Archive for the ‘Miscellaneous’ Category

Whether you’re looking to re-evaluate your current marketing campaign, or simply stimulate new ideas and thinking, it’s often a good idea to keep up to date with current trends and developments in the world of advertising & marketing (particularly consumer & technology trends). There’s a great (free) summary of some of the key social changes in 2008 over at  Contagious magazine. This special article covers everything from the marketing behind the Obama campaign through to the impact of the iPhone 3G, and also highlights some unusual and highly creative advertising campaigns (Diamond Shreddies anyone?).

In their own words:- “Contagious is a quarterly intelligence briefing in magazine, DVD and online format. It identifies the ideas, trends and innovations behind the world’s most revolutionary marketing strategies“.

It’s a great summary of how the traditional role of ‘one way’ marketing is becoming very much a ‘two way street’, and if you can spare a few minutes, we recommend you take a look.
Download the pdf here:- www.contagiousmagazine.com/pdf/MostContagious2008.pdf

Recognise this man?

It’s Martin Lewis… the ‘Money Saving Expert’ of course! We love Martin, and his ‘consumer revenge’ campaign. We think he keeps a lot of the big (and sometimes complacent) companies on their toes, which can only be a good thing.

We’re going to see Martin tonight, at a ‘one off’ show in London called ‘Money Saving Expert Live’. So in the spirit of saving everyone a few pennies, we thought we would develop a ‘money saving shopping list’ based on the advice Martin gives on his website.

It’s a very easy to use ‘tick box’ affair.. simply tick the items you need in advance, and then cross ithem out as you shop (as if we needed to explain how to use a shopping list to anyone).  Anyway, the list is printer friendly, and is designed to fit nicely on A4 paper.

You can download the list by clicking on the link below. It’s completely free of course… please feel free to copy it and distribute it to your friends, colleagues, and family.

Shopping List

Oh, and don’t forget to let us know what you think in the comments section!

OK OK… so it’s been a few weeks since we last posted (well a couple of months in fact). Don’t worry, we haven’t given up the blog… we’ve just been rather busy working on a few big projects. Obviously our clients come first, which means that occasionally we will go through periods where we don’t have the time to write new posts… please accept our sincere apologies for that!

Anyhow, the good news is that we’ll continue to bring you the usual mix of tips, tricks and timesavers, over the next few weeks… and because we haven’t posted for a while, we’ve got lots of goodies saved up in our ‘favorites’ folder.

… and why the picture of some cute kittens? Well, why not?

Image by KatRya

We’re great believers in simplicity. When it comes to marketing and advertising, there are three key principles that we strongly believe in… KISS, AIDA, and WOM (which, as you may have guessed, are all acronyms).

KISS

This is commonly referred to as ‘Keep It Simple Stupid’ (although as marketeers we prefer the slightly more positive ‘Keep It Short & Simple’). The basic thinking is that a design should be as simple as possible, and avoid any complexity. Want to know more?.. see here for details (did you see what we did there?).

AIDA/AIDAS

If you’re going to spend money on marketing and advertising, you want it to have a positive effect. This might sound obvious, but it’s amazing how many clients (and agencies) lose sight of this fact. In our view, a successful campaign will tick all of AIDA’S boxes:-

A – Attention (Awareness): attract the attention of the customer.
I – Interest: raise customer interest by demonstrating features, advantages, and benefits.
D – Desire: convince customers that they want the product or service and that it will satisfy their needs.
A – Action: lead customers towards taking action and/or purchasing.
S – Satisfaction – satisfy the customer so they become a repeat customer and give referrals to a product.

You can read more about AIDA here.

WOM

‘Word Of Mouth’ is becoming increasingly important in today’s marketing world (as it becomes harder to reach target audiences through traditional media). A good campaign will get people talking about your product and services. You can read more about ‘word of mouth’ here,

There are some nice examples of some highly creative (yet stunningly simple) campaigns at Just Creative Design. Many of them adopt some (or all) of the above principles.

If you’re about to commission some advertising and need a little inspiration, they’re well worth a look.

OK, so this won’t save you any time… but it might brighten up your PC a bit! Those of you that know us well, will know of our passion for all things automotive. We also love computers (both PCs and Macs) and we love a bargain too (after all, our favourite price is free!). Mix all of these things up, and what do you get?……… You get free desktop wallpapers of course! Head on over to the Top Gear site for a fantastic selection of images to spruce up your screen (including some from the new F1 season). Admittedly, these will only appeal to other ‘petrolheads’… so if cars are not your thing, the you might want to take a look at this mighty fine selection. And if you don’t know how to change your desktop wallpaper, then here is a handy tutorial:- Tutorial

We’ve visited several manufacturing plants during our time with previous employers… and we never cease to be amazed just how quickly products whiz down the production line (literally faster than the eye can see). If you’ve ever wondered how soft drinks cans are manufactured, then you might find this Discovery Channel clip interesting.

via core 77

A week or two ago, a client (and also a good friend) asked us if we might be interested in attending a local business networking event. If you have read the ‘about‘ section of ‘Pick n Mix’ then you will already know that we’re great believers in ‘word of mouth’ as a marketing tool… so we thought ‘sure why not?’ At the very least, we could rate the experience for ourselves, and form our own opinion on the subject.

He then informed us that the event would be held over breakfast, and that we should aim to be there for 6.30AM! We often work evenings… so the idea was suddenly a little less appealing. We succumbed to the temptation of ‘a good fry up’ though, so duly accepted. Even if this was going to be a complete waste of time, we would still be back in the office at a normal business hours, so our work would not be affected.

This turned out to be a good decision. Earlier today, we attended the event, organised by the Woking chapter of BNI

As well as meeting some really nice ‘like minded’ business people, we were highly impressed by the structure of the networking session, and the way in which members interacted. We were also given the opportunity to promote blue sky and offer our services to BNI members (local businesses).

So whether you’re a smaller business looking for a cost effective local marketing solution (or perhaps a local branch of a larger organisation) we recommend that you give business networking a try. It might not be for everyone, but we’ve already picked up three quality business leads which we will be following up.

Finally, since BNI kindly gave us the opportunity to promote our business to its members, it seems only fair that we reciprocate! The BNI Woking chapter meets every Tuesday, 6.45am to 8.30am, at Pyrford Golf Club. We plan on attending future events (and yes, we are considering joining!)… so who knows, we might even see you there!

PS. Many thanks to Ruth Williams and Alex van Oortmerssen for organising our invite.

If you’ve been following the news recently, you may have heard about the new Indiana Jones movie, due for release later this year. OK, so this isn’t really a tip, trick or time-saver… but c’mon… its Indy! Besides, we understand that some of our (mainly lady) clients love Harrison Ford, so we know this will drive a little more site traffic!