Search results matching tag 'recession'

A light at the end of the tunnel at last

317324 — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 14:53:10 GMT

There are many different ways of measuring the state of the economy and the rate at which it is improving. If recent reports from the Bank of England are to be believed then we should all feel that we are a million miles from anything resembling a steady pace of recovery but I’m happy to say that in the creative industries we seem to be bucking the trend.

We have noticed a number of significant indicators to suggest that confidence is growing, not least because the permanent recruitment market, which suffered the most earlier this year, is back with a vengeance. The freelance market has continued to show steady growth but it is the change in the permanent market which we are taking heart from. We were finding, up until the past three months, that clients were taking far longer than normal to make decisions but things are moving along much more quickly now. Also, in our experience there is now competition between employers for the best candidates on the market and we haven’t seen that for a while. We recently appointed a Project Manager who was in the fortunate position of being able to choose which job to accept from three different offers made to her.

Talented individuals are in demand again across the board and the best developers, project managers and designers are enjoying higher levels of interest from clients. Those people who have been hanging on to the security of their existing jobs are seeing this as a good time to begin browsing the market again.

Although no-one can say for certain that the recession is over, all the companies that we deal with (in the advertising, design and marketing sectors) are still cautious but definitely more optimistic. We’re aware of design agencies which belong to the bigger networks, now being allowed sign off to spend money on recruitment in 2010.

While the North of England has seen a slower rate of recovery than other parts of the country, our Leeds office is also now enjoying more movement.

All of the above are reasons why we believe that 2010 is going to be a better year for candidates, agencies and hopefully for us too. There is a light at the end of the tunnel. http://www.purple-consultancy.com

Popping up on a high street near you

1715197 — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 15:04:00 GMT

HMV’s name jumped out at us during a trawl through the music headlines a week or so back. If you didn’t see it the entertainment retailer announced it would be taking advantage of empty real-estate in the recession-hit high street to open temporary pop-up stores in some of the UK’s mid-sized towns. Hats off to this great idea to cope with Christmas demand.

But there’s no reason should this type of initiative should be confined to traditional retailers. While the concept of pop-up stores is not new, taking this principle and applying it to the world of music and brands might have some interesting consequences. What better way to drive awareness and engagement than by making a splash on the nation’s high street? Don’t wait for the customers to come to you, go and find them.

Take a music service rollout that is struggling to gain traction. A simple pop-up demonstration store with some smart incentives and maybe a few bands would almost certainly draw a crowd. Alternatively a clothing brand with a music campaign in full swing could easily replicate the HMV model and establish a physical presence nationwide to support its core activity. There would be space for live music, unique dressing of the location and bespoke promotions that might not be feasible in the permanent stores. Flexibility has to be the key advantage here.

Maybe we’re too focused on the virtual world and not enough on the real world on our doorstep. There must be logic in trading the social network site that’s attract a handful of would-be customers, for a pop-up store that brings your brand activity to life on the high street.

Is this reality of a pop-up music brand experiences viable? As with anything it would depend on a lot of factors to consider – location, budgets, proximity of your target audience – but there’s no reason to think it won’t happen on a high street near you soon. Watch that empty space

Agencies cull grad intake in recession

2646379 — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 08:20:37 GMT

Campaign is reporting today that the number of graduates being hired by Britain's agencies is expected to drop by more than half this year. The industry normally takes on between 500 and 600 college-leavers a year. However, the IPA predicts that figures for 2009 will be around 250.

Is the industry making a huge mistake?

Suggestion related to marketing in recession topic

2645263 — Sat, 12 Sep 2009 15:18:33 GMT

Hi everyone,

I am student of MBA marketing.My research was on how companies respond in marketing during recession.In this way i was finding the corelation between Marketing budgets and the sales of UK based companies but unfortunately dont find enough data apart from top UK advertisers data.Now i need some ideas and suggestion that will help me to change the focus of the research in a way that i dont need to completely change the whole research as i have only a month left.

Any help in this regard will be highly appreciated

Thanks

ECONOMIC SITUATION - Down or up?

1321426 — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 10:38:00 GMT

Seems to change dependant on which company you ask. I have personally seen here in Finland most major ad and media agencies lay-off people. It's very difficult to fire someone here in Finland without real cause & hence in some ways the economy has helped these agencies to go into this process called "cold termination" - which essentially is a BS way of saying we are gonna fire a whole bunch of you and give you some legal mumbo jumbo that its up the company to decide who goes! It has given agencies the opportunitiy to review their strategies & get rid of the old useless people who have no understanding of the ad/media landscape today.

Right now, lots of talk is going around about new divisions specializing in digital opening up, ROI based models and so on - Funnily enough friends are telling me that these are radical new ideas when really, is it just that Finland is two steps behind the rest of the world - creatively there are great guys/girls here but strategically I really can't say I have seen anything that would meet the standards I have adhered to in the UK, Australia and other major markets...

Old colleagues in Australia have said by January 2010 brands will be recruiting again - 90% digitally focused... Here in the Nordics the market is quite stale - companies are not sure and in most cases companies in the Nordics are very "safe" and don't take big risks.

Simply interested to hear whats going on out there... Finland is slowly curving back up I think and by the end of the year/beginning of next year gaps will start to be filled. How about the UK?

Joining the dots between eCRM and acquisition

692072 — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 10:20:00 GMT

Recession indicates retention. The solution (as everyone knows, even if few practice it) to the problems brought about by a severe downturn is first concentrate on what you have, not what you might have. Marketers must – must – get retention right, for a variety of reasons.

- It’s where your current revenue is
- It’s where the lowest hanging fruit for additional revenue is
(all you have to do is not screw up, then ask for more business)
- It’s where your biggest advocates lie
- It’s where your data sits
- It’s the biggest source of prospective customers for your competitors

and so on. Reducing churn protects your customer base against better offers or a better story from your competitors, and yes, they’ll try anything. But customers have a certain amount of inertia. Once they’ve started a relationship with a brand they’ll only move through lack of appropriate attention or if you don’t deliver on what’s been promised, so retention starts with not offending customers. ECRM creates stories that will keep customers engaged, and great eCRM creates stories that massively increase engagement and not only reduce churn to near-zero but increase purchase frequency, average transaction value, and active advocacy.

The customer relationship management bit of eCRM isn’t the whole story.

Buried in the above list though is a gem. “It’s where your data sits”. Your best source of information – not just for segmentation strategy – about who’s likely to spend more is your existing customer base. The data you already own can tell you how to run extraordinarily efficient acquisition campaigns.

(By the way, many people in digital have long thought that acquisition campaigns are a load of rubbish because generally they’re about feeding huge numbers of people into a funnel in the hope of converting the few people who, more or less by accident, have been hit at the right time to buy.)

By combining the segmentation that’s been created for eCRM programmes that focus on retention with the data that gets collected on how those segments behave over time in reaction, we suddenly have a potential gold mine. Great eCRM doesn’t just retain, enhance, increase - it tells you how to acquire. The new, richer data tells you which types of people are most likely to be movable from low-value to high-value. And this in turn tells you what kinds of people you want more of. And that, put simply, tells you where to spend your money to increase your feed into the improvable segments. ECRM suddenly becomes not just about retention marketing, but about all marketing.

How to win business pitches......

2621936 — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 11:00:15 GMT

For most of us, the opportunity to communicate, to impress and to really sell oneself and services doesn’t come along every day. So when an opportunity does knock it’s difficult to understand why there is such a lack of thought and effort put into so many presentations. An engaging PowerPoint presentation can be the winning factor in delivering a business pitch.

In economically challenging times, ask yourself, can you really afford to stand up in front of a captive audience and then waste that audience’s time? We’ve all been there, sitting in a boardroom, a conference or sometimes even at an event watching painfully while one lost soul proceeds to point aimlessly at a PowerPoint presentation. Mind-numbing stuff, they read off the first slide and then every slide after that, there is little imagery – if any, and one has to wonder, do they even realise that they have an audience? Opportunity lost.

PowerPoint can be an amazing tool if you know how to use it, or it can be the death of you and your audience if you don’t. But if you’re one of those trying to blame the software then come on people, wake up and smell the coffee and get some help.

Any more thoughts?

Article 10 is the UK's leading presentation company undertaking the full range of creative presentation services. Whether you require business presentation design, a simple PowerPoint presentation template or a full production with video and animation for maximum impact, our presentation help will get your message across in the most effective way possible.

Visit www.article10.com

Music fans want a return on their festival investment

1794479 — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 16:08:00 GMT

The saturation of the music festival market – which reached its peak in 2007 – echoed the mounting problems that arose from the saturation of the sub prime mortgage market of the same period. With live music the lucrative end of the music industry - following the dramatic falling away of the CD market - everyone wanted a slice of the financially satisfying festival pie. But as seen in the mortgage business, short-term gain isn’t always as lucrative as it’s cut out to be. As a result this year started out with the festival sector facing an uncertain future and an entirely plausible festival recession. Would music fans ever don their wellies again? Would sponsors pull out on mass? Which festivals would find that their sub prime tent pitch was up for repossession?

The festival sector has undoubtedly seen some natural wastage as strapped for cash consumers become increasingly picky about where to spend their hard earned festival dollars. We conducted some research into the habits of festival goers this year in the UK - in partnership with Virtual Festivals - and over a third of music fans said they were cutting back on the amount of festivals they were attending this year – with around a quarter not attending at all. Having said that by far the biggest cut back is in overseas festival attendance, with 88% opting for festival ‘staycations’ as the recession makes even the most attractive line ups abroad financially unpalatable.

The knock on effect of the Credit Crunch clearly hasn't stopped music fans hitting festivals in their droves, as attendance at UK festivals so far testifies to. Surely it has hit brand involvement though? Not at all. In fact despite the feared slump, the opposite is actually happening. Brands are investing more in the live space according to a new IEG Sponsorship Report. The spend across North America will increase from the $1.084B injected into the sponsorship of music venues, festivals and tours in 2008, to $1.08B (a 3.8% rise). Notably, in a period where traditional music sales are severely diminished and a global recession is throttling the world's finances, this is the highest ever recorded sponsorship spend reported by IEG. "The fact that music sponsorship spending is holding its own in today's turbulent economy demonstrates the growing importance of music to corporate marketers," states Bill Chipps, senior editor at IEG. Another recent study (conducted by EMI) found that 67% of marketing executives are continuing to invest in live events as part of their branded entertainment strategies.

But what about the music fans, are brands getting their message through to them? A recent study highlighted in Marketing Week suggests they are. It pointed to the fact that 41% of music fans have positive feelings towards the brands that sponsor music festivals, with an equally sizable 40% showing positive feelings towards the brands that advertise at these events.

In our research alcohol brands were far and above the most recalled by music fans, which is good news for those brands that are securing lucrative pouring rights, but it does also highlight how much more can be done on the ground by others in order to ramp up that recall rate. Brands need to realise that simply badging an event isn’t a strategy in itself, and that hitting 50,000 eyeballs isn’t the same as reaching 25,000 hearts and minds. “Festivals are unique in offering a large market share of target audience in one place at one time but you’ve got to be communicating something relevant to the right people in the right way,” says Ziggy Gilsenan, MD Get Involved and Co-founder of Bestival/Camp Bestival. “Quality of audience over quantity is key if you want to achieve a deeper, more relevant dialogue with the consumer. Many brands still go for the shopping arcade approach of hitting events with big audiences but have no creative appeal to that audience – it all becomes a bit like Tescos in a green field, soulless,” says Gilesnan. “You cant just drop a shopping mall sampling exercise into a field of 50,000 festival goers and expect to have the same consumer reaction”

On the ground activations from a brand need a proper, considered focus, tailored to its intended market. Which means defining clear goals prior to the ‘big idea’, nurturing how it is communicated pre and post event, and understanding just what function and value you will ultimately be bringing to the fans experience of the event. "Consumer brands really need to think 'beyond-the-field' - just turning up at a couple of events with a bus and some deck chairs may be fun, but it's going to be tough justifying ROI on these light and 'idea-less' promotions when so many brands are building festival activity into a well considered year round programme," echoes Jack Horner, creative Director, FRUKT.

Experience is everything, give fans a return on their investment and it’s likely that brands will find themselves centre of mind with music fans as they recall the acts that were centre stage.

For more on brand activity at festivals see the FRUKT Music Intelligence Report 002.

Want to solve credit crunch brand challenges? Go Back to School With Your Marketing

771309 — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 13:18:00 GMT

As the recession continues to bite it’s clear that consumers’ trust in brands has been badly shaken. This consumer faith crisis, triggered by loss of confidence in the financial sector, has strengthened distrust in brands across other sectors like energy supply where brands are perceived to be passing on costs to consumers through unprecedented tariff rises.

It’s clear that brands, particularly in these sectors, need a recovery strategy in place before plummeting trust causes irreparable damage. So, the big challenge, over the next eighteen months at least, will be how to reach consumers and transform negative perceptions into positive ones.

A savvy marketer will recognise that when trust has gone it cannot be rebuilt easily. Which begs the question of how to approach an increasingly cynical and credit crunch weary consumer in a way that won’t be rejected out of hand? Does the answer lie in familiar marketing channels such as traditional above the line campaigns, sales promotion, direct marketing or public relations?

Whilst all of the above have their place, today’s marketing literate consumer is capable of spotting a heavy handed "campaign" at a thousand yards, especially one that overtly sets out to achieve a double whammy of repairing trust fences and building brand value at the same time.

The good news is that there is an alternative - Social Partnership Marketing, a blend of Social Marketing and Cause Related Marketing. Whilst the latter disciplines have not always been seen as a profit opportunity Social Partnership Marketing offers a way for business to make an important contribution to a social cause whilst improving consumer relationships and profits.

Social Partnership Marketing allows brands to either create or link with activity that is key to welfare and development within the community, thus delivering an improved brand image and sales. The best marketing channel for this activity is in partnership with the UK’s 30,000 schools which offer a chance to address 10 million pupils and 15 million parents plus 1 million people employed as teachers and support staff.

There are some good examples that epitomise the activity such as the ‘Let’s Grow’ project carried out by the UK’s fourth largest super market chain Morrisons. The activity was triggered by research carried out by the retailer which highlighted that a huge number of schoolchildren had never grown anything in a garden, plant pot or allotment. It also showed that 8% of children thought bananas grow in British gardens – while one in ten had no idea that potatoes and carrots can be grown in a garden, at home or at school. More importantly it showed that 75% of children were not eating their recommended five portions of fruit and vegetables each day.

'Let's Grow', was launched with thousands of packets of seeds being sent to participating schools to enable teachers to encourage pupils to have fun with food and start planting. Enough free seeds were distributed to grow around 1.5m salad leaf plants for six million salad bowls. The campaign supported the Government's 'Healthy Schools’, 'Eco Schools’ and ‘Learning Outside the Classroom' initiatives and was fronted by well-known garden designer and TV Presenter Diarmuid Gavin.

Parents, friends and families were able to get behind the scheme by collecting 'Let's Grow' reward vouchers from their local Morrisons and schools could redeem these for free gardening equipment, including everything from seeds to spades, composting bins to planters and even a greenhouse.

The nationwide campaign involved18,000 plus schools and millions of 'Let's Grow' vouchers were collected by parents to give children the opportunity to grow their own food in their school grounds.

Through the scheme children learned valuable skills by growing their own vegetables and fruit at school, and got the inspiration to follow a healthier lifestyle. The campaign was fully supported by advertising, PR, and teaching resources (written by qualified keystage teachers) that helped to provide stimulating lessons for children in a wide variety of subjects

The Morrisons campaign, which has now become a yearly fixture for the brand, illustrates that schools make great partners because they are forward looking, enthusiastic, innovative and welcome original links with businesses and non-commercial organisations. Social Partnership Marketing offers a ‘winning line’ solution for both participants.

From their partnership with brands schools can benefit from financial support, approved curriculum supporting materials, creative thinking and ready made focal points for tackling social issues such as obesity.

From the brand’s viewpoint the channel gives direct access to a vast number of parents who are happy to support the brand to achieve something worthwhile. The ‘Let’s Grow’ campaign illustrates the huge support and enthusiasm that parents and friends are willing to bring to a social partnership campaign that shows tangible benefits. Footfall increased within the voucher collection period, contributing to Morrisons achieving a bigger growth in market share than any of the other big five supermarkets in 2008. Altogether, the brand increased its share in the grocery market by 9.7% in the last quarter.

Although Morrisons ‘Let’s Grow’ has been in existence for only one year, a survey of teachers has shown that it has been better received than Sainsbury’s Active Kids campaign, which is no mean achievement given the time scales.

Right now brands should be thinking how they can solve their trust problem by reaching the community with projects like this. Working with the right marketing partners, who can create campaigns that deliver suitable and exciting benefits for schools, social causes and families, will reverse negative perceptions and increase sales.

However, before embarking on a project like ‘Let’s Grow’ brands should understand the territory and be prepared to abide by some clear cut ‘school rules’ to make sure they tread the right path. For example, activities should provide a clear benefit to participating schools who should always have the choice to opt in, or out, of any activities. It is also vital that levels of branding should be appropriate to the activity and that schools are made aware of the social or commercial objectives of the activity, after all with honesty comes trust.

Mark Fawcett is Founder and Chief Executive National Schools Partnership

This industry cannot help shooting itself in the foot

1271576 — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 15:20:00 GMT

Good grief, when are we ever going to learn? Your starter for ten, why is the direct marketing industry hated by the consumer? Because we have allowed their data to be treated with disdain and disrespect, that's why.

Spam, junk, confetti tactics, poor targeting...you name it, and someone calling themselves a DM professional has done it. So, in the middle of this wasteland of a recession, why not have a go at winding them up all over again?

Creating a mobile telephone directory is such a bad idea. No one, as far as I am aware, wants to be in it, so the company concerned has bought them. Some mysterious broker had one good sales month, and can now say goodbye to his database forever, I suspect.

Mobiles are personal. We take them everywhere, and as more and more nifty new handsets come out, with zillions of new apps (See, I am partially with it, chaps), we are taking out contracts and tying ourselves to our numbers more than ever before. The last thing we want is to feel that our numbers are going to be targeted willy-nilly by people we have not given our number too. Email spam is annoying but quickly deleteable. The mobile going off with unwanted calls or texts in the middle of a film, or in a restaurant, or whilst we are asleep, is going to really annoy people.

No one wants this directory. I doubt many people will use it. But with the headlines back in the Daily Mail, data and the use of data is back in the spotlight. Nice going people.

This industry does not need policing...it needs culling...badly.