Archive for December, 2008
200,000 love songs stopped in their tracks
I rather liked this report that on the morning Woolworths collapsed into administration, a lorry carrying 200,000 copies of Take That’s new album Circus had set off for the Woolies distribution centre (which also supplied Sainsbury’s, Morrisons, Tesco & Zavvi). Cue frantic phone calls trying to get the lorry to turn back before the CDs were lost in Liquidation Hell.
Over Christmas, my Grandad recounted a similar tail from Ye Olde Days when his father was sent running across town to stop a horse and cart in their tracks en route to deliver a load to a business that had just gone under.
I suppose there’s no such thing as new news…
time to celebrate
It’s (almost) always thinking’s 2nd birthday on Monday, so before you all head off to celebrate Christmas with your nearest & dearest I’d just like to thank you for reading and commenting this year and wish you health and happiness for 2009.
And on your left, you’ll see Production…
Two or three Agency Tours make their way past my desk every day. New clients, new business prospects and interviewees are all escorted round the agency because look!, some desks! and people! and we have computers and recycling bins and everything! Um, I’m not quite sure what that person does but come and meet someone else who is in the middle of something important and didn’t really want disturbing!
Being shown round an agency can be a good way of getting a feel for it’s size and culture and its very hard to otherwise demonstrate the ‘buzz’ of an agency going full tilt, but in some cases I fear Agency Tours can leave the person being shown round with the impression that the business is rather rubbish at filing, washing up and throwing things away rather than a lean, keen agency machine.
I’d love to know what any Clients reading this think about Agency Tours or if you are an agency bod - how, when and if your agency does them?
Do Planners have recession proof skills?
A friend was asking me today if I’d ever thought about going freelance. I said that unless forced to by redundancy I thought it would be a bit foolish to try and build up a freelance client base in a recession where agencies are increasingly instigating ‘no freelancers’ rules in a bid to keep costs down.
So let’s suppose you’re a Planner working outside London, Miami, New York et al where the majority of Planning jobs are and you don’t want to up roots and move. Your employment prospects this side of 2010 aren’t that great.
What transferable skills do Planners have? Preferably ones that apply to recession proof industries? I’m just throwing this out there, I know most of us could become qual researchers (albeit probably at a more junior level), brand managers, or even account handlers at a pinch for the very organised ones, but what about outside marketing?
Any of you who have already made the jump to working for yourself might like this Sir Freelancelot complete with laptop which you can buy as a t-shirt from here.
Trade-advertising-with-a-sense-of-humour shock
I rather liked the cover wrap for cider brand Savanna Dry around this week’s Publican (pic shows the back page):
Close up of the copy :
Pitches Pending
I’ve got an in-tray full of Pending Pitch Outcomes. There’s everything in there, from £M+ integrated bonanzas to consultancy projects and startups.
But none of them have been signed off. In every instance we’re the agency of choice, or are down to the final two, but the client has delayed their actual decision to appoint – in some cases for several months now.
It’s a bit disheartening when you (and a large chunk of agency resource) throw yourself into a full blown pitch, confident that the client has promised to make their decision within a few days of your presentation, only to be kept waiting…and waiting…
I’m doing all the usual keeping-front-of-mind proactive measures but it seems that the dire economic conditions are making senior management extremely reluctant to sign off any new marketing spend or to commit themselves to anything that doesn’t have an immediate and totally measurable ROI (hello, online media chaps).
Pitching in itself isn’t exactly a cheap way of winning business. But the Tender Queens tell me they’re experiencing similar problems and it’s not just my agency, it seems to be pretty much across the board. So I guess we’ll all just have to keep keeping our fingers crossed.
the latest matterbox
The latest Matterbox arrived this morning (pics of the first one are here).
It’s a work-in-progress from the Royal Mail, sending interesting stuff from brands that you might want to hang on to and will eventually work like a stable of magazines mailing to different targeted audiences.
This time round I’m loving – roaring fire DVD from Diageo, DVD cleaner from Lovefilm, comedy CD from BBC Audio and chocolate from Cadbury.
Not so keen on – yet another Original Source shower gel sampler, random book excerpt and O2 sim card pack (I’ve had quite enough of mobile phone companies for a while).
All in all, a nice way to start the weekend. Sign up for the next one at matterbox.co.uk.
Vodafone perhaps need to rethink their customer service function…
Ten hours (so far). That’s how much time it’s taken me to get my mobile upgraded and (almost, kind of) working. I’ve been bounced around call centres like pass the parcel, I’ve spoken to people in three different countries, I’ve mediated internal arguments between departments and I’ve nearly lost the will to live.
It shouldn’t be this difficult. I suppose it started because Vodafone have been convinced for the last five years that I’m actually running a small business and couldn’t understand why I might want to talk to customer services outside working hours. Changing over to their consumer database required me to leave the network entirely and start a new contract with the same company and took a mere three weeks to arrange.
Then they lost my records, mislaid all details of my upgrade, sent me a phone that needs a PhD in electronic engineering to set up and forgot to send my new charger.
I think the highlights were being on hold for 15 minutes only to discover I’d been transferred to the dealer support team by accident and finding myself with no idea whether old or new or neither phone would be working when I was about to set out on my own, in my car, in the snow.
Of course the problem for Vodafone is that apparently satisfied customers tell three friends, angry customers tell 3000. Or in my case everyone on my RSS feed. How do you think they’d take it if I sent them a bill at my agency hourly charge out rate for ten hours of my time?
this morning’s meeting is cancelled
Dear Potential New Client,
I will not be able to attend this morning’s meeting because my agency’s Company Car Scheme does not extend to include a team of husky dogs and a sled.
Radio Times Lord
When next week’s Radio Times landed on the doormat I felt a slight sense of déjà vu. This was only resolved when I looked at the pile of newspapers from last week ready for recycling and saw David Tennant’s face staring back at me again.
Two covers in three weeks does seem a bit excessive. But five minutes searching on t’interweb threw up another three covers from the past twelve months – and I’ve probably missed a few on top of that.
Has the Radio Times correlated a sales uplift with a certain actor as cover star?
