Re-invention

Madonna has a PhD in it; Meryl Streep’s won countless gongs for it; President Obama thankfully has no need of it; wily Nicolas Sarkozy does it en Français and poor old Brown Gordon is desperate for a dose for it.

No, I’m not talking about falling into suave, Cole Porter-styled l’amour, but the mercurial talent for re-invention.

Steeped as we all are in a culture that’s premised upon success-at-all-costs, the current recession is biting anyone who can’t or won’t adapt to tougher market conditions especially hard. 

So what can we do? We can adapt offerings; tweak business plans; better manage cash flows; retain the most customers possible and/or generally do whatever’s necessary to keep our collective heads above water.

But amidst the umpteen challenges facing us are also opportunities for re-invention. How can we do what we do better and more cost-effectively? How can we expand our income streams? How can we better market and PR ourselves? The answers to all these questions can be strategic catalysts for growth and re-invention – even during tough times.

I’m not talking about applying empty, Alastair Campbell-styled spin tactics, either. At the end of the day, there has to be some solid substance to what we all do. But ask yourself this: What can I be doing now to not only survive but prosper once markets improve?

There’s always new and smarter ways of doing the ‘same old’ and keeping one step ahead of the pack, after all. Just don’t publish a book entitled S.E.X. and/or marry a French pop star. Both are more of a handful than they’re worth.

Q1 down, only four to go…

‘April is the cruellest month’ – well, at least T.S. Elliot thought so in The Waste Land. As Q1 of 2009 disappears into our collective rear view mirror, unlike Mr Elliot’s morose opus, I hope you aren’t spending this month burying dead projects, client files and/or business plans.

The first months of this year have seen many of us trying to make sense of a plethora of statistics, what with the RPI (Retail Prices Index) recently heading south to 0% for the first time in 49 years while its cousin, the CPI (Consumer Price Index), unexpectedly heading north to 3.2%. Meaning? We’re buying more baked beans while waiting for deflation to bring LCD screen costs down, if the econ-boffins are to be believed. (Bollocks, in other words.) All of which is cold comfort to the many talented people who are currently looking for work through no fault of their own.

‘It’s enough to make you want to drive your Mercedes over a cliff!’ I remember Dame Edna remarking rather colourfully about the 1987 crash. Well, this time around there’s no Mercedes. It’s been traded for a second-hand Vauxhall to help pay last month’s school fees or mortgage.

The rules of engagement for UK businesses have obviously changed; and not necessarily for the better – at least in the short-term. But before any of us reach for the Prozac, it’s worth remembering, even in our darkest moments, that: (i) the economy hasn’t entirely ground to a halt, it’s merely slowed; and (ii) there’s still business out there to be had.  We just have to fight even harder for it.

Keep the faith folks, is all I’m saying. One quarter down, only four to go until better times return.

Hopefully…

It’s official – marketing rocks

Good news: A recent KDB survey of one thousand UK finance directors has yielded a heartening stat, namely that four-out-of-five bean counters favour investing in consumer spending during the recession.

Listen closely. Hear that? It’s the sound of hell freezing over. Or an Eagles re-union concert – one of the two, anyhow.

Yep, 84 per cent of FD’s surveyed by the consumer insight firm believe that ‘increasing marketing spend during a recession does indeed help position companies to gain market share coming out of a downturn.’ As I’ve always been a big believer in the benefits of aligning well-targeted marketing campaigns and consumer insight with solid product/service delivery, I can only hope KDB’s sample wasn’t skewed.

Nice to see FD’s finally waking up to what we, as a sector, are all about.

Have a great Easter, Passover or whatever other High Holiday you may or may not be celebrating over coming days.

A Bite of the Big Apple

Having just swung back from the Big Apple (he said, ever-so-gloatingly!), I have to say that, as a city, New York never ceases to amaze me – what with all the buzz, the arrogance, the sheer scale and 24 hour culture.

This wasn’t just a downtime jaunt, however. I was speaking to a bunch of senior US marketers at a conference – trying to enlighten them in typically insensitive manner about how backward and downright inept data hygiene is, States-side. For a nation that mails 100 billion pieces of DM a year (that’s 868 per household, folks), it seems utterly implausible that their suppression industry barely exists.

It’s bad enough that the deceased and home-movers are being bombarded unnecessarily, but must shocking of all is the fact that 40 billion pieces of DM are being poured into US landfills unopened. Long story short: Almost 50 per cent of US DM is discarded and never read. Appalling, no?

My views on the UK’s rather shoddy suppression rates and attitudes to consumers are well documented, but compared to our American cousins, we’re paragons of best practice virtue. Keep up the good work, everyone.

PS. Great news that Jack Straw’s much-cherished Clause 152 of his Coroners and Justice Bill has gone to whatever inner circle of hell is reserved for ill-conceived legislation. The unfettered exchange of personal information across Whitehall and beyond that this Clause would have permitted really was a step too far, in my opinion.