Working with SMEs of all shapes and sizes, one of the things that continues to amaze me is how smaller businesses often consider branding as the sole reserve of large companies. Why is this? Further investigation leads me to conclude it is because they misunderstand what branding actually is, that is they consider branding as simply a form of marketing, a visual way of helping a company stand out.

By discovering what their brand is about and in doing so, understanding the importance of branding to their company’s success, they are often left amazed they managed without a clearly defined brand.

What is branding?

At Clock we refer to brand as the DNA of a company. It is the essential component that enables everyone within a company to work together to form a cohesive strategy. Without a clearly defined and understood branding strategy, a company struggles to deliver a cohesive customer experience.

So if branding is so critical why are so many companies being run without a brand strategy?

Often it is simply because they have never had it, therefore they don’t know they need it. The point they discover their brand lacks focus is when they find themselves competing on price and are struggling to stand apart.

We work with many companies who are seeking to define their brand positioning.

They are looking to uncover what differentiates them. What makes them distinctive and what makes them compelling to customers.

Business consultants would consider this their territory. The point is brand strategy and business strategy share the same territory. Done properly, they go hand in hand – by understanding the business vision, the strategic plan and the competitor landscape, the brand strategy is there to clearly and distinctively communicate a company’s relevance.  In other words if a company has a strong, clear, competitive brand positioning it gives customers a ‘shop window.’

SMEs not only need this as much as multi-nationals – they need it more.

They are often operating as ‘bottom-feeders’ – picking up business where the multi-nationals are not interested in going, often because the margins are too small.

By defining their area of specialism or unique operating style or personality, a smaller company can often create a space to sit free of many competitors. And in doing so, command a higher premium for their goods or services.

Now surely every company wants that?

There is nothing quite like receiving print back from the printers. In an accelerating digital world, getting your hands on tangible collateral like this really is quite exciting and always causes a stir in the office, plus the ink smells nice.

On February 15^th we hosted a brand workshop for SMEs who have recently been through a high growth programme at MMU Business School. The workshop aimed to help the attendees consider how a strong brand delivers tangible business benefits, what their brand is about and how to uncover and then exploit their uniqueness. After a brief introduction and some case studies explaining what makes a brand a Superbrand, the ambitious entrepreneurs were put to work considering why their brand should be considered a business Superbrand.

It was quite a revelation to discover that people assume branding is for larger companies and therefore they, as SMEs don’t need to focus on it – it was Clock’s job to change this perception and encourage them to think of their brand as the DNA of their business.

We focused on three areas; Quality, Distinction and Reliability. Using some creative tools (no powerpoint or laptop in sight) we asked them to start answering some fundamental questions about their business to unravel what they sell. Those selling product initially thought they were selling products, when they thought about why their customers buy from them, they soon realized their USP was to be found in the ‘softer’ side of the business, such as their level of knowledge, their bespoke solutions etc. One company provides construction services that save lives, they are an essential part of road transport safety yet they market themselves as engineers. For them, thinking about the emotional elements of their brand rather than only the rational was a real eye-opener. There was an air of concentration in the room and everyone took on the difficult task with great enthusiasm.

There were some fantastic insights revealed, areas for development noted, and one company decided to use the exercise for a training session so their staff “lived and breathed the brand as well”.

As a conclusion to the event each person was invited to talk through their board and their findings. Judging followed with prizes for the top three brands – first prize was a copy of the Superbrands Annual, which we hope will prove inspirational for the winner.

The event was run in conjunction with NW Insider Magazine and the MMU Business School. A full write up of the event will be featured in NW Insider in their March issue.

This morning I popped in to see a client to go through a few important details regarding an exhibition stand we are working on together. It was an 8.30am meeting so I stopped off at a local cafe and picked up two Cappuccino’s for us.

The client was over the moon to have been bought a fresh coffee and more importantly thought of in a way that friends would think of each other.

He was happy, we made some excellent decisions about the exhibition booth and I left an hour later with the sun shining and us both feeling happier about the day.

Looks like the the Ramsbottom space program is moving forward. We have a funny suspicion it is to be powered with beer from the micro brewery.

An interesting question was posed to us in the office this morning: what has been the best brand repositioning from the last 10 years? Immediate thoughts were around the obvious; Apple, Skoda, mobile phone technology. But when Paul suggested the Royal Family that got us all thinking.

Although we can’t walk into a shop and buy some ‘Monarchy’, They are quite clearly a brand that has managed to reposition themselves within the public’s hearts.

Most of this is down to William and Kate, the hype around the Royal Wedding and the ‘what will she wear’ conversations that dominated a lot of last April (not to mention the bonus bank holiday we all got!).

But on the whole the perception of the Royal Family has changed, given the advances in media recently we are given more access to their lives and therefore see them as people. Buckingham Palace and individual members of the family have Twitter accounts (as well as many spoof accounts) and 51,386 like The Queen on Facebook. TV cameras are following the Queens activities and interviews with her Grandchildren recently shown in a BBC documentary help us see the day to day lives and the hard work they do.

In the run up to the Diamond Jubilee the team around the Royal family have opportunity to cash in on the hype even and help secure their position as a the British Brand.

The balcony kiss (image via Associated Press).

Hey dad, I know how to work the internet.

Yesterday I spent all morning trying to upload a CSV (Comma Separated Value) file into a table in one of our client’s databases. Yes I know some of you hardcore techies are now sniggering away behind your Skylander collections, and I guess you are right it should have taken me the time to write this sentence to complete, but it wasn’t happening fast and everything I tried threw an error.

Needless to say, this frustrated behaviour continued for a good 2 hours-until a moment of magic happened.

Ray a designer who sits alongside me and was probably fed up with me swearing at my desktop, quietly suggested that I talk him through what I was doing, as a way of working out where the problem was.

Ray said nothing as I calmly talked through the problem stage by stage. By stage 2 in the process it quickly dawned on me exactly why the file had not uploaded correctly and within 30 seconds the data from the CSV file was loaded in to the database.

By simply calming me down and focusing my attention into describing the process in layman’s terms, the problem was quickly solved. Genius!

So why did I not spot this simple error earlier on in the day? Quite simply it was arrogance, driven by the belief that I and only I could solve the problem.

By bottling stuff up and believing you are the only one who can solve the problem can have you stuck fast in a frustration loop.

Frustration loops exist in various guises in many of our clients businesses and we find they are solved much quicker and with less effort when the challenges are shared amongst us.

Being able to share a clients challenges with them, however trivial can lead to new business opportunities and faster more effective results.

The key as Ray demonstrated to me is to say nothing and listen to everything even if you are no expert.

Last weekend I was sorting through some old family photo albums in the loft. Some of the photos date back to 1922 and contain the usual sepia toned family photos of past Aspden generations you would expect.

I love everything about these photo albums, mainly the fact they are tangible and were lovingly assembled by my ancestors.

After I had finished in the loft and precariously navigated the loft ladders, something chilled me to core. It was the stark realisation that when I go, there will be nothing tangible left for my child to physically flick through.

Every photo I have from 1996 onwards is stored in a digital format. I have floppy disks, random hard drives, memory cards, phones and Facebook stuffed with memories, none of which exist in a tangible sense. And although I have this digital catalogue of family photos for future generations to browse through and laugh at, it has occurred to me that there is something physical and very emotive missing in the experience of browsing these photos on screen.

I have realised that the thing I treasure the most about my old family photo albums is knowing that my mum, dad, grandma or granddad, sadly many of whom are no longer here, actually placed that photo and lovingly wrote an entry on the back. Knowing this gives me a real warmth that I think will sadly not be there for my child once I have been tipped off the boat.

Normally we don’t get sky’s like this in Ramsbottom so we had to grab a picture to prove it did actually happen.

Over the last few years I have become – along with the misses – quite a fan of gardening. This will probably shock a few people who knew me before I left my previous job as many will remember me as a big petrol head.

One of the reasons for changing my hobby was that the financial need to support a family far outweighs the need to drive a ridiculously fast car. But the biggest reason, which I later discovered whilst pottering about in the garden, is that I found I could truly switch off from the many digital distractions that switch me on during the week.

Emerging yourself in the digital world is truly tiring. The constant need to understand new technology, new standards, write 1000′s of lines of PHP code whilst tweeting and blogging can be at best, draining. So, to offset this constant binary attack, especially when the weather gives me the opportunity, you will find me at the bottom of my garden, pottering.

During a recent garden escape from things like PHP, jQuery and Linux, Nicola arrived home with some new plants, and to my dismay, I discovered that each plant pot had a QR Code printed in the side. Normally, I would have been leaping for joy at this obviously clever positioning of the medium, but I couldn’t, as the realisation hit me hard that the digital world is now invading my purposely un-digital hobby. And I maybe biased but this for me is all a bit to much. Or am i just getting old?

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 didn’t 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!