DUO:Design and Marketing

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.

Looking to the future

To kick off the new year many creative magazines, blogs and industry commentators try and get a handle on what trends might prevail over the next 12 months or so. Here are just some of the predictions that are tipped to have a big influence in the next year. It'll be interesting to see how many of these prove to be correct.

1. Colour
According to Pantone (a leading colour matching system used worldwide), next years colour is 'Mamosa' — or Pantone 14-0848. This is a bright and vibrant yellow — no doubt Pantone are trying to counteract the possible gloom of 2009 with this sunny colour. Clients may take some persuading, but if they want to be regarded as positive, bold and optimistic this may well be the right colour to go for.

2. Authenticity and 'keeping it real'
Kicking against the celebrity obsessed years we have recently experienced, 2009 will focus more on real people with attainable lifestyles. Realism and honesty takes over from the false and the fake. This has been a trend that has been gathering pace throughout 2008 and is set to continue strongly in 2009. There is no doubt that this has been fuelled by 'Credit Crunch' and people wanting to get back to what's familiar and trustworthy — a more simplistic and less materialistic attitude. This is evident in the fact that there has been a huge spike in the numbers of people growing their own vegetables or deciding to improve their homes instead of selling them. This shift in attitude will undoubtedly influence the style and the 'tone of voice' of marketing and advertising material over the next 12 months. Consumers and clients alike will want to read text and see imagery which warm, inspiring, perhaps even fun — but most of all genuine.

3. Blogs
Blogs have been sidelined a little with the increase in popularity of social networking sites like MySpace, Facebook and communication tools like Twitter. Ironically, many bloggers now spend more time on social sites than they do on their own blog but, as their online identities spread out further and further, in 2009 bloggers will re-center their online identity around their blog where they have complete freedom over the site structure, design, features and content. Blogs will be used to pull in social networking data like never before. Blog themes will powerfully integrate these in a meaningful and useful way — as a permanent record all bundled together in one place.

Bloggers will continue to redesign for wider screens to enable the display larger photos and large widescreen videos. Bloggers will crop their images to be widescreen format, rather than the standard photo sizes — appreciating the wide screen look more. New default templates that come with blogging tools will also finally be wider.

4. Website design and usability
In the fast moving and ever changing sphere of the digital domain it's no wonder that there are a myriad of trends predicted for 2009. These range from creating much more engaging user interfaces to the use of more white space and less (but more useful) text. Perhaps the most important though is the links that are starting to be made between websites, blogs, e-commerce, social and business networking sites — how they are used and how they relate to each other in a more meaningful way. These tools will allow far more user generated content to be available and will support the move from traditional 'Out-bound' marketing (my ad budget is bigger than yours!) to 'In-bound' marketing which is based on a collaborative, permission based techniques.

5. Logo Design
Each year Logo Lounge (an online forum) publishes what it sees will be the trends in logo design for the coming year. As Logo Lounge has subscribers from around the world it's quite interesting to see what's happening with logo and identity design on a globally scale.

The following general trends — or prevailing winds — popped-up all over the world:

• Less emphasis on sustainability or general "greenness" in logo design. There's plenty of natural imagery, but being "green" doesn't seem all that unique anymore.
• Colors are becoming more vivid. Desaturation has drained away, and the chroma factor pumped up.
• There's an overall move toward cleanliness - in type, in line, in color - as if ideas are getting more and more succinct. It may be an indication of the degree of seriousness with which branding is now regarded.
• Less is more common: less calligraphy, less Photoshop tricks, less artificial highlights.
• Finally pattern and illustration hang on in there. With a bottomless treasure chest of visual history constantly at the ready through retail collections and over the internet, it's a direction that's not likely to run its course soon, if ever.

A matter of trust

If business and a growing economy is about 'confidence' then effective branding, whether personal brands or company brands, is about TRUST. When this diminishes, either by neglect or by a lack of integrity, then brands decline and are then very difficult to resurrect. A few months ago the intangible 'goodwill' value of HBOS and Northern Rock would have been worth billions. Now they stink. People feel let down by the arrogance and lack of due care of these organisations. The trust that was there has disappeared. Indeed the trust in banks generally that they will act responsibly has gone and now this has been replaced by 'Government Insurance' which we as tax payers and customers will have to pay for.

If a lack of trust is a big issue for businesses how can trust be built in these difficult and challenging times? Here are some thoughts from Jeffrey Gitomer, who wrote the book 'The Little Teal Book of Trust'. He gave ten suggestions for building personal trust which are relevant to business as well:

• Tell the truth. This is the number one element of trust and
relationships.

• Do what you say you will do. This is a test of being
trustworthy and reliable.

• Communicate in a timely manner. This shows you are
responsible, on top of it, and that you care.

• Bring value beyond your product or service. What you do to
help others be more successful is a true reflection of your
character.

• Be on time. Being on time shows you respect the other
person’s time.

• Be friendly. Smiling people are the gateway to open
communication.

• Be sincere. This can only come from belief in what you do,
loving what you do, and caring for others.

• Show and say genuine thanks. Be grateful for the
opportunity to be of service.

• Be consistent. I believe this element of trust is the most
difficult to master because it combines all the other elements.

• Give trust. You become trustworthy by giving trust.

Taking this last point, I wonder if the banks trusted their people and their customers more with the background to their complex financial arrangements, when they started out, whether the same risks would have been taken.

10 pointers to make the most of these challenging times

It’s a time of change. A time to focus on business survival but also a time of opportunity.

Here’s my 10 point plan for this challenging period:

1/ Don’t despair. Face the reality of the situation. Pretending it isn’t happening will not support the change that WILL be required.

2/ Cash is king but there has to be a sustainable profit at the end of it. Be very aware of your margin and break-even. Customers want value but good customers will appreciate you have to make a profit to survive. Remember reducing prices is easier than increasing them so act with caution.

3/ Think relationship not transaction. Treat every ‘profitable’ customer as if he/she is your last. Treat every new customer with sincerity and gratitude. Encourage people to talk about your business. Create surprise but keep it ‘real’. Communicate integrity and passion every chance you get.

4/ If your ‘old’ markets are shrinking then think ‘new’ markets.

5/ If you spend money on advertising or marketing and you cannot measure or see the ROI then stop what you are doing and think again. If you cannot see the value then your customers may not either.

6/ If your marketing spend is focused primarily on one-way ‘Interruptive’ techniques (i.e my ad is bigger and more frequent than yours) then you need to re-think. If your target market gives you ‘Permission’ to create a dialogue with them then the door is open to create a stronger relationship. Consider conversational marketing techniques such as social media to really engage with your customers.

7/ Give something back to your community (customers and employees) so that they see that you have a purpose beyond profit. This is where the future lies.

8/ Look after your people (after all, they embody your brand) and be as open and honest as you can be (share your dilemmas and challenges as they will have some great ideas).

9/ Innovate – understand your customers and create products and services that empathise with their needs. Remember these needs have changed in the last 6 months.

10/ Network – drive your personal brand. Make new friends as you can never have enough connections. Collaborate - Join Groups, discussions and blogs .

Small is Beautiful (an article submitted to a local magazine)

Over the past few decades, the business community has adopted a counter view to ‘small is beautiful’. Instead, the message has been ‘big is better’ and you don’t have to look far to see evidence of this trend. Take our supermarkets; we used to be a nation of family-run shopkeepers but now 92% of all grocery sales go though a few shareholder-driven Multiples. Household names they may be, but are we really happy that Tesco, Sainsbury’s and ASDA account for 64% of our spend in the supermarket, especially when we realise that this dominance has contributed to the demise of local grocers? And in Stamford, Lincolnshire it means we no longer have a specialist fruit and vegetable retailer, except on Market Day. So we can get the Government’s recommended five-a-day, but only on Fridays!

Our local butchers are also struggling to compete with cheaper cuts sourced from ‘who-knows- where’ internationally. Again the big supermarkets tell us it’s about their ability to buy big to achieve economies of scale, but is this not a euphemism for ‘squeeze the farmer’? And supermarket bosses will counter any argument against their size and power with a reminder of the year-round benefits consumers receive of ‘more choice, lower prices and better quality.’ Why is it then that in recent weeks prices seem to have shot up? According to mysupermarket.co.uk, which tracks prices at the big names, a family grocery bill of £100 per week in August 2007 would now be £127 – more than 25% extra, justified by increasing commodity prices and the cost of fuel. It will be interesting to see if they pass on the cost reductions just as quickly. The quality of the food on offer also seems to be called into question on a daily basis (thank you Jamie Oliver and Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall), and do we really need the choice of South African apples in October when English apples burden our trees?

Remember, big, we are told is good for us, but then I think I remember the banks telling us this not so long ago and look at them now – bailed out by you and me, the ‘little people’.

Don’t get me wrong I’m not a ‘biggist’, scale in some businesses is critical. Take the pharmaceutical industry where research costs are so onerous or the petrochemicals where exploration is risky and capital costs are so high. In these markets there is a case for ‘bigness’. What worries me is the potential impact and consumer abuse that can arise from scale combined with market dominance.

Anyhow, let’s get back to the real economy and thinking local. Stamford businesses, whether a deli or a design company, are going through difficult times and many of the small businesses may be worrying about how to survive. What can we, as local citizens, do to support our treasured local entrepreneurs? We can obviously buy local, and we should encourage everyone to do so whenever they can. But more than this, I believe we should reward the passion and talent invested in our local businesses. And by that I mean, buy people not products. Trust people not corporate PR. Make decisions that reward you with a good feeling that you have supported a family rather than a faceless group of shareholders. Ask questions about the authenticity and provenance of products and not just the price. Maybe, just maybe, by doing this we as a local economy can survive and build a better community that is proud to be ‘small’.

Paul Middlebrook
Managing Director, DUO Design and Marketing

What’s your Profile? A guide to Personal Branding

Reading the ‘gloom news’, which is endemic wherever you look, you might be thinking ‘crikey, it’s going to get tough to move on or get a new job. Well certainly there might be a period of consolidation in the recruitment market, but as always in times of adversity, the strong will out the weak. Now is the time to be very conscious about your offer and the Personal Brand that will define and support your ability to create value for prospective employers. In times of heightened competition, it’s even more important that the image you present is authentic (coming from the heart with passion) and is distinctive and influential (you stand out in a crowded marketplace).

Whether you like it or not, everyone has a Personal Brand. You can choose to manage this in a strategic way or you can allow it develop of its own accord. But given that your career depends on your ability to market your ‘ME brand’, day-in and day-out, I believe Personal Branding is far too critical to leave to chance.

To complicate matters still further, we live in an increasingly transparent world where ‘Googling’ often acts as the first reference point for information on individuals. In 2006, a survey by Execunet in the USA found that 77% of recruitment consultants Google candidates to find more information. And up to 35% remove candidates from consideration based on what they discover.

As Jonathan Winter, Founder of Career Innovation argues in the Guardian, "NetRep" - or someone's internet reputation - will become much more important as workers will increasingly be rated in a similar way to how buyers and sellers are rated for reliability and professionalism on sites such as eBay.

"As the workplace becomes more agile and people move between projects or organisations, people are going to need to own their internet reputation in a way that is more credible than in the past," Winter predicts. "How people are endorsed and their international profile will have a real power and influence."

Why not try putting your name into Google and see what happens? Does the search reveal you or someone else? Does what comes up support your offer or is it trivial and undermining to your brand? This is difficult to manage, but not impossible. You may also want to try visiting http://www.zoominfo.com/ and similar sites to check what information is openly available on the internet about you. It will be enlightening! Later in this article we will explore some rudimentary things you can do to help support and develop your online ME brand.

Many people see Personal Branding as another term for ‘selling myself’ – the brand is what you sell.  In my view, this misses the point. If you are in an interview and you have to ‘sell yourself’ then you are probably going for the wrong job. If your brand is clearly defined and you exude this with passion and desire then the assignment will almost certainly find you. Your authenticity as a leader and driver of business value will be so obvious it will be blinding.

How then do you define your Personal Brand? Try answering these questions as a starting point.

- Who am I and what do I stand for
- What do I believe in and would never compromise
- What makes me special
- What do you I want to achieve
- What do I want people to say about me

Now write the answers down to create a short mission statement – a ‘ME brand’ statement.
Once you have done this test it out with your mentors, friends and colleagues. Do they find it compelling and true? If not, try again and ask them to help. Remember this is the foundation, the soul and fuel of your brand. If you point your career towards satisfying your personal mission then your ‘ME brand’ will be authentic and soar in value.

Now that you have defined your core purpose, what can you do to communicate it and find like-minded businesses and people that will respect your value? Networking and giving of yourself is the key. Here are a few pointers to help you in this process.

• Constantly look for ways to expand your social and online network. Join clubs or societies that fit your purpose, offer to give speeches and get on the Conference Network, get out and meet people and when they ask you what you do, give them your elevator speech that encapsulates your purpose or mission.
• Create a CV that is precise, on-brand and distinctive (not gimmicky).
• Manage and foster your online profile (recruiters really do check this out) and make sure it fits your ‘ME brand’.
o Join appropriate business networks such as Chambers of Commerce or sector specific societies or professional networks.
o Develop web content by being actively involved with professional debates on websites or blogs.
o Write articles on specialist subjects that you are passionate about. Contribute to blogs or even create your own (easy to do, just go to www.typepad.co.uk). How about your own website (you can now buy your own personal domain such as www.johnsmith.me). A blog or personal website would provide tangible evidence of your expertise and achievements. People want to see that you are on top of the issues in your industry, that you are well connected and have solved challenges that are similar to theirs.
o Review books at Amazon or elsewhere and link these reviews back to your blog or website.
o Use zoominfo.com, Ziggs.com, and LinkedIn.co.uk to make sure you have relevant and up-to-date profiles and networks.
o Check your social networks such as Friends Reunited, MySpace and Facebook, to ensure the content fits your brand (sometimes it might be surprisingly embarrassing).

Now, more than ever, is the time to ensure your on- and off-line ‘ME brand’ helps you to win in the highly competitive marketplace. It could be the difference between a successful, balanced career with purpose and passion or not.

ME+ME+ME+ME+ME…. = YOUR BRAND

Here we take a look at the importance of Personal Branding and the impact it can have on individuals and the businesses they work for. Introspective reflection is not something that many of us are comfortable with, but knowing your ‘ME’ brand can be powerful when it comes to that essential fit between you and your career. And companies that understand their brand are more likely to find like-minded individuals that will deliver competitive advantage.

As people, we often seem to devalue ourselves – we readily place a value on a product or service but not on the human capital that drives success and wealth creation. A cost accountant will be able to tell you the net profit on an iPod but could he tell you the value of the people that inspired its success - Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO and Jonathan Ives, the director of Apple’s Industrial Design Group to name a few? Could he tell you what a £-value would be on the Steve Jobs brand and its ability to create value and lead change via his strength of personality, intellect, knowledge and personal ambition. The Apple brand is valuable but it is defined by the sum of the individual and unique brands of its people that, in turn, reflect the humanistic requirements of its customers. Apple is not about technology, it’s about human touch and ease of use –  attributes that have not traditionally been associated with the computer sector.

Over recent years, product and service brands have come under increasing competitive pressure and consumer scrutiny. People question their uniqueness, their value and ultimately the trust they place in them. We feel cheated when we read about the use of slave labour in emerging economies. We feel frustrated when we find that supposedly ethical brands are not so worthy after all. Managing brands is incredibly difficult – your weakest links will be all those individuals in your organisation that, for whatever reason, do not care or have opposing beliefs. Maybe because they have not identified their value or their abilities are being misplaced, maybe because they feel used and their future is uncertain. Whatever the reason, a product or service brand’s value will ultimately be dependent on individuals and the decisions they make everyday. These decisions (good or bad) will reflect the ‘ME’ brands of every individual in your organisation.

So, let’s take this a step further. If we are saying that the value and strength of any brand is based on the cumulative value and integrity of everyone’s ‘ME’ brand, why do we then not evaluate the people we propose to recruit based on their ‘fit’ to the corporate brands vision and values? Traditional recruitment is all to often based on HR’s assessment of qualifications and experience rather than ‘fit’. Because someone has the right title after their name or has worked for one of our competitors we assume they will ‘fit’ and that a quick run through of the company induction manual will mould them into a good brand citizen. What we should be doing is looking for people that share our brand’s vision, purpose and values. If we recruit these people, they will be more motivated, more loyal and less likely to let you or your brand down.

Perhaps HR’s lack of focus on the ‘ME’ brand is a reflection of their poor understanding of the corporate brand. To match an individual’s ‘ME’ brand with a corporate brand assumes that the people doing the matching truly understand the essence of their own corporate brand and why it is so important. It assumes that the companies themselves have defined and articulated the answers to the following questions;

- Who are we and what do we stand for
- What do we believe in and would never compromise
- What makes us special
- What do you we want to achieve
- What do we want people to say about us

Too often companies provide very shallow answers to these questions, which result in a veneered brand pledging competitive advantage that is distinctive only at the design and advertising level. This is not authentic branding but a façade that is seen through easily by those within the company and often by those on the outside too – your customers. Banks are an archetypal example of this approach; profaning care and understanding but practising the opposite. There is a famous supermarket that says; ‘One of our most important values is to treat people how we would like to be treated’, and yet sells chickens for £2.99 knowing that there is little goodness in them.

Likewise with Personal Branding (the ‘ME’ brand), a term invented by Tom Peters in 1997, if this is not authentic, based on your true character, then unfortunately you will be found out or worse you will end up in a career or an assignment that creates continuous disharmony with your beliefs and sense of purpose.

So, if you are looking for a job or you are about to be interviewed, think about your ‘ME’ brand first. Try answering the questions above on a personal level and decide whether you feel they match the values of the company that wants your drive and energy. If the answer is negative, then you might be best to focus your passions elsewhere.

Lost in translation…

DUO has recently been commissioned to carry out an internal communications audit for Wates, a large, £750m Construction Company. Wates is a proud, family owned business that uniquely is trying to be the first construction company to deliver all its projects on-time and on-budget. They recognise that to achieve this, 100% of their people need to be engaged with their vision, focused on the right issues and be highly motivated. They see this as a leadership responsibility and a first step to the creation of a strong brand within their rather disrespected sector.

We all know that a motivated work force is critical to business success and yet I was astonished to read some research from the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development that noted that if Britain at work was a marriage, it was ‘a marriage under stress, characterised by poor communications and low levels of trust’. Only 38 per cent of employees feel senior managers and directors treat them with respect and 66 per cent do not trust them. Around a quarter of employees rarely or never look forward to going to work, and almost a half are leaving or trying to.

In another survey, Gallup’s Employee Engagement Index found that only 16 per cent of UK employees were positively engaged whilst 24 per cent said they were ‘actively disengaged’. Gallup estimated that the cost to the economy of active disengagement was £40bn, as employees express their disenchantment by going sick, not performing or delivering poor service.

Who is to blame? Well clearly if the role of management is to lead vision and motivate achievement, there is something going wrong. The starting point for putting it right begins with some ‘honest listening’ from within. So often the messages you want to get through to your people are not the ones that hit the mark. Testing the gap between vision and reality is an essential starting point for any brand review or change management programme.