flowing through the agency at the moment and yet again it highlights the need to have knowledge and experience on hand when it comes to printing – especially in large volumes.

Many businesses out there are looking at buying in their own print and management as a cost-saving exercise without understanding the amount of risk they are exposing themselves to.

Without the old-school knowledge and experience that many agencies have developed through years of practice, this gung-ho attitude to printing can quickly turn into a false economy. Just handing over a disc containing artwork is risky business at the best of times, but imagine doing this when you have the quality of £80,000 worth of brand collateral riding on it.

When an agency takes on the responsibility for buying and managing the print, there are many things specifically born out of experience that happen to ensure the finished article looks every bit as good in the final form as it did on the screen.

At the beginning of each job, time is invested into:

• Selecting the right stocks and inks
• Meetings with printers to make sure they are briefed to the best possible standard
• Getting the best price (this is not the same as the cheapest)

At proofing stage:

• Are all pages included in the proof, are the pages in the right order and are page numbers correct?
• Are all images/photos included and in correct placement?
• Do photos and graphics have good contrast?
• Are all fonts correct and is the text crisp and spaced properly?
• Are the margins and page alignment(s) correct?
• Double-check all names, addresses, email/web addresses and telephone numbers
• Double-check spelling and punctuation

When at print:

• Are there dust spots, printing marks, or dirt marks on the sheets?
• Check colour placement and colour consistency throughout the pages
• If you have received a colour accurate proof, are the colours correct?

When printed:

• Measure the final trim size and check folds for accuracy
• Verify any finishing elements such as die-cuts, embossing, foils, varnishes, etc
• Confirm the weight and colour of the final paper stock
• Finally – ask yourself, would you be happy for your name to appear on the piece?

The bottom line is, when you pay an agency to manage your print, you are contracting them to fundamentally manage risk on your behalf – saving you from potentially expensive errors – and, if anything does go wrong they are taking on the responsibility to put it right.

We spotted this hard hitting campaign from Israel earlier this month. It really smashes home the consequences of texting and driving. I really don’t think there are any words to describe how this campaign makes you feel after reading the message.

This morning John one of our designers pointed out that when he tried to call the office by using the telephone number posted on our web page the call immediately failed. It turns out that if we had formatted the phone number as +44 1706 822 888 it would work but we wanted to have it visually formatted as +44 (0) 1706 822 888 which is not recognised by the likes of iPhone or other smart phones.

After some research and fiddling it turns out that the solutions to this problem is quite simple. By using the ‘a’ tag you can add a phone number to your website, keep the format and still make it accessible to smart phones.

Instead of just placing the number on the page you should use the ‘a’ tag and format it like this.
<a href="tel:+44 1706 822888">+44 (0) 1706 822 888</a>
This way the smart phone uses the value of +44 1706 822 888 to make the call whilst still displaying the number on screen in the format of +44 (0) 1706 822 888.

This month sees Clock’s B2B Marketing supplement published in the January edition of the North West Business Insider Magazine.

We take a look at how B2B marketing is changing its tactics in 2012 and provide some insights for success.

“The team are extremely proud of the piece and have worked tirelessley toward its production – It’s a reflection of Clock’s growing stature and clearly demonstrates our passion in helping our clients to drive their businesses forward”. Mark Taylor – Managing Director.

Download B2B//2012

Usually when I stop at a motorway services the only advertising I am receptive to is the kind that promotes the eating of fried chicken. But whilst doing a pitstop on a recent trip to see one of our clients this particular UNICEF campaign really smashed me.

The pairing of treasured Christmas icons such as the tree and stocking with such stark text is powerful and really twists the emotive dial towards eleven.

Apologies for the image quality but taking photos in the gents is something that has to be done quickly.

I’ve been thinking about New Year’s resolutions and decided they’re worthless, no sooner have they been set they’ve been forgotten. So instead, I thought I’d set out our promises, something we passionately believe in and strive for in 2012.

1. We will seek to work with companies who are passionate about and committed to using creativity and strategic planning to impact on their marketing.
2. We will strive to measure effectiveness in everything we do. Even the tricky to measure stuff like PR.
3. We will commit to learning. The marketing landscape is changing fast. We will seek out and try new technologies, methodologies and invest in ourselves.
4. We will look beyond the obvious. Creativity drives everything we do and we will endeavour to challenge ourselves to do more, better and in unexpected ways.
5. We won’t work for free. If a company is committed to a project, they will commit budget. Only then will we engage our brains and expert skill.
6. We will champion effective B2B brand and marketing communications and commit to sharing our experiences and learnings with the business community.
7. We will have fun doing it. After all, we’re doing what we love.

Hopefully in 12 months time we will look at these and say that’s what we did. What are yours?

Three weeks have now passed since a few brave men (and sometimes women!!??) from Clock Creative decided to take part in Movember, the moustache growing charity event held each year during November. Movember raises funds and awareness for men’s health, specifically prostate cancer and other cancers that affect men.

From a clean-shaven start, we’re now past the halfway mark now and the progress is beginning to affect our personalities – as you can see from our latest update photo.

But we’re not deterred. We still have the remainder of the month to grow and groom our Mos, and it’s time to really kick things into gear to raise some money.

So on that note, please lend your support to the Clock Creative team by visiting http://mobro.co/clockcreative and donating whatever you can spare.

The funds raised in the UK support the number one and two male specific cancers – prostate and testicular cancer.

Well, it’s week two of Movember and the ‘taches of Clock are coming along nicely. If nice is the word you could use to describe a moustache that is!! Here are some shots we took yesterday of the work in progress.

It’s easy to donate to this worth while cause – just click this link and give what you can!! :-[)

You can compare this to how we all looked in week 1! All clean-shaven and baby faced! Bit of a change!

Well, it’s finally here. It’s the 1st of November and us Mo Bros have clocked in for Movember. We’ve had our photo taken with clean shaven faces as we begin a month of moustachery. We’ll post regular updates on the blog so you can see how daft/funny/brilliant we look as the month progresses. But really, we want you to visit our Movember page to donate to this wonderful cause! So please visit http://mobro.co/clockcreative and give what you can!

Last Sunday we joined the hundreds of people lining the route to cheer on the 75 people who took part in the time trial, riders of all ages took part, and the winner completed the course in a brilliant 2 minutes 30 seconds – the record stands at a staggering 2:14!

Thanks to Gareth and David for taking these great pictures that give you an idea just how steep the climb was!

We’re off to start our training for next year…

Sponsors of this year’s annual Rake Cycle Challenge, Clock Creative, were out in full force last Sunday (16th October) presenting commemorative ‘I rode the Rake 2011’ T-shirts that they had designed to mark the high profile event in the cyclists’ calendar. The team designed a logo for the event organiser, the Lancashire Road Cycle Club, incorporating the distinctive Clock logo and a cyclist in action.

The event attracted 100’s of spectators who lined the route from Ramsbottom library to the top of the Rake near the Shoulder of Mutton pub. Ann Rimmer of Clock Creative said: “We’re proud to be part of such a thriving village and we wanted to show our support for the event by getting involved and sponsoring it. Next year the time trail becomes a National Championship so the branding we’ve now set in place for the Lancashire Road Cycle Club can be developed further at a later date.”

Peter Graham, organiser of the event from the Lancashire Road Club said: “The race is a fantastic spectacle and hugely popular in both racing circles and with the numerous supporters who come along. We’d struggle to hold the event without sponsors though and once again this year we’ve been well supported which is great.”

The annual time trial event attracts keen cyclists from across the UK, hoping for the fastest climb, which this year was just under 3 minutes. Relatively short at 875 metres, the Ramsbottom Rake has a punishing gradient – reaching 25% towards the end – making it a challenge for the 75 solo and tandem cyclists who took part. The youngest cyclist was aged 9 on a tandem with her father and the eldest was in his seventies.

We are delighted to be shortlisted in a number of marketing awards this year, namely the 2011 Marketing Industry Network (MIN) Awards and Some Comms Social media awards.

In the MIN awards we are shortlisted in Design Consultancy of the year which we won in 2010 and in the Best B2C Marketing Strategy category for our work with client Fostering Solutions. The Design Consultancy award is given to the agency that demonstrates a consistent track record of chievment for themselves and their clients.

In the Some Comms awards we are shortlisted in the Best Use of Facebook category for our work with PetSafe, who we created 2 lovable characters ‘Archie the Puppy’ & ‘Annabel the cat’ who are proving to be quite a hit with dog and cat lovers.

Entering industry awards helps us measure ourselves against the industry and our peers whilst allowing us to profile the work we do and the results it delivers for our clients. It is quite an achievement getting shortlisted for us and our clients.

The moustache has a long and proud history. From Charlie Chaplin, Albert Einstein and Keith Lemon to Hulk Hogan, and Magnum PI, it is only marred by one German who we won’t mention here.

In November, the moustache once again comes to the fore as men across the globe unite in a very special and dare we say, potentially awkward event, Movember.

Movember is responsible for the sprouting of moustaches in November on thousands of mens’ faces around the world. The aim of which is to raise vital funds and awareness for men’s health, specifically prostate cancer and other cancers that affect men.

This Movember, Clock will be raising funds by seeking sponsorship for our Mo-growing efforts. On Movember 1st, the men of Clock will sign in with photos of our clean-shaven faces and then for the rest of the month, us Mo Bros (as we’re called) will groom, trim and wax our way towards excellent moustachery. And we will be supported by the women at Clock, who we shall call the Mo Sistas.

Mo Bros effectively become walking, talking billboards for the 30 days of November and through their actions and words raise awareness by prompting private and public conversation around this often ignored issue of men’s health.

So, if you can spare some loose change, please visit our donation page to help fund an extremely worthy cause. And don’t forget to check our blog throughout Movember for updates on our ‘tache’s with pictures!

You can find out more about Movember by visiting http://uk.movember.com/

I’m spending a few weeks in the heat and cloudless skies of Spain.

Escaping.

I mean, escaping ‘Brand’.

Brand positioning, brand values, brand essence, etc, etc.

Forget it. I’m on my hols.

But, for people like me who are fascinated by it, it isn’t that easy.

For example, whilst in a foreign country, we are constantly presented with new and unfamiliar brands at every turn.

El Supermercado (hey, bit of Spanish creeping in there!) is a nightmare.  The names either sound like anagrams, or a dubious medical condition. Yet, even with the language difference, when selecting from a range of products,  there are ‘signals’ in the presentation of the design, typography and colour to convey which is the brand leader.

Fine, but let me share an anecdote from today.

Buying bottled water.

Basic, functional, cheap- something to reach out for whilst on the beach after too much sun, or something to reach out for during the night after too much Spanish brandy.

But, there I was. Faced with several brands containing, essentially, the same product.

I narrowed it down by logical elimination of shape and proportions of the plastic container – would it easily slide out of my hand due to the coating of Factor 6 or would it fall over and roll down the beach?

So, I was faced with two choices. The first, designed with a delicate post-modern typography style of letter-spaced Copperplate, contrasting with the pleasing cleanliness of Standard Light Caps. Or the second -a bolder, brutal, reassuring option of dated – yet strangely comforting – Times New Roman reversed out of a deep blue panel.

This was the big moment.

Then I heard the words echoing from my internal focus group – “Its only water for Christ’s sake. Just buy it and get to the beach”

David Bailey, Creative Director

BE CLEAR ABOUT YOUR OBJECTIVES
Be single-minded in doing this. Do you need to change existing perceptions?  Do you need to increase market share? Have you changed your products, your structure or your operation and need a new brand positioning to reflect this?

CHECK YOUR EXTERNAL PERCEPTIONS
If your brand has been around a while, check that your view of what you stand for correlates with that of your market and your customers’ or clients’. Research how they see you, your strengths or potential ways you could improve. It’s easy to assume they know what you’re about and that’s not always the case.

DON’T FORGET YOUR INTERNAL PERCEPTIONS
A brand workshop with your management team is an invaluable way of debating internal opinions regarding your brand essence and desired positioning. There are proven interrogative techniques you can use to achieve this in a structured way.

It’s surprising how people working in key positions within the same company can develop their own ‘take’ on the vision, strengths and aspirations of the business.

This can lead to a degree of conflict or contradiction around the table but far better to establish a ‘single voice’ at this stage and go forward with a united mission.

PREPARE TO FACE THE TRUTH
Apart from the potential surprises facing you at the internal brand workshop, customer research may expose some unwelcome comments but take them on board and set out to counteract them in a positive manner.

KNOW YOUR COMPETITORS
You’ll no doubt know who they are but look closely at how they’re marketing themselves and what they believe their strengths to be. Independent research and analysis is objective and can be beneficial in determining your competitive advantage and differentiators.

SET CLEAR TIMESCALES AND BUDGETS
The results and findings from the above should provide the basis of an informed marketing strategy. However, it’s important you’re clear in the timescale and affordability of this so the various elements of the marketing campaign can be costed to meet your budget.

TEST THE SOLUTION
Once the brand identity and creative collateral has been presented, it could be useful to test this with your audiences. This could simply be achieved with your key clients or through independent focus groups.

SHARE YOUR NEW VISION WITH YOUR TEAM
It’s vital your team and employees understand the new branding and the thinking and criteria that led to it. They’re the ambassadors of your business and so it’s vital they project the same, cohesive messages externally to your customers and suppliers. This is what helps to achieve a clear, distinctive brand platform.

TRACK AND MEASURE THE EFFECTIVENESS
Ensure the proposed strategy is working and tweak or fine-tune if necessary. Your agency will no doubt have measurement processes in place but it’s important for your company to be involved in this also and pass on information, which is useful to the measurement data.

COMMUNICATE WITH YOUR AGENCY ON A REGULAR BASIS
Bringing a new or repositioned brand to life and ensuring it’s growing healthily is very much a team effort between you and your creative agency. It’s important they keep you informed with any information they discover but equally important you should keep them up to speed with any feedback from your clients or customers.

We were very pleased to see the new sign we designed for Fostering Solutions in place. They’re now successfully moved over to their fantastic new offices in Bolton and this is the icing on the cake. Having heard about results off the back of recent campaigns all signs of success are good!

What is a B2B brand strategy?

Before attempting to answer this question, the first thing to ask is, what is a brand and do you have one anyway?

A couple of misperceptions to get out of the way are that brand essence is only relevant for consumer marketing and not something that applies in ‘B2B LAND’.

Secondly, that a brand is merely a logo design together with – if you’re lucky – a strap line.

So, for successful brand power in business-to-business marketing, let’s dismiss the above myths and move on.

Achieving brand clarity

A brand is more than a badge; it’s a source of promise to its customers that it must deliver.

It’s almost a living, breathing thing that conveys a real personality with a well-defined positioning in the market, its own unique emotional and rational values, a distinct business proposition plus compelling competitive advantages and differentiators.

So, the recipe for success is simple. By analysing the attributes – and shortcomings – of your brand and looking at the opportunities presented by the market, you can establish a strategy with clear and measurable objectives and allow it – almost as you would with an offspring – to stride out into the world fresh-faced with a strong personality and confidence.

Growing, developing and making influential new acquaintances along the way.

Basically, if you wish to invest in your company, the best starting place is to invest in your brand.

by David Bailey, Creative Director, Clock Creative.

Rubbish in. Rubbish out.

A phrase that could apply to many things in life. But probably none so relevant as the writing of a creative brief.

This is never easy and should not be entered into lightly. A rushed brief is a rubbish brief, so make sure you dedicate enough time out of your schedule. A brief should inspire, intrigue and arouse imagination in the minds of the creative team who receive it. Of course it must contain facts, such as the competitive landscape and target audience, but the best briefs are those that are based on insight. Those fundamental truths that your research has presented.

There are two vitally important tasks to writing a brief: 1. Do your research; 2. Ensure your proposition is focused and single minded.

Do your research

After reading the clients’ brief, ask yourself these 5 questions:

What do we know about the client?
What do we know about the market?
What do we know about the customer?
What do we know about the competition?
What are we trying to achieve?

There are a number of tools available to help fill in the gaps. First and foremost, go back to the client with a list of questions and get a better understanding of what they are asking for. Secondly, do your own research. This could be from market reports, trade publications, competitor websites and if applicable, your own experience.

Research is vitally important, however thorough the client’s brief is and there is no better way to achieve valuable insights than your own experience and/or the experience of others. Immerse yourself into the target audience, speak to them if at all possible – who are they, what makes them tick, what do they want? If you are dealing with a consumer audience then discover where they live, how much disposable income do they have, what media do they read? For a B2B audience, find out what keeps them up at night, what pressures are they under, what is the decision making process within the organisation? You’ll be surprised at how much you’ll discover.

A single minded proposition

Surely the most important but also most difficult part of brief writing!  A proposition is the crux of the brief, the one single most important thing that the campaign should communicate to its audience. It should be inspirational, cohesive, and importantly, one sentence.

It’s also a core point of reference for the creative teams and, ultimately, will be what the relevance and accuracy of the creative work will be judged upon.

Was the brief to Michelangelo regarding the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel ‘Please paint the ceiling’?

This was what he was asked to do, but this proposition could have led him to paint the ceiling with a coat of white emulsion.

Was he asked to ‘Paint the ceiling using red, green and yellow’?

A little more direction perhaps but this brief is worse as it’s too restrictive and does not allow for creative interpretation or imagination.

The brief he was more likely to have received is ‘Please paint our ceiling for the greater glory of God and as an inspiration and lesson to his people’.

This kind of proposition would have lead to the beautiful frescos Michelangelo created, devoting his attention to the objectives of the brief in the best way he knew how.

Avoid writing a ‘woolly’ proposition or your creative team will go off at a tangent and before you know it you’ll be over budget before the concept stage is complete! Similarly, stay away from being too prescriptive as this will only distract creative minds.

Spend time on your proposition, think about it.  Write it down, contemplate and rewrite it if necessary. Repeat this exercise as many times as you need to until you are happy with your final decision. This is where an agency adds value to a client brief, so it’s important to make sure it’s right.

Keep it short

A good habit to get into when writing a brief is to keep it as succinct as possible. Think about what the creative team need to know – for example, is it important to them that the organisation has 200 employees? Will that make a difference to the creative output? Do they need to know that they have offices in 5 different countries?

Keeping to the relevant facts and insights leads to a clearer briefing session and focused creative concepts. Ideally, a written brief should be no more than 2 pages long. After all, we all know creatives have a short attention span!

by Davinia Hamilton-Maddox, Account Director, Clock Creative.

How to protect your brand values through internal communications.

After a lot of hard work, analysis and debate, you get your brand positioning right.

You define the values, the differentiators and ‘the promise’.

You work out a strategy for one, two, five year’s time that will take your brand and your business to new heights.

But how you control and retain the brand vision and values on a daily basis, ensuring they don’t get eroded with time?

Getting internal ‘buy-in’

More and more companies are teaching their employees about their brand and what it stands for by means of an internal marketing programme. They are also engaging their employees in creating systems that ensure customers experience the brand promise during every interaction. If you are looking for ways to meaningfully engage your employees in the brand building process, consider the following ideas:

Inform them about the brand values and ‘promise’ and expect them to deliver on it.

Share the vision with your team

Take them through ‘the journey’ – the research, competitor analysis and insights that led to the brand positioning and differentiators in the first place – after all, they are the ambassadors who can ensure the external touch points echo the aspirations of the brand.

Transform your marketing communications team into internal brand champions. Staff in this function should understand the brand promise intimately. Leverage them as change agents. Invite them to departmental meetings to discuss what the brand means. Ask them to share data from brand research to help you better understand the people whom you are targeting as customers. When we work with companies to align organisation practices with brand strategy, the marketing communications and brand people are our greatest allies.

Help managers motivate their teams to deliver on the brand promise. Educate your HR team about the brand promise and get them to train and support managers to recognise people whose actions reflect key brand values – in appraisals, for example.

Remind them on a daily basis

Internal visual aids are useful items to remind employees of the brand positioning every working day. A ‘mantra’ displayed on the walls of the office, workshop or sales environment is an effective tool.

For example, discover three things that the company IS and three things that it OFFERS supported by a concise paragraph that elaborates on this. This can also be presented as a printed, double-sided Brand Card with ‘WE ARE’ and ‘WE OFFER’ presented on each side. This is useful either as an aide-memoire or in customer-facing sales scenarios.

Every action in your company can help translate your brand promise into behavior. Helping your team to better connect with the brand is the way to focus and align their actions with what your business aspires to do externally. It’s more than education, it is simply good management for a market-focused organisation.

by David Bailey, Creative Director, Clock Creative.

UK manufacturers are at the cutting edge. If you’re exhibiting at a trade exhibition, it means you’re up there with the best of them and have the products to prove it. Yet, that’s not necessarily what all those influential buyers will be looking for. Sure, they’ll come onto your stand – but they’ll also be taking a good look at what all your competitors have to offer. So what makes you so different?

Focus on “why”, not “how”

Many manufacturing companies tend to focus on their products. How innovative they are, how they’ve been developed, how much better they are than anything that’s gone before. But the stark fact remains: every one of your competitors will be saying the same thing. So the danger is that your component becomes just another commodity product, and therefore you’re forced into the corner of selling on price.
The way out is to switch the focus to “why”.

Why it works

Why should a customer buy your products? Why do they need them, and why should they believe your claims? Are you really selling a component, or are you offering a solution which could save lives or protect the lifecycle of customers’ own products? Work on the answers and you’re on your way to demonstrating a distinct and tangible difference to potential customers. So show the real and unique value of dealing with your company. Concentrate on the benefits delivered by your expertise and understanding of customers’ requirements. Talk about all the wealth of advice, freely available. What’s the secret of successful marketing? Sell your company, and you’ll sell your products.

Rain. Pitch. Pitch. Pitch. Pitch. Flirting. Rain. Christmas Games. Champagne. Caravans. Graffiti. Dog Rain Coat. Email Server? Email Server? Banana Cake. SME Club. Porsche 911. Polar Bear. Gimp Mask. Graduates. Another Pitch! Holding Page. Blind-fold. Sunshine!

It’s all a bit hectic and busy at Clock this week. Looks like a few of the staff had the good idea of wearing go faster stripes today to get through workload!

We must give some credit to photographer Steve Schofield whose email was welcomed with great applause this morning. We often discuss the effectiveness of an e-shot campaign, along with many other tricks, one particular rule we have is to always have an attention grabbing Subject Title. Cliché as Steve’s may be for a photographer – it certainly cut through the noise of our ever filling Inbox – “I shoot people” read the title of the email. Hard not to open really! It turns out Steve is a great photographer - now firmly ingrained in our minds. Thanks for the email Steve and we hope to work with you one day. Great shooting – we certainly heard you loud and clear.

How well do you know your fonts? Test your font knowledge with the Font game brought to you by ilovetypography.com/fontgame/

Our Head of Digital Paul Aspden has just passed his Google IQ Exam. The Google Analytics Individual Qualification is a proof of proficiency in Google Analytics that is available to any individual who has passed the Google Analytics IQ test.

Brand reputations can be built and destroyed online, just as they can offline. On one hand, the ability to actively demonstrate your brand values through social media channels offers exciting possibilities. The style of content you produce and the way you deliver and engage allows you to deliver your brand values in real time. This can be extremely powerful and is something we all as customers are increasingly seeking – we want to buy from people and companies who appear genuine and who share our values.

Conversely, if you get it wrong you can end up damaging the reputation of your brand and very quickly build a poor reputation. It’s this fear of getting it wrong that often puts companies off using social media. However, with some careful planning and preparation you can avoid damaging your brand and actually elevate it, building new customers and creating greater brand loyalty than before.

Is social media right for your brand?

So how do you know if social media is relevant to your company – and if it is, which channels to use?

To understand if it is right for your business, start in the same way you would when considering any form of marketing communication – by focusing on your business strategy. That’s where we at Clock would always begin. Once we fully understand what your business objectives are, who your target audiences are and where best to reach them, then we can develop a communication strategy that incorporates social media and aligns with your business objectives.

Only when you have identified your target audiences, and how best to influence them, can you determine if social media is right for you. In the b2b arena you almost certainly should be on LinkedIn and your prime branded destination should be your website.

Monitoring

A good start is monitoring what is currently being said about your brand, your products and your services. There are some free tools to help you do this, and it’s worthwhile spending some time watching conversations to understand if you need to change perceptions, build on them or create them. I would also recommend monitoring what is being said about your key competitors, the types of products and services you sell and the prevailing trends in your industry.

Once you have spent some time observing you will have a much better idea of the task in hand and this can help you prepare content in advance. You should incorporate into your plan a set of guidelines for dealing with negative comments, complaints or potentially damaging conversations. By preparing for these you will ensure you deal with anything promptly, professionally and with a level-head. Negative comments should always be seen as an opportunity to demonstrate your brand values and build your brand’s reputation. The other way of looking at it is that negative conversations will happen anyway, and you are far better joining in the debate openly rather than letting frustrations build.

Channels

Once you have your plan, and you’ve monitored conversations and developed some content, you need to identify the best channels for you. The decision should be based partly on resources available and partly on which channels your target audience can be found.

Selecting the right channel or channels is key to your brand being seen in the right places. Companies often make the mistake of trying to be active on every channel (video, blogs, Twitter, Facebook etc) and find they simply cannot maintain the level of interaction required to create a meaningful dialogue. My advice would be to carefully select a very small number and do them really well. This way, you can more easily maintain the level of interactive dialogue that’s essential to build any type of relationship and demonstrate brand integrity.

Creating brand influence

Social media is a great tool for widening your reach, positioning your brand and engaging with audiences in a way that is hard to do through traditional networks. Building trust is important in order to develop long term relationships. Once people trust your brand they are more likely to engage with it, recommend it and help you build a wider reach. In essence, to start to ‘influence’ your followers.

To do this you need to think relationship marketing, rather than lead generation marketing. This means providing useful information, responding to enquiries and participating in conversations with the aim of building trust – leaving selling to no more than 20% of your content. Most importantly, this approach requires a long-term view.

Integration

As with any marketing communication, social media is rarely successful if used in isolation, so ensure that your other marketing communications promote your online activity. This can include simple things like having links to your Twitter, LinkedIn or other social media pages on your email footer. Using the URLs of these pages in adverts, and creating an e-shot to let existing customers and suppliers know they exist, also helps to build an awareness and a following. If you are running a promotion on a Facebook page, remember to promote this through your other channels to present a cohesive campaign. And if you’re generating content for your blog, could this be successfully adapted for a press release? Wherever possible, seek to maximise reach through other channels.

Integration means reinforcing your brand messages through every possible channel where audiences could come in contact with your brand. A consistent message is a powerful one: inconsistency undermines your brand at every level. Share your marketing activity with your internal teams and, if appropriate, your external partners. It’s vital that everyone understands the messages being put out and is able to reinforce them through their contact with customers.

Measuring effectiveness

Within your strategy be sure to include some ways for measuring effectiveness.
What will success look like? Well, as with other communications it can be difficult to assess results precisely. However, there are some essentials that will help to ensure you are not wasting valuable resources and budget. Remember, social media is online and anything online can be measured. You just have to understand why you are measuring it and what to do with the information.

Here are a few suggestions;

• Relevance – how relevant is your content to your audience?
If you are writing blogs, measure feedback and comments, retweets and sharing of the blog. If you are using Twitter and Facebook, how many conversations are there from your followers and fans? Are they sharing your content and engaging others in the discussions?
• Perceptions – from your initial monitoring, what are people’s perceptions of your brand and 6 months on have they changed or improved? How do people respond to your products and services, when you post information do they provide feedback? Do you know if they are happy with your service levels?
• Trust – do you gain recommendations? Are new customers and suppliers approaching you? Are your staff engaging with your social media channels and contributing?
• Engagement – Are you building a loyal following? How often do people engage in dialogue with you on and offline? Can sales or customer service see a response following the posting of a promotion? Is there a reduction in after care calls following the posting of frequently asked questions? Are the sales team seeing an improvement in awareness?
• Awareness – Are your followers increasing, how many retweets and sharing of content do you achieve? Are your competitors and peers engaging with you? Is it helping with recruitment? Are you finding it easier to source new suppliers or reach new markets?

There are many tools to help you measure your reach and conversations about your brand, Google being a good free starting point.

Finally, I would reiterate the need to take a long-term view of social media. It is rarely something that delivers overnight success and it requires a dedicated resource. If you are intending to manage it in-house, make sure you have someone who understands your brand, your products and services and who has a good grasp of the technologies and methods. If you outsource it, ensure the company also has a good grasp of these and a direct line to the brand guardian in-house. Social media needs to be a continuous activity if you are going to successfully build your brand. Otherwise your audience will become disengaged very quickly and all your efforts will be wasted. Done properly, it is a valuable tool for elevating your brand globally and building meaningful relationships to grow your business.

Additional reading
Here are links to some interesting case studies on companies using social media:

UPS Case Study 1
UPS Case Study 2

Various
Toprankblog.com social media winners 2010
How Cisco have made social media an integral part of their website
Guidelines and policies

We must give some credit to photographer Steve Schofield whose email was welcomed with great applause this morning. We often discuss the effectiveness of an e-shot campaign, along with many other tricks, one particular rule we have is to always have an attention grabbing Subject Title. Cliché as Steve’s may be for a photographer – it certainly cut through the noise of our ever filling Inbox – “I shoot people” read the title of the email. Hard not to open really! It turns out Steve is a great photographer - now firmly ingrained in our minds. Thanks for the email Steve and we hope to work with you one day. Great shooting – we certainly heard you loud and clear.

I gave a talk to around 50 students at Bury College this week, the students were from 2 BTEC Level 3 Extended Diploma courses, one in Art and Design and the other in Interactive Media. The purpose of the talk was to help them understand how an agency operates, what a career in design is like and what the future may hold for the design industry (as I see it).

I started by explaining how I got in to graphics, starting with a Diploma in Art & Design at Blackburn School of Art before choosing to focus on Design & Advertising at Salford University. I took them on a 1 slide journey of my design career path before talking about how & why Clock was launched. We spent some time discussing the importance of strategy, planning & process to ensure design success. Before looking at changes in the industry and the impact this may have on designers of the future.

Problem solving first, aesthetics later

The key message I wanted to deliver was about design being about solving problems – in our case, often business issues.  I took them through our own ClockWise™ process where our brand diagnosis tools help uncover the real issues facing a business. The importance of understanding a clients objectives, the audience and developing a single-minded proposition before starting to design cannot be under estimated, something I knew very little of when I entered the industry.

I was very pleasantly surprised by their response to the talk, their questions demonstrated they are already starting to think about where they might fit in to an agency and what their career path might look like. They showed how they are starting to think about audiences through some of their project work, if they are doing this at Diploma level then there are strong signs over the next few years that they will be able to think through challenging client briefs in the future.

Where are we headed?

Talking about changes in the industry and the influence social is having on the world and the design industry, I touched on the importance of them understanding the media landscape – and embracing it. I asked them if they are using social media to reach out to the design industry and start to build relationships with other designers and agency owners and was amazed to find the vast majority weren’t.

It occurred to me afterwards how cut-off design students can sometimes be from industry and yet how easy it now is to access the industry now. I feel design & media students need to understand they are in the communications industry, design is one element of communication and one which they often hide behind. For them to be employable they have to start mastering the art of communication, which means they need to use all means of communication they can to reach their audience; social media, telephones, direct mail, digital, events to name a few. When they asked me about how to get in front of agencies, my response was “not email” and “don’t send me a PDF” – be creative, be communicative. Take the time to understand what makes Clock tick, create something that talks to me about what you have to offer, rather than sending a blanket email with a 12 page PDF of work attached. I want to be inspired by the future talent, I want to understand what they could bring to Clock and why they want to speak to us specifically. Follow up on the telephone – demonstrate you know how to talk and follow through your piece of communication, rather than hiding behind an email.
What, if anything should agencies do?

So if that’s what I recommend a student does to stand out and approach us, what do students want from agencies? Well apart from the obvious questions I got about “is there a job?” I think as an industry we need to give up our time to go to colleges and universities and maybe even schools, to help them understand how our industry works, what we want and expect from students and start them on the journey to problem solving.

There is still a massive amount education needs to do to reach out to industry and as this is now being championed by Government, there’s a chance change might happen. In the meantime, if you are in the industry or client-side, get in touch with your local college or university and get involved with changing perceptions, I think you might be pleasantly surprised.

Salford University Design Futures and Design Management Degree course students are doing some exciting things at the moment to engage with industry. Here is a video of an event they recently held. http://vimeo.com/24328954

Ann Rimmer – Director of Strategy at Clock Creative

An interesting question and the answer is obviously dependent on who the customer is.

However for me, as MD of Clock Creative – a brand strategy and marketing communications agency specialising in B2B clients – the answer was definitely the latter. I was looking for the business proposition offered, not by the brand of the car – a BMW X5 – but by the brand values of the dealership.

What would be the brand experience and the customer journey?

Well, the journey turned out to be a rough ride at the first couple of dealerships. With 2 young children in tow wishing to get a ‘family test drive’, we were kept waiting hours at a pre-booked appointment and treated in a condescending manner. This culminated in a stressful departure after having to entertain impatient and bored youngsters for such a long period.

What an absolute contrast at Williams Bolton.

The customer experience started at the first visit to get a quote where my 6 year old was led to a computer games console and nearby drinks cabinet to keep him occupied and amused. The salespeople spent 2 hours getting to understand what ‘makes me tick’ and discover what my personal needs were from a company vehicle.

After a lot of hard work, they found the right car, with the right spec and at the right price.

They asked me to allow at least an hour when collecting the vehicle, stressing the importance of this occasion.

On the day of the collection a short time after, I had the usual preconceptions of the transaction. Sort out the paperwork, the painful bit where the money exchanges hands and the good bit when you collect the keys and drive away for the first time.

I had something of a surprise however as the paperwork and payment stages went quickly and without a hitch. I was halfway to the car park to change over the kids car seats and remove a boot full of ‘stuff’ when Grant (the BMW salesman) re-directed me to a corridor, at the end of which was a door with my name in a name plate.

The door led to a room, where my new X5 was slowly rotating on a turntable, back lit and spot lit –amazing!

I have to say that the whole process was a pleasure – the showroom is a fantastic environment and the staff are great. This last touch was just the icing on the cake to leave you with a memorable experience of the BMW brand.

Five days later they sent a letter outlining their vision which is ‘the difference is Williams’ asking for feedback on their service. Well  for me, they certainly delivered their vision and since collecting the car, I have told virtually everyone I’ve met of my positive experience.

And, as we all know, word of mouth is one of the most effective brand positioning tools of all.

The diagram below is a tool we use to help brands push their customer journey beyond expectations. We call it the ‘Energiser or WOW Triangle’. Most car brands live in the bottom segment and merely fulfill the ‘Essentials’. Some brands provide that little extra and move into the ‘Enabler’ segment. Williams have pushed it much further and to amazing effect.

Understanding the massive ripples this is causing they could take it even further. A phone call after 2 weeks to see if any problems, any assistant needed understanding the gadgets and gizmos? A full tank of fuel? A FOC Valet within 12 months to ‘keep the car like new’. Free car wash while you get the original test/ drive? Bring the test drive to your home? All great opportunities to move up the Energiser or WOW triangle!

You may think we’ve finally gone ‘cocoa’ but this latest experiment from Clock is not just a simple arty sculpture - but a world’s first – mixing the latest marketing technology with a unique business collaboration.

Working with our local chocolate heroes The Chocolate Café, whose owner Paul Morris is creator and organisor of the UK’s Chocolate Festival here in Ramsbottom, Clock put their minds to the test of how best to promote the event.

A QR Code made out of Chocolate!

QR codes are an exciting innovation that allow you to access a website, among other things,  by simply pointing your Smartphone at the graphic.

Download a free QR scanner application on to your phone and scan this chocolate QR code in to see where it takes you. Just hold your phone up to the close-up image on your computer screen to test it!

More pictures of how we actually made it to follow.

It’s already creating a lot of interest – let’s hope it doesn’t melt!

Clock HQ has had a bit of a make over recently. The downstairs room has been opened up and we are now greeting our clients, suppliers, friends and family with a rather swanky new reception. Take a look at the pictures – you’ll notice that even the BBC Weather girl was getting in the spirit in matching Clock Branded colours – a truly warm front to The Working Men’s Club!

After the brew-run from hell — Martin has been left asking if the grand total of 11 brews is due to him being a master brew maker or just a mug!? I think we might find him sneaking off for a secret brew in future!

Clock’s Office Manager, Karin, enjoyed an afternoon of kayaking along one of Manchester’s premier ship canals with stop offs along the way.This included unplanned stops when narrow boats passed by, Willow tree branches which “came out of nowhere” and naturally, a pub stop where some lemonade on dry land made for a great addition to the sunny Sunday afternoon!
Having got her Canadian Boating license you’d think she’d be great at this! Perhaps modestly she stated that if wasn’t for obstacles such as the narrow boats, drooping branches, or the stone walls of the winding canal, she’d have been really great!