We Love…

Often the success of a project from a budgetary, timescale and satisfaction level comes down to how a project is managed (internally) and how involved a client is with the creative (externally).

In these tightening times of finance and expansive times of industry nervousness it pays to up your ability in both managing your team and engaging the client. It may be extra effort on your part (and let’s be honest we are already working night and day to secure the success, quality and growth of our companies)… but if you play it right, you may actually be better off for it, saving time by working smarter…

Here are seven rules of thumb to help engage your team and make sure that the late nights are an exception not the norm:

1. Agree precise specification for the project. Document, document, document… create a scope of works.
2. Plan the project - time, team, activities, resources, financials.
3. Communicate the project plan to your project team.
4. Agree and delegate project actions.
5. Manage, motivate, inform, encourage, enable the project team.
6. Check, measure, review project progress; adjust project plans, and inform the project team and others.
7. Complete project; review and report on project performance; give praise and thanks to the project team. And ultimately be honest.

As for the Client: In your planning always ensure that there are ample review sessions, tissue meetings and brainstorms… This ultimately helps you get a better result. No one knows his or her business better than the client. They can feed in to your ideas, support and solve the weaknesses and feel like they have been part of the process, helping to secure the success of their current activity…

Now you know the process… let it run and go be creative…

Two designers setting out on their first steps towards creative direction (checkout the glimpse of a 1990’s Creative Review).

Well it looks as though I kept my boyish good looks from all those years ago… but unfortunately time has been no friend to Mark Although to be fair he was ahead of the game even in those days… sadly he pre-empted chavs by about 10 years xD

Being the young professional I am, I recently jetted off on a European city break to Rome. A great time was had, beautiful Rome explored and an italian waiter was put in the recovery position and brought back from unconsciousness.

The Gallery Borghese, Pantheon, Spanish Steps, Colloseum (which was magnificent, I’m not sure why everyone slates it as a disappointment), Trevi fountain and Pantheon. Rome really is a great city and the food was sublime. They know how to cook a steak (i.e. not very much).

It was such a good time one of my photos was selected by the Guardian in their arts and blogs section! Quite a surprise to find it there. Check out more photos from WeLove on our flickr photo stream.

Just gathering ammo to embarrass my spawn when he brings his mates / first girlfriend home…

Pumpkin Boy does the Pumpkin Dance..

Happy Halloween!

Mark

Following a link from our October newsletter, we’ve highlighted some of the best (in our opinion) digital howlers. Ideas, that when given the room and money needed to grow, can lead to some very interesting and entertaining outcomes… from marketeers that should know better…


01 - Second Life… No Life…

2007 brought us the uncontrollable excitement of Second Life’s commercialisation … What crap. Build a virtual storefront and everyone will love you. I hope, come the recession, that the marketeers who suggested such rubbish are the first to be shot at dawn.

A second ‘rate’ idea that cost not only dollars, but a loss of face for the marketing industry as a whole by jumping on this rubbishy bandwagon, making it more difficult to say ‘hey, this is what you should be doing’ with the corporate dollar when the ROI of $100,000 to $5mill spend for a poxy 1000 visits, is and will forever be shameful… woohoo…

I bet the likes of Nike, Nissan, Reebok, Starwoods, et al are kicking themselves and wishing that they invested in some good old fashioned engagement which would show a better return of say 1000%

Overhyped rubbish… yes it was.

02 - Meaningless links

These days we all know that to rank well with the Search Engines you need plenty of Inbound Links - what people tend to forget is that any old link just won’t cut the mustard.

Organic links from relevant, quality pages are what you’re after, following basic rules such as:

i) make sure they’re from pages at least 1 point higher in Page Rank and have content relevant to your site (and if you get the opportunity ask for the inbound links to be from your top keywords, not from words such as ‘click here’)

ii) the pages should have less than 100 total outbound links (inc. internal navigation)

iii) and feature no more than 16 sponsored links or 2 Google Adword boxes.

Anything else will turn you into an online pariah - so don’t leave irrelevant comments on blogs leading back to your monetised homepage and don’t carpet bomb the internet with your link. Let inbound traffic build organically - encourage 2-way communication with other people and become part of the online community as a whole.

(And if you have do have a link page on your site, make sure you don’t call it this - Google does not like these words and if it finds them it’ll negatively impact on your ranking)


03 - Sony’s… All I want for Christmas is a PSP

And the title of worst viral campaign goes to the agency that created the Sony PSP Christmas campaign… After they set up a fake website pretending to be PSP “fanboy’s” and produced a video with a cringe-inducing rap, followed by fake comments praising their campaign. The original posting included “we started clowning with sum not-so-subtle hints to j’s parents that a PSP would be teh perfect gift”. Now I don’t know about you, but I think I just threw up a bit in my mouth… Never ever underestimate your target market’s intelligence . . . NEVER fake a viral!


04 - Cut price websites… Bargain!

When someone offers to design and build you a website for £400 all in, it must be a bargain…
Oh, but it appears to look like all the other site’s out there… AND YOU SEEM SURPRISED! There are far too many people offering templated websites, that neither fulfill the clients needs or offer you any sort of advantage over your competitors.

Now I understand that clients often have to work within a budget, but there’s really no benefit to using these cowboy’s because people will NEVER be able to find your website unless you GIVE them the URL… So they have no SEO properties what so ever.

Not only that, but these sites only ever use one template, have no thought behind target market, tone of voice or market positioning - they’re badly built, badly managed and they provide no positive comeback whatsoever - so our advice is you may as well go and burn your money instead…


05 - Always check your mailing list…

Earlier this year Virgin Trains accidentally hit the send button before checking their mailing list, inviting thousands of customers to a luxury golf weekend… After which they quickly sent another email apologising, as the offer was only meant for a selected few!

They then gave the thousands of ‘happy to have won’ customers the chance to enter another competition to win back one of three available spaces on the luxury weekend that they had already just won… Confusing or simply embarrassing… Well that will teach you to check your mailing list next time…

Halloween is the one night of the year that you can be a right B*stard to your fellow man… so here’s a few of our favorite tips! Feel free to add your own…

- Air horn through the letterbox
- Potato up someones car exhaust (what a classic)
- Crashing demo machines in your local computer shop
- Padlocking someone inside their house
- Teflon coating someones car wheels

Every designer has been through the process of cutting and sticking hundreds of images from design, architecture and lifestyle magazines to a piece of flimsy card, which you then prop up against your wall and stare at continuously hoping to ‘be’ inspired, in order to help create that perfect design?

It is an integral part of the design process when R&Ding a new project, helping you to understand the parameters of a given brief and to learn boundaries of the creative direction as well as involving the client in the whole creative development of their product, which in turn creates early buy in… a good thing.

Well, I spent about three years making moodboards at Uni (thats a lot of moodboards) for each and every project and became very adapt at the whole process… infact it is rather a quick and involving job… However and after reading a recent post online it made me laugh when it suggested that some agencies are using a library of pre-made moodboards to whip out in front of clients (multiple clients - same moodboards) and charging each and every time… ever heard the term ‘money for old rope’… rather cheeky I think.

Some clients find them confusing because as you’re trying to sell them the idea, showing them brightly coloured shapes and images, they’re often looking at the boards in a non-creative way and the outcome is they often see them as a design idea, not a starting point for inspiration! However, some clients find them reassuring and the idea of grabbing a set of scissors themselves and joining in, may help them understand and appreciate what their brand is actually trying to say.

So, keep going with the moodboards… BUT be sure to use them in the right way. Don’t see them as a cash cow… Don’t abuse them… and most importantly don’t hang onto them for dear life… Be flexible in your approach to enable you to best service your clients and their needs.

Cheers, Dan

Yep. Time for a rant…

My last rant was over the unjust treatment of Lewis in the F1… and the favoured treatment of a team in red… although I am not quite over that its a case of something bigger is starting to really get my goat…

…something a bit more serious and a bit more of a touch point in everyones life. Now, I admit I am no expert on the subject of global economics… but boy can I see injustice when it rears its ugly head.

The ‘Bonus Culture’ of the city boys and girls who have thrown our economy into a downward spiral of panic and mistrust through years of short term vision and greed… and still expect to get paid vast amounts of bonus for being complete idiots and failures.

It has just cost the US tax payer 760 billion to bail out a floundering banking system over the other side of the pond… and will probably be about 100 billion + over here. OK, intervention may be needed to stabilise the banking system and get the buggers lending to each other again. Liquidity is the word being bandied around… But do I want to own shares (through the government, as a tax payer) in a company that still rewards numpties for loosing shit loads of money… No, I bloody don’t.

They have had it too good for too long. They own enough property and cars… and I see no value in buying them another bloody rolex. So why can’t the government (major share owner) say… actually guys you screwed up… no bonus this year. Turn it around… build long term substainable growth possibilities… and we will see about a bonus next year.. eh boys?

Now you would argue that to keep the best you have to pay the best. True enough… makes perfect sense… But I do not and will not ever pay a bonus to any staff member if the constantly screw up. Let along say to people who have plummeted the world into global recession by handing out 10% of the tax payers money… 10 % (70 Billion US Dollars for Wall Street monkeys) just in time for xmas. Nice!

And another thing…

Hedge funds should be banished. De-stabling’s a company when they are going through a tough time it the equivalent of being kicked in the nuts. You wouldn’t do it to someone on the street… so why in business.. there has to be a better way. Every company goes through periods of uncertainty. Its support they need. Not vultures.

Shoot the vultures. Stop the greed. Have some ethics and morality about you… Have a bit of backbone. If you got a big bonus then give it back… Whatever… Just stop beings so bloody grabby.

Mark