I am often asked what drove me to start my own agency and why I decided to call it Clock.

I suppose it’s the classic case of working for someone else and thinking you could do things different – and better – if you did it for yourself.

I felt most agencies were either too obsessed with the creative idea itself or their own bottom line (or ego’s) to really make a positive impact to their clients business.

I was also frustrated at agency owners working their staff so hard that it became the norm to work a 70 hour week without the rewards that should come from such a commitment.

The time seemed right for a new kind of creative agency, a new kind of employer and a new way of doing business.

So the principles to build an agency upon were born and the business of choosing a name for the baby began.

After the usual trawl through the dictionary and Thesaurus looking for an abstract or meaningful name, the word Clock just shot into my brain. Somehow Clock had the edge, particularly as it gave us scope for future growth in to new areas (Digital Clock, Clock PR etc). Importantly, it also fulfilled the idea of the time being right.

After deciding on the name we got to work creating the logo using the font Akzidenz Grotesk which was adapted to incorporate the icon you see today. Pantone 526 was chosen for its strength, character and the quality it communicates.

Like all good brands, simplicity was the key and it’s stood the test of time.

Now, in its 11th year, the name and logo are still as relevant today as they were in 1999.

Why do we need Client Services? Why can’t clients just talk straight to the designers?

Well that’s how Clock started out. And for a long time it worked. But, as the agency grew, we recognised the need to become more strategic, more responsive, and more proactive in our approach. The addition of Client Services made the difference between simply being a design house and becoming a full service marketing communications agency.

As account handlers, we manage projects through the agency and act on behalf of the client. We ensure creative solutions are met on brief and to budget, brand guidelines are adhered to, key facts are accurate and all aspects of the communications plan are co-ordinated on time.

The key to good account management is to listen. Only by listening can we gain a great understanding of our clients’ business, the markets in which they operate, the competitive arena and, ultimately, what the brief is.

Writing a good brief is the most important task of an account manager. It provides the creative team with all the necessary information to create outstanding work, based on a single minded proposition. It is sometimes difficult for a client to determine the single most important aspect of the brief, as they have their sales teams, production departments and business management to please! Which is where a subjective point of view is invaluable – something only an account manager who has spent time, and listened to their client, can offer.

A good account handler will learn all about their clients’ products – be it by benefit, function and sometimes even product code! All of which adds value to the client/agency relationship and helps make the client’s job that little bit easier.

For those of you out there who think a strategic brand workshop isn’t for them, or are a little cynical of the process – perceiving it as marketing jargon – allow me to talk you through it.

In truth, it never ceases to amaze me what an enjoyable, fascinating and productive process it actually is.

It really does ‘lift the fog’ on a company’s direction for success and is instrumental in clarifying its differentiators and personality.

Clients, usually the CEO or MD, come to the table with key people from relevant departments such as sales, production or product managers and start by presenting the company’s business strategy, aspirations and objectives.

This is followed by a series of proven interrogation techniques which are effective in establishing compelling truths about the brand and its place in the market.

It can also bring to the surface any negatives or misunderstandings and confusion the team may have. I’ve even witnessed a CEO talk about what they believe to be the strengths of the company’s offering and the salesforce declaring “I didn’t know that” or “I never sell that proposition”.

A great example was a global company who’d built up a manufacturing base in the UK over a number of years. During this time, Directors and personnel came and left but, at the workshop, the Chairman felt the real strength of the company stemmed from the intellect and experience to develop, test and research new innovations with their customers as well as providing their existing products.

This really set them apart from their competitors, yet the salesforce simply weren’t aware of importance of this facility and simply went out and ‘flogged product’ making them a commodity provider.

The workshop analysis, to everyone’s surprise, highlighted this fundamental issue and helped us to turn around their sales and marketing model.

Importantly, apart from establishing clear brand values and positioning, the benefits of a brand workshop can go way beyond marketing and internal communications and change or revolutionise a company’s operating processes making the time spent a real investment for the future.

It’s that time of year again for the resident Clockers to put on their Santa suits and buy their chosen colleagues a gift. As usual this became a perfect opportunity for some festive sarcasm and mickey taking!

Kate received a ‘Ravers Kit’ after her partner, John, finally got his girl to a few club nights – including a summer trip to Benicassim in Spain!

After Mark’s ‘Worst Decision of the Year Award’, for trying to cut overheads too far with a bulk buy of the worst  toilet paper money can buy, he received a special ‘Arse Crack Cleaning Top 10 Kit’.  A box full of revolutionary ways to clean your behind and save money!

Paul received a ‘DIY Toolbox and Brew Making Kit’. Looks like his accidents at home with DIY and messy brew making skills have hit a nerve with someone!

Thanks to Martin’s calamitous night in Liverpool, where he locked his car in a multistorey and had to stay in a hotel, he received an “In Case of Emergency Break Glass’ frame with a fiver in it. Just in case!

And finally a very fitting ‘Clock Head Chef Hat’ for Karin after amazing people all year with her cake decorating skills for various staff birthdays!

Here’s the latest entry into our wooly hat competition… don’t forget to send your winter pictures in, to to be in with a chance of winning!

Cze?? from Poland,

The twitter is wondefful thing to bring us togethere from all over the world is it not? I av seen your hat competition and vont to send to you my photo.

I thought for prize, good word at embassy would be butiful!!!!

Wesolych Swiat Bozego Narodzenia (good Cristmas to you)

Pavel.

To say Martin was a big head would be rude, but based on his latest winter hat it might not be far from the truth! Ramsbottom has reached -9 today and the Clock team is feeling the freeze. Send us a picture of your wooly winter attire to design@clockcreative.co.uk and we’ll send the best picture a prize!

First entry from our very own Karin!

The creative department has been experimenting with photography once again. Using the same techniques that were used to create the images for the Clock brand, the guys have put a Christmas ‘spin’ on things quite literally! Using long exposure effects, a special Christmas image will be revealed soon to sit alongside the brand images. The look and feel of our brand champions our capabilities from strategic planning to creative, multichannel delivery with a series of vibrant images that show various elements and forms coming together.

You can see a video of the guys at work below and also a sneak preview of the results so far…!

Clock Christmas Photoshoot Video

After enjoying a fantastic talk with James Bull, of Moving Brands at the Design Symposium, things took a turn for the worse for members of the Clock crew. Martin, Clock’s Head of Design, found out that the multistorey where he’d parked closed at 8pm! After lots of frantic phone calls to various helplines Martin eventually had to call his wife to tell her he wasn’t coming home! Thankfully Nick Pilling, recent graduate placement, was with him and was happy to remind Martin what a bar looked like and even introduce him to a Jagerbomb!

Ann Rimmer, Clock’s Founder has been invited on to a role model group by Winning Pitch to share her experiences with other SMEs.

DBA Education seminar at Design Symposium North 2010 with Clock Creative and LOVE Creative presenting.

Last week our MD, Mark Taylor, came back into the office singing the praises of a great event he had attended – The Kaleidoscope of Marketing, hosted by the Levitt Group (the CIM special interest group for senior marketers). It brought together a number of fascinating speakers including Allister Frost (UK Digital Marketing Director, Microsoft) who spoke about all aspects of digital marketing and particularly the growing importance of social marketing in the marketing mix. This is so relevant to the work we’re doing currently with a number of our clients – brilliant stuff!

We’re very excited to announce that Clock has been awarded the title of Design Consultancy of the Year at last nights MI Awards (Marketing Industry Network). Well done to the team and a big thank you to all our fantastic clients for helping make this happen!

http://www.thedrum.co.uk/news/2010/11/18/16651-marketing-industry-network-2010-award-winners-announced/

Once again our resident baker has come up with the goods, this time with a cake for birthday girl Vin!

Having recently treated herself to a new Mulberry handbag (after some gentle encouragement from Ann, who actually took her shopping!) what else could the cake be shaped like?

Team Clock are all set for the Creative Cup, www.creative-cup.com, this weekend. We had to pull out the old Panini stickers from this years’ Strategic Planning day – always worth another giggle!

Our new advertising campaign for Fostering Solutions, has generated a fantastic level of enquiries from potential foster carers since it was launched at the beginning of the summer.

The emotive campaign, which features the strapline “Who Cares?” supports Fostering Solutions’ key marketing objective of raising awareness of fostering. Potential carers are being targeted in the consumer press and through public transport advertising and invited to register their interest online or by text. In the last three months the level of enquiries from potential foster carers is up 40% on the same period last year, averaging around 400 a month.

To maximise the campaign’s impact we commissioned Manchester photographer, Jon Shard, to take a series of candid and realistic images that could be used throughout the campaign alongside strong and succinct copy. The campaign will be running for the next six months.

We’ve been working with Fostering Solutions for the last six years and last year’s advertising campaign won two national awards and has recently been nominated for a Recruitment Business Award in the copywriting category for the adverts recruiting foster carers (for copywriting and advertising) and a DADI digital award for the website in the recruitment category (for the new website).

Ann Rimmer, Clock’s Founder and Director of Strategy said: “The campaign was initially launched two weeks before Foster Care fortnight and we were keen to incorporate a text back response mechanism so that results could be tracked. We wanted to produce a hard working campaign and so far we have been pleased with the response generated. Winning awards for campaigns is great but getting results for organisations like Fostering Solutions has to be a main priority.”

Hannah Mathew of Fostering Solutions says: “As always, it’s great working with the team at Clock and once again we have a successful campaign up and running. We are delighted that from our very small beginnings ten years ago, we are now providing care for over 1000 young people and thanks to Clock, we are able to do this with style!”

Creative Director, David, kept his birthday hush-hush. But in typical Clock fashion we didn’t let it pass without some fun! Pictured is a personalised card showing David in his dream car. We even got car-mad-Bailey a Stig cake! Who knows maybe he is!? All the best David!

It must be ‘Award Friday’! Whilst celebrating today’s nomination in the Dadi awards, we had to find our voices again on discovery of yet another nomination! This time for the RBAs (Recruitment Business Awards). We’re now finalists in the Craft category for Copywriting for our Fostering Solutions campaign! www.recruitmentbusinessawards.com/categories

Clock continues its award winning year with a nomination in the Dadi awards (celebrating and rewarding the digital industry). Our new website www.fosteringsolutions.com has had some fantastic results recently as part of our integrated campaign to increase the recruitment drive for foster carers. This is the icing on the cake for a site we’re really proud of! www.dadiawards.com/categories

Our August birthday girl, Karin, is known for her amazing cookery skills especially when it comes to cakes. But how could we reach such a bench mark for her birthday!? Could Morrisons provide us with anything of ‘Karin’ standards!? Fear not, the girl’s only gone and made one for herself!! Bless her. It truly was the cake of all cakes! Happy Birthday Karin – we’ll sit here and stuff our faces whilst you work away as usual!

Some of the Clock girls (Vin was ‘busy washing her hair’) went to a boot camp session last night in Ramsbottoms’ Nuttall Park, courtesy of personal trainer John Holowaty.

We were put through our paces for an hour of non-stop star jumps, lie down-stand up, running whilst passing the ball and numerous other team exercises. The rain stayed away for the session although the ground was a mud bath and doing sit ups and push ups on a muddy park takes serious commitment. We were all pretty muddy by the end – and exhausted, but in high spirits. We’ve committed to another 5 weeks of training so look out for a fitter, leaner girls team at Clock.

Kate, Karin and Ann after being put through their paces at Boot Camp

Karin and Kate too exhausted to murder John after he put us through an intensive and muddy Boot Camp!

When we bought the Ramsbottom Working Mens Club back in 2004, we found a hand written poem on the bar next to a mouldy old pint.

It is a lovely reminder of what the building was once used for and how it was enjoyed by so many local people…

The Workers

There’s a place in Rammy we call The Workers,
A place we all like to go,
A place that soon won’t be with us,
It’s a shame it all has to go.

Frank who looks after the money,
He’s given his life and his time,
I’ll miss his few words on a Saturday,
When it’s, ‘Bingo Bongo Time’.

Now there’s Malc who’s the barman and doer,
Who calls everybody, ‘Cock’,
Then it’s, ‘come on lads, it’s sup-up time,
‘I’ve a taxi at twelve o’clock!’

There’s Jo who’s known as, ‘the mad one’,
She’s a laugh but you better beware,
You make a friend of Joanne,
But never an enemy of ‘er.

I love the nights in The Workers,
My mates – I will miss all of them,
And even Joan and Peter,
You can set your watch by them.

Phyliss and Bill on a Sunday,
Are always up for a laugh,
Until it’s time for bingo,
Then you’ll hear, ‘it’s bloody crap!’

Kath and Tony, and Antonia,
Alice and the Corner Crew,
Always wanting one number,
Right ’till the bingo is through,

Then there’s the terrible young ones,
Whose nights here are really a ball,
Sean, Sharon, Neil, Jay and Me,
Not forgetting Nicola and Paul.

Then there’s Gail Kissack,
And her language is a shocker,
When the number 44 is called,
She’ll shout, ‘knickers and knockers!’

Peter and George, our callers,
They really are a whizz,
And for two with not many brains,
They manage a very good quiz,

There’s Audry and Jim Wedderburn,
Who nearly always win,
Audry undressing the callers,
With her 77 grin.

Mary and Margaret the serious players,
Who really will shout and ball,
If you call a winning line,
Before the number is called.

Relationships, friendships and loving,
Have begun and ended in this club,
And to see it closing soon after,
Well it wouldn’t be any good.

But sadness and memories aside,
I would just like to say to you all,
Thanks to The Workers, and everyone in it,
I’ve had a bloody ball!

At Clock we are driven by design effectiveness, so this article from The Design Council struck a chord…

Over the last fifteen years or so there has been a steadily increasing desire for design to prove its commercial value, to demonstrate to clients that their investment is tangibly worth it.

This has been driven by a number of factors: the recession of the early 1990s demanded that design stake its claim to straitened budgets; above the line advertising reaches fewer and fewer people, so companies are looking for other routes to achieve a return on marketing investment; and perhaps design is growing up as an industry – recognising itself, and being recognised by clients, as a commercial tool, not just an exercise in beautifying. Other areas of marketing communications already operate on a strictly commercial basis, so why shouldn’t design?

More clients are asking tough commercial questions of their design projects, measuring and assessing as they go. And switched on designers will talk in terms of business objectives right from the outset, maybe before the design brief is actually nailed down. But even so, measuring return on investment (ROI) is notoriously difficult. So why bother?

For the full article please click the link.

The DBA have developed a 2 day residential Leadership course to run in York on 8th and 9th November 2010. ‘DBA Leadership’ is a new, two-day, residential, executive leadership programme specifically created to develop more effective leadership skills in senior staff of creative businesses across the UK.

One of the major factors holding back creative businesses from growing is the lack of management and leadership skills that other businesses are built on.

This is an ideal opportunity to hone your leadership skills or invest in your future managers and leaders.

Why is effective leadership important and what does it require?
Leadership is not simply ‘better management’. It requires a high level of self awareness, empathy for and with others, courage to be authentic to what you stand for, and the ability to make decisions that not only lead, but which bring your people with you.

Effective leadership drives vision and direction. It engages and motivates staff and in turn creates more effective and sustainable businesses. For any leader, effective leadership demands distinctive qualities, characteristics ad behaviours.

Effective leadership requires:
• A high level of self awareness
• Empathy for others and a belief in their potential
• Courage to be authentic to what you stand for
• A visionary view of the purpose of the business
• The ability to make good decisions that not only lead, but which bring your people with you.

What will the two-day programme achieve?
Leadership development is a process. It is both active and reflective. You will be encouraged to think deeply about your own leadership style and aspirations and to engage with others in teams to discover new ways of thinking and working. It will be an intense two days, you will be motivated and supported in identifying and shifting attitudes and behaviours that can be enhanced, in order to increase your effectiveness as a leader.

Who will deliver the course?
Professional inputs and participation from recognised business leadership trainers and institutions will ensure that the course provides the level of professional relevance and insight that is required. Creative industry relevance will be a core thread of the two-day programme.

Speakers, trainers and leaders from internationally recognised training providers including Michael Thomson, Management Consultant at Design Connect, leading US consultant David Baker at ReCourse, the Client Director for the Clore Leadership Programme for the creative industries at Ashridge Management School and leadership training experts Dale Carnegie (Ten Golden Rules of Leadership)* will ensure that the quality of leadership training provision is world class.
* currently in negotiations – TBC

For further information contact Harsha Patel at the DBA: harsha.patel@dba.org.uk

It doesn’t normally take much to get big idea’s bouncing around the office, but when we start thinking about areas on a website specifically aimed at children it can be tricky. It can be hard to even understand the lingo never mind understanding what keeps a 14 year old in foster care keep coming back to a website.

The Wrap’s guest editor this week is our very own Ann Rimmer. Read Ann’s weekly wrap on How-Do

It is no surprise that today Passenger Focus – the independent public body set up by the Government to protect the interests of passengers – has called for an overhaul of transport network ticket machines.

Blair Enns talks about how to avoid the 5 positioning mistakes he has seen and even contributed to over the years.

Clock Creative urgently needs to recruit a Senior Account Manager to work across some recent b2b account wins. The ideal candidate will have a number of years experience in b2b, will have a strategic as well as a tactical mind and be super-organised. This is a brilliant opportunity to join our growing Client Services Team and head up some Global accounts.

Email: davinia.hamilton@clockcreative.co.uk for more information or to submit your CV.

A snowy day in Ramsbottom…

Admin Assistant by day, photographer by night! It turns out that Karin, our new welcome addition to the Clock crew, is a pretty decent photographer in her spare time. A small selection of her work is below, click on the images to see in detail. Nice work Karin, keep them coming….!