DUO:Design and Marketing

Go on – take a break!

Last week we hot-footed it over the channel for a last minute family holiday in the Loire valley. It was great. Like so many people, we’ve had the big ‘CC’ cloud over us for much of this year and we’d settle for some time out in England. But, with kids out of school, a natural break in client projects and the sun shining, out came the laptop and in a few hours we’d bagged a bargain and were off. The jewel that we found was in a tiny village called La Celle-Guenand. Surrounded by mile upon mile of green and yellow – forests and corn and sunflower fields – we were treated to blue-sky tranquility. Time to downshift a gear. Time to think. Time to listen (why did God make birds so noisy?)! Time to BE rather than DO. Time to NOTICE rather than WALK BY. And guess what? We’ve come back to DUO with energy and some ...a busy week, packed with meetings and things to do but we’re raring to go. So, that’s official then – holidays are definitely good for you and worth fighting to hang on to even when the going gets tough.

A Brand with a Capital 'B'

Wow, it's been a busy week. We have just launched a new brand identity and website (with integrated Shop) for Barnsdale Gardens to coincide with their participation at Gardener's World Live at the Birmingham NEC.

The new brand has been designed to contemporise their offer and support its efforts to attract a wider audience of younger gardeners and their families.

Barnsdale Gardens, founded by Geoff Hamiton and made famous by the BBC Gardener's World TV programme, has a rich and authentic legacy based around the value that 'gardening is for everyone'. The design for the new Barnsdale Gardens brand reflects this approachability and communicates the proposition that it is the home of the 'largest collection of individually designed gardens in the UK'.

To view the new Barnsdale Gardens Website click here.

Getting together means more

Is it just me, or has the business world fallen out of love with events? Is the inexorable rise of building online relationships in the virtual world snuffling out our innate need for real life human interaction? Or is it just the pace that we live at, or our credit crunch mentality, where to spend nothing is definitely better than to spend something well? I don’t have the answer to these questions, however, what I do know is that as a design and marketing consultancy we are constantly challenged by our clients to achieve maximum impact with minimum spend whenever they are looking to create and develop meaningful relationships with their publics.

And so to one of our clients, the Wates Group, who earlier this month wanted to launch a new business; Wates YourSpace – a specialist interior fit out company aimed at smaller sized projects in the private and public sectors. The question to DUO was HOW to communicate the message on a tight budget and within an even tighter timescale. With a corporate brand proposition of ‘Above all, it’s about people’, real people contact had to lead the promotions and so a drinks reception at the very business like, yet younger, funkier IoD Hub on New Broad Street, London EC2 was the focus for the launch. The event was supported by an fantastic showcase of Wates YourSpace’s work in the form of a contemporary brochure, display panels and AV. It was great fun; a cellist played, guests arrived and connected over a glass of wine and canape or two, the Wates team thrived on the energy in the room and many new horizons were talked about and imagined.

Why am I writing about this rather ordinary, 2-hour event that took place on 13 May 2009? Well as an advocate of real human interaction being infinitely better than all that virtual stuff, and recognising that actually what we all seek is to attract energy to ourselves and our businesses it’s time to get back to getting together a bit more often. Energy is infectious. It builds people up and makes them feel that they can achieve even more. Its the fuel for ideas, creativity, progress. And its something that is still a little illusive to even the best web designers. So for me, events and occasions to generate some positive energy is just what we need more of!

Viv Middlebrook, Client Services Director

The unexpected sells

We were at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show this week seeing a couple of our clients (Adam Frost and Barnsdale Gardens) and I was reminded about the potential power and impact of Ambient Media. These wonderful little cars with artificial grass, from Easigrass were to be seen bombing around Chelsea causing alround to 'stop and stare'. What a fantastic, memorable and fun way to cement a brand impression.

Small world, and I love it!

The internet is 20 years old today! The first website, built at a lab in Switzerland just up the road from my ex-employer, DuPont, went online in 1991. And there are now more than 80m sites worldwide, which is a fantastic illustration of a concept that became a rapid success due to its overwhelming power to store knowledge, connect people and ideas and generally make the world and its wonders accessible to so many. I’ve always been the first to admit to being a bit anti-techie around the office. I’m the one who likes to read it on paper instead of on screen; to use my fountain pen as opposed to a keyboard and am most happy when I meet clients face to face instead of dialing into the dreaded virtual world of the teleconference. However, I’ve decided to be more techno-positive and to acknowledge and embrace the true power of technology for the way in which it enables me to fulfil my passion for connecting and communicating with people in my day to day work, no matter where they are in the world. Just the other day, I received a great email from a client colleague who has recently relocated to Memphis, Tennessee, after being based in China for the past six years. He’s been a regular contributor to the magazine called 'Going Further' that I write for my client, Lucite International, and we’ve shared many an amusing email as I’ve learned about his world and work through colourful stories of another culture. These stories are then edited and retold to many, many more, and are a wonderful way of creating understanding, removing fear, opening horizons and, above all, building great relationships. This world-shrinking technology also means that I receive information from all my sources in Asia through the night, can work on stories the following morning and have them into magazine design by close of play, making full use of a 24hr working day between us. So the next time there’s a frustrating technology blip, I’m going to think on the positives of technology and all that it can do for enriching my work-life.

Viv Middlebrook, Client Services Director

Its good to feel optimistic

Sometimes when you are in the 'present' it is hard to look forward to the future so it was good to see this more optimistic view of the future from my ex-boss - Sir Martin Sorrel at WPP. He said today after issuing a statement that revenues would be 2% less in 2009 compared to 2008:

“Although the economic gloom has heightened recently, with further earnings disappointments, surprise dividend cuts, continued financial restructurings and rights issues, we still believe there will be a recovery of sorts in 2010, partly driven by weak comparatives, as the massive Keynesian fiscal injections, quantitative easings and interest rate reductions take hold.

“These already approximate to $12 trillion or approximately 20 per cent of worldwide GDP of $64 trillion.

“The first half of 2009 is going to be extremely tough, it will probably be better in the second half of 2009 in comparison with the second half of 2008.

“It’s very foolish to try and call when the market will turn, and in the real world, but we’re sticking our necks out and saying that, in 2010, we will see some improvement — but it will be against weak comparatives.”

Certainly for DUO it has been a tough 6 months but we are starting to see a more 'green shoots' of recovery. Just this week we have been appointed to provide marketing support to a famous visitor attraction in our area - Barnsdale Gardens. With the trend for more 'staycation' holidays and the consumer desire for less costly experiences the gardens have a fantastic opportunity to prosper.

Creativity is disruptive

I thought that I would share this as it made me think and maybe it will make you think too. The message was posted on a blog by Dave Trott and mentions a speech by Sir Ken Robinson called 'Is Education Killing Creativity'. The most touching part comes at the end.

He talks about a little girl who was very disruptive at school. In class she was always chattering, moving about, fidgeting. She’d had to move school several times because of this problem. One day her mother was at her wit’s end when the headmaster called her in.

She sat with her daughter in his office waiting for the inevitable litany of reasons why he couldn’t have his daughter at his school. Waiting for him to suggest medical treatment: drugs that would calm her down and make her behave. But this headmaster didn’t do any of that.

He said to the girl, “Your mother and I are just popping outside for a chat. We won’t be long.”

Then he got up to leave, but he turned the radio on before he did. Outside the room he said to the mother, “Just watch this for a moment.” And they looked through a little window at the girl. At first she sat there, listening to the music on the radio.
Then she started tapping her feet, Then she stood up and began moving, swaying to and fro. Then she began moving rhythmically all around the room.

The headmaster turned to her mother and said, “Look, you haven’t got an unruly child, you’ve got a dancer. She needs a school that caters for her talent.” And that’s what happened. The mother put the little girl in dance school. For the first time in her life, she was with children like her, and she fitted in. First she became a ballet dancer, then eventually a famous choreographer.

And now she is worth millions, and arranges all Andrew Lloyd Webber’s productions. All because one headmaster saw an opportunity where everyone else only saw a problem. Because he wasn’t trying to make her fit the norm. He wanted to celebrate what made her different.

Her creativity was disruptive and sometimes awkward (not normal) but this was the thing that made her special. All it needed was for someone to see it.

Maybe, we all need to look harder for talent and passion rather than educational acceptance.

Passionate businesses

We have just recently completed a new website for Adam Frost (www.adamfrost.co.uk ), an amazing garden designer and RHS Chelsea Gold Winner. Working with Adam has reminded me of the power of passion in business. His work is outstanding because he 'loves' what he does. He focuses, not on the monetary return, but on what he can give to encourage people to garden.

The site has been designed and written to convey Adam's strong personality - its not a cold corporate site but one that reflects his warmth through his values and opinions.

A short listing!

It's great news today as one of our clients, Interim Partners (Link) , has been short listed for the 'Best Recruitment Firm Website 2009' by the Recruiter Magazine. It makes me feel very proud as we have been working with Interim Partners since January 2006 and during this time their business has grown at a compound rate of 137%. The website that we created for Doug Baird and his team of consultants is at the forefront of this success - from a zero base it now has a membership of interims that includes over 8500 registered individuals.

Tell a story, create a brand.

"Marketing is telling a story that sticks, that spreads and that changes the way people act."

This comment in Seth Godin's blog is so, so true. Marketing is telling a story that is authentic (i.e not a work of fiction) and compelling (i.e exciting, emotional and enticing).

Simple and yet, for some reason, we have contrived to make marketing a complex art that more often than not sells features by shouting AT people rather than captivating them with a story that holds a 'Big Idea'.

Every person has a story which is unique and, when you really listen, it is usually pretty inspiring. Every company has been created by people who had an original vision and the undaunting spirit to make that vision a reality. This story is important and more often than not is intrinsic to the success of the brand.

It seems though that, often, as companies grow and change over time this legacy story and set of 'original' values gets lost on the way so that eventually the company brand becomes a parody of the norms in that business sector rather than a Unique Selling Story (USS). Bradford and Bingley and Northern Rock, I think,  are a good examples of this. Brands that lost their way and lost their shirt because they forgot where they came from.