S&A Publishing offer experienced freelance journalist support for newspaper and magazine publishers as well as to public relations and contract publishing companies. The company is headed by experienced journalists Steve Hemsley and Ailsa Colquhoun who are available for feature and news writing, desk shifts and book work. 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The Times September 28 2006 (Career supplement page 9)

Are your assets safe?

Dealing with potential fraud in the workplace requires a delicate managerial touch: too little scrutiny and theft goes undetected; too much suspicion of staff and employees can feel that everything they do is being watched.

“When fraud is discovered within an organisation it can have a devastating effect on staff morale because people feel let down by those they trusted. Managers are under pressure to show they can deal with this as well as being aware that crime could be going on,” says Sally Longworth, a partner at Grant Thornton's Forensic and Investigation Services practice.

One of the biggest threats to company security is the theft of corporate data and other intellectual property.

A survey published today by database protection company Secerno suggests managers are giving employees greater access to sensitive information than they need to. It claims 41% of staff can read and copy company records not relating to their job and 56% have no restrictions at all placed on the information they can view at work.

The risk here is that employees can copy files to sell to a competitor or even criminal gangs. Personal information stolen in this way is being used to perpetrate identify theft which the Home Office says is costing the UK economy £1.7bn a year.

Research by PC security firm Prefix IT reveals that 60% of workers have wrongly removed items from the workplace and 11% have taken or copied confidential documents.

“Naïve managers who trust their staff blindly are asking for trouble,” says Prefix IT CEO Graeme Pitts-Drake. “Small companies can even lose their businesses altogether if the bosses do not keep on top of this problem. Securing company data is not about taking a big brother attitude. It is the same as locking your office door at night.”

Managers overseeing a round of redundancies should be extra vigilant when it comes to preventing all kinds of staff fraud. The psychological contract a person has with their employer is shattered when they lose their job. It means many people can justify in their own minds stealing from a company because they feel they have been betrayed.

One controversial area where managers can disagree is how hard to crack down on staff using the internet at work for personal use. Many bosses argue that employees are stealing company time if they book holidays, shop, contribute to blogs or send emails to friends from the office when they should be working.

This may be true, but being too heavy-handed can cause tension, harm staff morale and damage the relationship with the management unless it is handled sensitively.

Karen Black, a partner and employment law expert at Boodle Hatfield, says the revolution in workplace technology has meant a steep learning curve for most employers. “Companies need a computer-use policy that lays down the ground rules and sets out how the management will monitor how people use the internet,” she says. “Covert checking is more controversial and although it may be a more successful way of tackling fraudulent activity this must be balanced against the risks of employers overstepping the mark. They could face employment challenges from aggrieved staff.”

The Times – Public Agenda supplement February 7 2006 page 8

Sector sees a rush of younger blood

Policemen and teachers often appear younger as people get older, but now even those hot-shot interim managers breezing into the public sector seem less grey-haired than they did a few years ago.

But his is not an illusion. These senior executives really do have fewer wrinkles because government departments and agencies are turning to younger blood to manage their projects and functions on a short-term basis.

According to the agencies that provide interim managers, the average age of these specialists recruited to run human resources, IT or change management teams has fallen from around 55 to nearer 45 in less than five years.

There are a number of reasons for the shift. Many talented managers who lost their jobs during the dotcom crash in 2001 soon realised they could survive and flourish without a corporate blanket to protect them. Other talented younger executives in their mid-thirties and early forties are now choosing the interim route to obtain a better work/life balance.

Perhaps more importantly, there is now an acceptance within Government that many of the skills and working methods honed in the business world could and should be adopted by the public sector. This has meant recruiting specialists - however young – into senior posts on a contract basis to ensure initiatives are implemented effectively.

“Five years ago it was very rare to find a senior interim manager below the age of 45 but today anyone with the right skills and a good reputation can find regular work because employers are under pressure to deliver best practice using techniques proven in the private sector,” says Patrique Habboo, managing director of Praxis Executives on Assignment.

Dr Bernard Horsford started working as an interim manager in the public sector four years ago when he was just 38. In January he began his latest eight-month change management contract working for the Crown Prosecution Service. He has also held senior posts within the Department of Work and Pensions and the Department for Constitutional Affairs.

“There can be some resentment when you are brought in to manage a team which includes people in their fifties and sixties who may have worked for the same department for years. You have to win them over, but their worries tend to disappear when they see how you perform,” says Horsford.

Another young interim is Simon Davis, also aged just 42, who is currently project managing the merger of departments within the Department of Trade and Industry and the Foreign Office. He says age is less of an issue these days as public sector employers are desperate to find people with a proven track record. “Any senior interim must be able to think differently and younger managers can be better at doing that,” he says. “They can also be fitter and like to be very hands-on to ensure the changes they recommend are actually put into action.”

The decision to employ younger interims is not based purely on the skills they can bring to the job or their ability to slip seamlessly into a vacant management or director role. They are often chosen because budgetary constraints mean there is an assumption older and more experienced interims will demand a higher day rate.

Yet this is not always the case. A study of 1,093 executives by provider Russam GMS revealed the average daily fee for an interim in his or her forties was £573 at the end of 2005. This is up from £536 last June and higher than the average £528 paid to managers in their fifties and the £471 charged by those aged over sixty.

Chairman Charles Russam says the day rates reflect the huge demand for younger talented interim managers and the fact executives in this age group are more easily persuaded back into permanent employment, which can affect supply to key areas such as IT or human resources.

The laws on age discrimination in the workplace are being tightened this year, yet in the world of interim management a person’s skills and talent rather than their years of experience are already major considerations for public sector employers. The result will be more fresh-faced managers in trendy suits pounding the office floor.

Protect and survive - CNBC European Business, June 2006 pages 16-17

Warnings that the gradual slide towards national protectionism in the West will harm economic growth are getting ever louder.

Before he retired in January, US Federal Reserve head Alan Greenspan described emerging trade protectionism as one of the biggest threats to his country’s future prosperity. Across the Atlantic, European competition commissioner Neelie Kroes insists protectionism is the wrong response to the challenge of economic reform and that Europe risks being cut off from the global market.

At a time when the Chinese and Indian economies are growing at such a pace, these are claims Western governments and trade unions are being urged to take seriously.

Ironically - and frustratingly for those like Greenspan and Kroes bemoaning the dangers of protectionism - most of the nations currently calling foul over the possible takeover of their assets by foreign companies have themselves been busy acquiring controlling interests in overseas businesses for years.

The international business media has been a key vehicle to highlight the implications of the rise in national protectionism and attempts to restrict domestic competition. Kroes is one a number of high-profile figures to appear on business news television channel CNBC Europe, for instance, to get her views across.

She told Louisa Bojesen, the Danish-American anchorwoman for CNBC’s Power Lunch Europe and market reporter on the early morning Squawk Box programme, that it is through competition rather than protectionism that businesses innovate. She says this is the way to get the best from employees, make the most of a business’s resources and push down prices for consumers.

The European Commission is now getting tough to defend the EU’s internal market which is supposed to make cross-border acquisitions easier.

The utilities sector is one problem area identified by Brussels which is convinced that more consolidation would be good news for consumers. The Commission has launched 28 legal cases against 17 member states for failing to introduce full competition in their energy industries. Spain, for example, has been attacked by Brussels for trying to merge Gas Natural and Endesa to create a Spanish utility giant and stop a bid for Endesa from Germany’s E.On.

France has come under more general attack for its policy of economic patriotism which effectively blocks foreign takeovers in a range of sectors from energy, vaccine production and casinos. Yet at the same time the French government supports its own industrial giants such as France Telecom when they engage in foreign takeovers.

Elsewhere, Poland had been criticised for asking its banking regulators to block a deal with Italian bank UniCredito. The Polish government is keen not to upset Brussels just two years after joining the EU and it reluctantly agreed to allow two national banks Bank BPH and Pekao to merge under UniCredito’s ownership.

The EU could suffer from the latest protectionism row brewing in the US. It involves the so-called Open Skies agreement which would allow US airlines to fly to any European airport and vice versa. It is due to be ratified by the EU in June, but the same security fears within the US that killed the £3.9bn takeover of UK company P&O by Gulf-state backed Dubai Ports World which would taken ownership of strategically-important US sea ports have surfaced again.

The Open Skies pact has the backing of President George Bush and could add an estimated $22bn to the trans-Atlantic air travel market. Yet many Americans believe any decision to reduce restrictions on foreign airlines will mean domestic jobs being cut and the US losing some control over air safety, which opponents of the deal believe should not be compromised after September 11.

CNBC Europe’s Bojesen has covered the trend towards protectionism in depth over the last few months. She is no stranger to the workings of the global business world having reported extensively on the European financial markets and worked as a day trader in the US for Peter’s Securities in Chicago and as a financial advisor at Merrill Lynch. She agrees protectionism is a major issue the business community must tackle because of the large amount of merger and acquisition money in the markets and the demand from shareholders to see their companies expand internationally. However, she adds it is vital both sides of the argument are debated in the media.

“The EU wants all members to obey by one set of rules to allow cross-border takeovers, but is it really wrong for a nation such as France to want to protect its national champions when it comes to business? We have discussed whether countries should have the right to stop foreign takeovers if they want to,” she says.

Another high-profile executive interviewed on the topic by Bojesen is Todd Thomson, chairman and CEO of global financial services company Citigroup’s global wealth management division. He is responsible for The Citigroup Private Bank and Smith Barney wealth management brands which represent client assets of $1.3 trillion and have 600 offices worldwide.

“The interview soon turned to the political and economic implications of US versus European protectionism. In the US, domestic companies do not have the separate cultures and governments to deal with which exist in Europe and, as we are seeing, can create barriers to cross-border deals,” says Bojesen.

Citigroup is the biggest foreign bank operating in China, so Bojesen also quizzed Thomson on how Asia fits into the protectionism debate. “If Western countries want to get more than a toe into territories such as China then surely they must allow more inward investment by the Chinese?” she says.

She cites figures from the head of China’s National Development and Reform Commission, Ma Kai, who claims US investment in the country overall has risen dramatically over the last 25 years. In 1980 only 23 US firms had operations in China with a combined investment of around $120m. By 2005 there were 49,000 with investments worth $51bn.

Bojesen also reports for CNBC Europe’s sister channels in the US and Asia and her thoughts on the global economy are widely respected by leading businessmen and women around the world. She has become a regular speaker and moderator at various events, including hosting the 3GSM World Congress Awards for mobile technology in Cannes, France. She has also been invited by the Danish Chambers of Commerce on two occasions to address the London Stock Exchange.

In June she will outline the potential implications of protectionism and the impact it could have for shareholders in a speech to fund managers and analysts at the IR Magazine Awards in Stockholm. “Many companies do not take investor relations seriously enough. Yet when there is talk about overseas takeovers and shareholders are getting nervous about foreign companies acquiring equity it is vital they feel they have a personal relationship with the directors.”

Just how cosy that relationship actually is will always depend on whether shareholders agree with the policies being followed by their company’s board. In particular, are their own interests best served by directors acquiring overseas strategic assets or concentrating on protecting their own?

THE SHOW

Power Lunch Europe is broadcast between 11am and noon and comprises two segments reviewing the latest investment, careers and technology news across the continent. The first part is Halftime Report which examines the major trades on the London, Paris, Frankfurt and other European markets, while the second half comprises interviews with leading CEOs and analysts. Regular features include Media Beat, Investors’ Clinic, Sector Dissector and CEO Call. Power Lunch Europe is presented by Louisa Bojesen and Patricia Szarvas.

CNBC European Business February 2006

European investors shuddered in January when the antics of a new media company in Japan caused panic on the continent’s stock markets.

Accusations that Takafumi Horie, the chief executive of internet business Livedoor, had given misleading information to shareholders caused a wave of share selling and forced the Tokyo exchange to close 20 minutes earlier than normal on January 16 after its biggest fall in nine months.

The ripple effect around the world was immediate as the London Stock Exchange fell 64 points at one stage, and it took 10 days for the Nikkei itself to return to levels before the scandal. Horie was subsequently removed as Livedoor’s president and arrested on suspicion of breaking security laws.

The Livedoor debacle came the day after Shell’s oil platform in Nigeria’s sensitive Niger Delta region was attacked by armed militants who have since pledged to destroy the country’s ability to export crude oil. The initial assault immediately pushed up oil prices and de-stabilised crude oil production in the region

Both these stories caused pulses to race among European business people who needed to know what effect such developments could have on their own companies and markets.

At times like this executives often turn to the various business television news channels expecting concise and authoritative analysis of the events. The broadcasters know their role is to either put their viewers’ minds at rest or help them decide if they need to take any action to limit any potential damage to their shareholders’ interests. These channels also provide business men and women with a useful platform to communicate to the financial markets why they have or have not taken a specific corporate decision following an internal or external trading incident.

An eight-minute in-depth lead story on the impact of Nigeria’s problems was aired on CNBC Europe’s European Closing Bell, for example. Sandra Ebner, senior economist at DekaBank and Simon Sole, managing director of political risk analysis company Exclusive Analysis discussed the potential implications for the oil markets.

European Closing Bell, which is available in 100m homes and analyses the day’s activity on 18 of Europe’s most influential financial stock markets, also covered the Japanese crisis in considerable depth. Anchorman Simon Hobbs questioned guests including KBC Financial Products’ Japan strategist Jonathan Allum and Gerhard Fasol, CEO at Eurotechnology Japan KK about where the markets might go next. Fasol has spent almost 20 years supporting and implementing high tech business projects in the region and linking European and US firms with Japanese companies in the opt-electronics, telecoms, internet and intellectual property rights management sectors.

Hobbs has been presenting this particular show for three years having spent five years on CNBC Europe’s morning programmes including the early financial news show Today’s Business Europe. He has earned a reputation as tough interviewer with a probing and rigorous interview style, honed on London’s commercial news radio station LBC and then the BBC. It is a style viewers and guests seem to respond to.

“If he feels someone is obfuscating, ducking or diving, or just not being precise he will be very direct with his questioning. He will cut through a complex issue to get to the nub of an argument very quickly while recapping the action in the financial markets in a more thoughtful way than might be possible earlier in the day,” says Weavering Capital economist James Stewart

Hobbs himself is convinced a no-nonsense approach to interviewing is essential to attract the big hitters on to the programme. “I will cross-examine a person on any assumption he or she makes about a financial issue of the day. Whether this relates to equities or the foreign exchange markets these are things that ultimately affect everyone’s lives,” he says.

While some business news broadcasters prefer to produce nation-specific programming, CNBC decided eight years ago to go down the pan-European route. It means treating Europe as a single market and assuming issues and market trends cross borders while exploiting the fact that English is the international language of business.

Paul Donovan, global economist at UBS Warburg, often appears on European Closing Bell to dissect economic data such as unemployment figures or to read between the lines of a European finance minister’s keynote speech. “The financial markets are much more integrated these days and what is happening in one country will have an effect in another even if it is not immediately apparent,” he says.

CNBC is also the only pan-European broadcaster covering European affairs from within the EU which removes any national bias. It means subjects are not covered through the eyes of the French or the British, which provides some useful clarity for business decision makers.

Hobbs points to European Closing Bell’s regular coverage of the Lisbon Strategy which touches all areas of EU economic, social and environmental policy. The plan, agreed by EU heads of state six years ago, is of vital interest to business leaders as member states attempt to make the EU the most competitive and knowledge-based economy in the world by 2010 in response to fierce competition from the US and Asia.

On January 25 EU commission president Jose Manuel Barroso presented the annual progress report on the Lisbon Strategy which identified four priority action areas. These are more investment in education, research and innovation; freeing up SMEs from bureaucracy; introducing employment policies to get people back to work; and guaranteeing a sustainable energy supply.

Hobbs usually arrives at CNBC Europe around 10am to scan the newspapers, check the news wires and to read his emails, which often include story ideas from his various contacts around the world. At 11.30am he meets the rest of the news team to discuss where to send the shows reporting resources, although he knows that by the time the show airs at 4pm the news agenda could look very different.

European Closing Bell broadcasts when the local markets are winding down but Wall St is in full flow. As the programme is operating in real time with a video wall behind Hobbs displaying market data, the show must be flexible as well as accurate to retain its credibility.

Initially Hobbs will discuss the last half hour of trades in Europe and talk to reporters based at its various network locations. To make any pan-European programme work, the studio anchorman needs a strong rapport with his commentators in the field.

One of European Closing Bell’s more colourful characters is Silvia Wadhwa who reports on the Xetra Dax from Frankfurt. She is one of the best known financial journalists in Germany and has a vast knowledge of the banking industry. She joined CNBC Europe in 1998 following the merger with European Business News in Frankfurt where she was a reporter. Away from the business world she has written a trilogy about 17^th century India and counts Hollywood star Russell Crowe among her friends.

One of the reasons for the obvious chemistry between Wadhwa and Hobbs is they co-host the Europe Tonight programme at 8pm Monday to Thursday. In this slot they interview political and financial leaders to obtain useful insight into how the markets might react during the next trading session.

The financial markets like to be prepared and hate surprises, so when the unforeseen happens the calming influence of the various business news channels can be just what they need.

FINANCIAL TIMES November 29 2005

Soho? It’s so yesterday, darling

Many creative people would have to be dragged kicking and screaming out of London’s West End, especially if you asked them to move south of the river.

By their very nature creative businesses thrive on the buzz and energy of their surroundings and working environment and they feed off each other, which is why Soho remains the beating heart of this industry.

Soho is, after all, an internationally-renown sub-brand of London which can help businesses woo overseas clients. A W1 postcode still adds kudos and credibility to any company prepared to absorb the high rents and growing security fears that go with such a high-profile address.

Yet the balance of power could be shifting as a move to less salubrious areas of the capital appeals to an increasing number of businesses.

Creative hubs are springing up across the city as film, television, advertising and design companies are priced out of traditionally popular areas. It means places where their directors once feared to tread are being viewed more positively, helped by lower rents and millions of pounds of regeneration investment.

One area which could certainly rival Soho and places like Hoxton within a few years is the SE1 district, traditionally home to a number of large media owners. Premises in King’s Cross in the north, Brixton and Deptford in the south and Shoreditch in the east are also being considered.

“Property prices are fuelling the creation of these clusters. That is why people went to Hoxton in North London in the nineties,” says John Howkins, author of the 2001 book The Creative Economy. “When landlords have empty buildings to fill you see the artists move in first before other creatives take advantage of cheap rents. Then cafes and bars arrive as a place gets a reputation for being funky and trendy. London is full of creative nooks and crannies these days.”

Location branding consultant Niclas Ljungberg adds: “Creative businesses in general tend to operate on lower margins than other professional services so they actively seek out – and subsequently create – the next ‘hot’ place. Although where exactly this will be is not always easy to spot.”

According to Creative London, part of the London Development Agency, the SE1 creative hub stretches along the River Thames from the Design Museum at Tower Bridge to near Battersea Powerstation and is already worth more than £0.5bn a year.

One reason SE1 has attracted so much interest is the work of the Coin Street Community Builders, the not-for-profit development trust which has been regenerating 13 acres of prime land on London’s South Bank since 1984.

It runs from Waterloo Bridge to Blackfriars Bridge, touching the Royal National Theatre and almost reaching the old Bankside power station, now the Tate Modern. The central point of the whole project is the renovated Oxo Tower in the former Stamford Wharf which today boasts fashionable restaurants and galleries.

Marketing and media agency Spirit IC relocated from Covent Garden to Great Suffolk Street in Southwark before moving again to Winchester Walk near Borough Market. Managing director Mike Berry says the rent in SE1 is less than £35 per square foot compared with the £45 per square foot he would expect to pay in Soho.

“Clients did ask us why we wanted to move south of the river but the redevelopment of Borough Market has helped the image of the area. Of course, Covent Garden still has an emotional pull for our senior people,” says Berry.

Maverick Marketing & Design also moved out of Soho to SE1. It went first to Shad Thames and is now in Weston Street in a building once home to London’s leather market. “Soho had become too expensive for us and I was worried about the safety of my staff,” says managing director Carron Edmonds. “There is a different ethos in this business nowadays and clients are no longer so impressed by a flash West End agency. And we are only a 10 minute walk from London Bridge.”

Also near London Bridge is PR and copywriting agency Red Lorry Yellow Lorry which left Warwick Street in Soho in November for offices in Bermondsey Street. It doubled its office space for a third of the cost as its rent dropped to £23 per square foot.

Head of Creative London, Graham Hitchen, is working closely with planning authorities to attract even more creative businesses to SE1. “There is such a strong culture of creativity and art here already that businesses want to connect with the vibrancy of the area,” he says.

Of course, SE1 is not the only creative hub emerging out of Soho’s shadows. Creative London has identified 10 geographical areas where non-profit organisations have a remit to support the creative industries. The thinking within local government is that attracting creative companies improves the image an area which will subsequently boost a borough’s wider economy.

Creative North London covering the boroughs of Barnet, Enfield, Haringey and Waltham Forest launched a 280-studio complex in Wood Green on November 18.

East London is also tempting creative businesses. Advertising giants Mother and Wieden & Kennedy have moved from Soho to designer offices in Shoreditch where rents are around £20 per square foot.

Meanwhile one of London’s newest film and television production companies Spectrecom Films set up in SE8 at Deptford Creek in the summer rather than join its rivals in Soho, Acton or Park Royal.

Managing director Andrew Greener acknowledges that being the only studio in this part of London is a risk. “Deptford is very affordable at just £4.50 per square foot and, as a low budget area, it could take off like Hoxton did a few years ago. The low rents mean we can be extremely competitive when trying to entice new clients,” he says.

Another organisation nurturing creative hubs around London is the Centre for Creative Business, the 18-month old joint venture between the London Business School and University of the Arts London. Chief executive and former ITN programme editor Greg Orme says clustering of creative businesses is vital to the future success of the industry. “The creative sector nationally is growing at between 6 per cent and 8 per cent a year and because it is leveraging people and their skills their proximity to each other is incredibly important,” he says.

So what about those companies that refuse to leave the comfort zone of Soho?

Advertising agency Bartle Bogle Hegarty is based in Kingly Street, W1, and out-going managing director Derek Robson is convinced the agency would suffer if it moved. “Our clients and staff want the agency to be central and we are close to all the facilities we need,” he says. “Some of our heritage would also be lost if we left the area. I believe every creative company would choose to be in Soho if it could afford

FINANCIAL TIMES December 14 2004 Page 6-7
If you were walking around one of Beijing’s busy shopping malls in October you would have heard Prodigy’s controversial song Smack My Bitch Up blaring out of one particular retailer. What makes this unusual is that China’s Ministry of Culture has actually banned the track from sale because it considers the lyrics offensive. A fair point, some might say, but Cyndi Lauper suffered the same fate when the censors decided her song I Drove All Night sent out a potentially dangerous message to motorists. Meanwhile, the Rolling Stones were ordered to remove four songs from the Chinese release of the band’s last compilation album 40 Licks. Yet copies of all these tracks are available in China if you look hard enough because a staggering 95 per cent of music sales are pirate copies. In fact, the government’s insistence that any foreign record label must submit for approval a translation of all lyrics is partly blamed for fuelling the illegal trade as millions of Chinese satisfy their hunger for Western artists. China may have the largest music piracy market in the world valued at around $600m (source: IFPI) but it is still the second biggest legitimate music market in Asia, worth $101.6m. This is a long way behind Japan ‘s $2.4bn but as China opens up to foreign investment prior to the 2008 Olympics in Beijing and the 2010 World Expo in Shanghai, international record companies are eyeing China’s long-term sales potential. China’s legal music business has seen double-digit growth in each of the last three years since its accession to the World Trade Organisation in 2001. This was the year Sony Music established the first Chinese-foreign joint record company in the region, Shanghai Epic Music Entertainment, and now all the major record companies have offices in the country. What makes the major and independent record companies optimistic about the future is the Chinese government has started to understand the importance of the music industry to the economy. When the copyright and trademark laws were tightened in 2001 the number of raids on pirate operations in the major cities such as the rock and dance capital Beijing and China’s home of classical and jazz Shanghai increased significantly. Tougher state regulations relating to copyright and intellectual property are due to be published before the end of December. In preparation for the new laws UK royalties collection society PPL (Phonographic Performance Ltd) met with the fledgling Chinese equivalent the China Audio Video Association a few weeks ago to help it set up a system similar to the UK model for collecting performance and broadcast royalties. This move will benefit overseas rights owners significantly if the government cracks down harder on the pirates who often operate copying machines out of the back of mobile vans. The UK independent labels that visited China in October under the umbrella of the Association of Independent Music (AIM) must realise they cannot expect an early return from any investment they make next year. Sales and royalty revenues from China will remain tiny compared to other parts of the world for some time, while a strict licensing quota system remains in place to limit the number of foreign releases. It means smaller record companies may have to be content with getting their artists’ tracks on compilations rather than trying to compete head-on with the majors for the few hundred album licences awarded by the Chinese government each year. The independents have identified other areas from which their acts could earn revenue from China’s 1.3bn population, of which 300m are now referred to as middle class and have disposable income to spend on music. One possible route will be partnerships with international brands that are also looking to raise their profile and sales in China. The idea is that global brands will sponsor tours, ask international artists to endorse their products - a popular trend in China - and pay synchronisation fees to use tracks in advertisements. Heineken has already sponsored concerts, club tours and DJ competitions in the big cities and artists have even been known to endorse toilets. …..(full article: www.ft.com)

The Guardian Monday May 21 2007

The power of persuasion

Advertisers are now looking to engage consumers rather than annoy them - so expect a wacky stunt soon in a street near you

Steve Hemsley
If you are one of the lucky ones Tim Seager will buy you a drink this summer. Scottish & Newcastle's marketing director has agreed that thousands of pints of Foster's, John Smith's, Kronenbourg 1664, Strongbow and six other drinks brands should be handed out at pubs, nightclubs and off-licences across the country. High-profile television advertising is no longer enough for Seager who has become more sensitive about meeting drinkers' needs. For the third year running he has sanctioned a massive face-to-face experiential marketing campaign called The Biggest Round, and the budget has doubled to £7m. Brand loyalty Like many companies S&N knows it can no longer rely on interrupting our lives with advertising. The knack now is to engage us instead using clever experiences that touch our senses. Think everything from Innocent Drinks' now defunct Fruitstock music festival and its new Village Fete event in August to the Canderel Style Cafe where shoppers enjoy beauty treatments while eating fruit and yoghurt sprinkled with the low-calorie sweetener. Experiential marketing is all about creating relevant, memorable, interactive and emotional occasions that should increase sales and brand loyalty. For Seager this means giving customers a brand experience in the places where they actually buy alcohol. Money has been diverted from television advertising - where spend remains unchanged since 2005 - and on-pack sales promotions. Between now and the end of August, a 250-strong S&N promotions team, supplied by the experiential agency BEcause, will visit 6,000 pubs and 1,000 shops talking to 1.2 million drinkers. This is 300,000 more than Seager set his sights on last year. The reps will chat to pub-goers about their drinking habits and lifestyle choices, and then buy them a drink. People who see themselves as laid-back about life will be told that Foster's is the lager for them. The agent will ensure the drink is served in the right glass and at the correct temperature. "This is about getting close to people to discover why they drink what they do and persuading them to try something new," says Seager. "We must ensure our marketing budget falls on fertile ground." There are some concerns about the S&N campaign. Unlike selling alcohol, letting people sample it does not require a licence. Seager insists BEcause staff should not approach anyone who is drunk or under 18, and pub-goers will be only allowed one half pint. Shoppers will receive smaller 15ml samples. Such is the interest in everything experiential that many marketing, advertising and PR agencies now feel the urge to challenge the specialists and offer the service themselves. They argue that they too have the skills to tailor a campaign that can fit an advertiser's message around how a consumer is feeling emotionally at a particular time in a specific location, whether that is the Glastonbury music festival or the Bluewater shopping centre. Field marketing company CPM has its experiential arm Mango, media agency OMD Group has its branded content wing Fuse and Publicis has Saatchi & Saatchi X. Sales promotion agency BD-NTWK has plans to create its own specific experiential division headed by Ian Bushell. While at specialist agency Ignition, Bushell was behind experiences such as the Nokia New Year's Eve global music event last December, which was held across four continents. The Direct Marketing Association (DMA) has confirmed it may launch an Experiential Marketing Council to support a sector that industry estimates claim is now worth more than £200m. This is, however, still less than 1% of the total UK advertising spend, which topped £19bn for the first time in 2006, according to the Advertising Association's latest figures. The DMA's final decision hinges on whether its Experiential Marketing Committee can get the sixth paid-up member it needs to become an official council and win a place on the DMA board. This could happen on June 5 when Kevin Jackson, sales and marketing director of experiential specialist Jack Morton Worldwide, is due to attend a committee meeting. If Jackson can be convinced to sign up, it will release DMA promotional funds to persuade more advertisers to connect with consumers on a more emotional level. That seat at the DMA top table will go to committee chairman Wendy Hooper, managing director of Carbon Marketing. Carbon created an experience for Nestlé's Double Cream bars featuring a deliberately jack-knifed lorry in Covent Garden which spilled thousands of chocolate bars onto the street, creating a moral dilemma for passers-by who were tempted to take one. It is Hooper's aim to win over the specialists and any agency with an experiential marketing arm. "It is important we all speak the same language," she says. She will hope for better luck than the Live Brand Experience Association, which folded last September amid fierce criticism that some members were too busy protecting their own interests, rather than working with each other to promote what is still a young medium. Social networks Advertisers are certainly weighing up the merits of experiential campaigns. A survey of 154 senior marketers by business development consultancy Reardon Smith Whittaker claims that 61% of marketing directors with a budget of more than £1m are more interested in experiential marketing than any other discipline. This compares with 36% who were mostly excited by search-engine marketing and the 13% who preferred mobile campaigns. Critics of experiential marketing argue the success of any activity is difficult to measure. Yet S&N's decision to pump more money into face-to-face campaigns rather than TV advertising is proving an effective strategy, despite the unusual multi-brand approach. In 2006, 56% of consumers - almost half a million - who took part in The Biggest Round went on to buy a drinks brand bought for them. Seager recognises that members of the public can become true advocates of any brand, especially as the power of word of mouth has moved online thanks to blogs and social networks. However Sharon Richey, managing director at Because, warns there are potential pitfalls when undertaking experiential work. "Without careful planning you can choose the wrong venues and approach consumers at the wrong time," she says. "It would be pointless trying to talk to people in a pub when they are watching football or late in the evening when they might be drunk."


The Guardian. Monday June 19 2006

(interview with Virgin Radio sales director Nick Hewat)

Why brainwaves rule the airwaves

Nick Hewat insisted on star presenter Christian O’Connell sitting in on his sales meeting with mobile brand Orange. The Virgin Radio sales director is well aware of the influence such personalities can have when trying to convince advertisers to spend money. O’Connell hosts Virgin’s flagship breakfast show which Orange agreed to sponsor for 12 months from January, but Hewat has his eyes set on a three-year deal. “We produced a detailed review document pointing out what the brand has accomplished with Virgin and why radio is different to other media because it has a low level of ad-avoidance,” says Hewat. “A presenter like O’Connell can bring a brand to life on the radio in a way that is not possible with a static medium like a poster. He has used creative on-air promotions that get the listeners really involved.” Whether Orange extends its deal remains to be seen, but Hewat has a right to be confident. He joined Virgin last September from rival GCap Media’s Capital Radio Group after five years as its head of agency sales, yet his experience of what does and does not work on radio stretches back much further. In fact, when Virgin Radio first went on-air at 12.15pm on 30 April 1993 as Virgin 1215 playing album tracks and rock music he had already been selling the medium for two years. Having been persuaded to quit his job sifting through direct debit and standing order forms for a high street bank he joined the now defunct Capital Radio-owned sales house MSM (Media Sales and Marketing). He began learning his trade at a time when commercial radio was attracting just 2.7% (source: RAB) of all advertising revenue compared with 6.5% today. He still remembers fondly his first booking when he persuaded an insurance company to sponsor a “car park spaces alert” slot on local station Lincs FM in Lincolnshire. He left MSM in 1994 to go travelling but returned to the company a few months later. When MSM was closed in 1997 he remained within Capital Radio’s new-look sales house and was soon promoted to a group head management role before being chosen to lead the sales team. After all these years committed to one medium it is new technology such as digital radio, the internet, podcasts and mobile phones which is changing the way people listen that excites him nowadays. In April more than 144,000 podcasts of Virgin Radio programmes such as O’Connell’s breakfast show and comedian Al Murray’s Sunday Afternoon slot were downloaded from the station’s website as multimedia files to listeners’ iPods, mobile phones and personal computers so they can tune in whenever they want to. Virgin Radio will be available on the digital television service Freeview from early July while Hewat is overseeing the re-launch of the station’s website. He wants to maximise online advertising revenue as people increasingly listen to the radio via the internet. The emergence of digital radio is certainly good news for Virgin. For years it has bemoaned having to market a music station saddled with a poor quality AM frequency. Hewat is also confident his bosses’ investment in new technology will help his attempts to change the perception that Virgin is still a “bloke’s station”. This view has been hard to shift because of the station’s early emphasis on rock music, yet 43% of its audience of 2.5m adults (source: Rajar) are women. “Emerging technology presents exciting opportunities for me and the sales team but no-one is quite sure exactly how people will listen in the future and what commercial content will work best,” says Hewat. “It is my job to challenge male and female brand owners to use radio differently.” He expects programme sponsorship and promotions such as on-air and online competitions rather than traditional radio spot advertising to drive commercial radio revenues over the next few years. Hewat likes to think of himself as a radical thinker when devising a media sales strategy. In fact, he is more likely to find inspiration from supermarket giant Tesco than from other radio companies. “Radio stations must think more like retailers and react quicker. This might mean responding to the hot weather by securing a promotion with an ice cream brand at very short notice,” he says. For this month’s FIFA World Cup Virgin Radio has followed the example of the supermarkets by tapping into the nation’s mood to generate extra revenue. Hewat’s football-themed offer called Virgin Extra Time rewards advertisers booking slots during the tournament with 5% of additional airtime for free. “To succeed in radio sales for so many years you need integrity, intelligence and energy. If you can display those traits and you love music too there are few better jobs around,” says Hewat. CV Name: Nick Hewat Age: 37 Education: Attended Chesham High School and achieved eight ‘O’ Levels and 3 ‘A’ Levels in geography, economics and English literature. Degree in politics from Birmingham Polytechnic Career: Brief stint at National Westminster Bank before joining radio sales house MSM in 1991. Left to go travelling in 1994 but returned to MSM in 1996. Became group head within new Capital Radio sales house in 1997 and was made head of agency sales in 2000. Joined Virgin Radio as sales director in September 2005. Family: long-term partner Karen. He has two children. Leisure: football, running (ran the London Marathon in 2001) and spending time with his kids.

The Guardian. Monday June 27 2005

When men swapped their pants for shorts John Hegarty will forever be known as the man who introduced British men to the joys of boxer shorts. The 61-year chairman and worldwide creative director at advertising agency Bartle Bogle Hegarty created the famous commercial for Levi’s in the mid-eighties when Nick Kamen undressed in a launderette to reveal his crisp white boxers as Marvin Gaye’s I Heard It Through The Grapevine played in the background. Looking back over his 40 years in advertising this is the campaign Hegarty regards as his most successful. It not only helped to sell a lot of Levi 501 jeans but it also had a defining impact on the fashion and music industries. Men everywhere swapped their Y-fronts for shorts and have never gone back, while the record business suddenly realised there was money to be made by exploiting songs used in television advertising. Soundtracks from seven Levi’s ads topped the UK singles charts. Hegarty was honoured with a lifetime achievement award at the 2005 Clio Awards in Miami last month. The Clios reward outstanding creative work and Hegarty is regarded as an advertising guru internationally. He coined the phrase Vorsprung Durch Technik for Audi and was the first person to pick out a young model called Brad Pitt to appear in a commercial, for Levi’s in 1991. Despite his age, which makes him a rare beast indeed in the UK advertising industry, and his long list of successes Hegarty has no plans to retire. In fact he hates the whole idea. “Society should ban the word ‘retire’. Why would I stop doing something I love so much? I follow a ‘keep walking’ philosophy because life is a journey and there is never a time when you just stop,” he says. He adds: “This is the most exciting time to be in advertising. When I started at Benton and Bowles as a junior art director in 1965 things were much more rigid. You only had to decide whether to produce an ad for print, outdoor or television. Now we have the internet and multi-channel television and must operate in a global market.” He was actually fired from Benton and Bowles in 1967 before eventually becoming a founding shareholder at Saatchi & Saatchi in 1970 and co-founding BBH in 1982 with John Bartle and Nigel Bogle. Today more than 60 per cent of Hegarty’s time is spent on management issues for a group with global billings of more than $950m. He overseas the creative output from BBH offices in London, New York, Tokyo, Singapore and Sao Paolo. He is concerned that the global nature of advertising may mean a shortage of talented creative people in years to come. “It is harder to be a creative these days because you not only have to come up with new ideas every day but these ideas must cross geographical borders as well as traditional boundaries like consumer attitudes and social class.” Last year 71% of the group’s income came from work that ran internationally. One of his hopes for the future is to see creative agencies become more involved in the whole brand communications process for clients in a way that media agencies boast they do already. He expects more advertising agencies to return to the old days when media planning took place in-house, and BBH will unveil its new internal planning team in August. “In such a complex media world it makes sense when talking with clients to have planners sitting alongside the people who come up with the ideas. I always thought it was a huge mistake to split the two disciplines up.” In an industry where ageism can be an issue, Hegarty is living proof that creativity does not die with age – whatever your choice of underwear. CV Name John Hegarty Age 61 Education Finchley Grammar School in North London; Hornesey College of Art and then London College of Printing to study graphic design. Left before the end of the course to enter advertising industry. Career Joined Benton and Bowles in London in 1965 but was fired 18 months later. Went to small Soho agency John Collings & Partners and then to Cramer Saatchi consultancy. He was a founding shareholder when it became Saatchi & Saatchi in 1970 and was appointed deputy creative director in 1971. Left in 1973 to co-found TBWA London and left in 1982 to start Bartle Bogle Hegarty. Family partner and has two grown up children from a previous marriage Leisure photography, golf, art and he owns a vineyard in Carcassonne, France The Guardian June 27 2005 Still the best of enemies The Manchester Evening News (MEN) once ran a feature on the life of Hitler with swastikas breaking up the text for effect. At the bottom of the page was an advert for a client the newspaper’s media sales team had been working hard for months to attract – German airline Lufthansa. If this embarrassing moment illustrates anything it is how editorial and advertising teams have failed to communicate effectively with each other over the years. In newspaper and magazine groups across the country the two departments endure a love/hate relationship. Journalists criticise the sales department for seeing them as the people who simply fill the space around the ads, while classified and display executives complain editorial staff look down on them and believe salesmen would not think twice about prostituting editorial integrity to achieve their monthly commission. “There is not really any malice on either side but there is a lack of understanding about how difficult each other’s job is. Journalists see advertising as the spawn of the devil but they need to appreciate the commercial realities of the publications they write for,” says Andy Sutcliffe, former editor and chief for IPC’s music and sports group and now publisher of Hanage Publishing’s Stag & Groom magazine. Tom Toher, director at media sales recruitment consultancy Carreras Lathane, spent 13 years selling ad space. He says the main difference between editorial and advertising is that journalists can let the phone ring. “Editors do have unreasonable expectations of how easy it is for media sales guys to get through to decision makers just because they have no difficulty getting hold of people,” he says. There are rare occasions when people will move from media sales to editorial and vice-versa, and they will sympathise with both departments. Chris Ingham started life as a staff writer on music magazine Metal Hammer before switching to become sales executive, advertising manager and now publisher of the Future Plc title. One person moving in the opposite direction is James Livesey who left IPC’s Country Life magazine where he was a classified sales executive to become a reporter at Haymarket-owned Media Week. “I was quite good at media sales but felt I was more suited to journalism. When I asked my sales director for a reference to get on a journalism course he was not very happy about it,” says Livesey. “Reporters who complain about how difficult it is to get information need to imagine how hard it can be getting money out of people.” Yet as the battle for readers and advertisers intensifies, editorial and advertising sales teams will have to work more closely together. Many publishers now send journalists and sales staff on the same training courses to try and spark ideas. “We must offer advertisers more than the chance to slap their logo on an article or feature, and this means working on a number of levels requiring editorial involvement. Better lines of communication are leading to more sensible discussions,” says Mark Rix, deputy managing director at the MEN. Examples of effective collaboration include Gillette sponsoring sections of the Mirror and converting the female-targeted 3am magazine into ‘3pm’ to promote its M3 Power Razor to male sports fans. Regionally, the MEN produced an edition in ‘Selfridges yellow’ for the store’s opening at the Trafford Centre. The days when an advertising executive could contact a client and book a series of 12 monthly ads at full rate card prices are a distant memory for most. The challenge for media sales staff today is to reassure their journalist colleagues that any commercial activity will not upset the readers or damage the editorial brand.
The Guardian September 2002
Catching Them Young – charities are targeting those elusive donors in the 20s and 30s
Singer Geri Halliwell never misses an opportunity to tell young women to check their breasts. As patron of Breast Cancer Care's Lavender Trust the former Spice Girl - who suffered her own breast cancer scare when she was 19 - regularly takes time out from her solo career to talk about the condition. Her involvement is significant because it has raised the charity's profile among women and men under 35, an age group who traditionally donate proportionately less to good causes than the rest of the population. Around 30% of UK homes give to charity every fortnight, according to the Institute for Fiscal Studies, yet while a third of people in their 60s donate, the figure for those in their 20s is just one in five. This trend is threatening the long-term financial health of many voluntary organisations because social and economic changes over the past 20 years mean charities can no longer afford to rely so heavily on their traditional supporters. The IFS says the middle-aged feel insecure in their jobs and have reined in their giving, while the Charities Aid Foundation points out that as more pensioners are asked to pay for their nursing care, the level of legacy income - currently around 40% of all charity revenue - will become harder to forecast. The response of not-for-profit organisations is to invest more in non-traditional marketing techniques such as face-to-face recruitment on the high street and email and text- messaging campaigns devised to persuade the young to dig deeper into their pockets. "Charities are aware they must target teenagers and those in their 20s and 30s sooner rather than later because they need to attract new donors and encourage committed giving," says Andrew Watt, head of policy and standards at the Institute of Charity Fundraising Managers. Stopping people in the street and asking them to set up a direct debit or standing order in support of a specific charity is a controversial new method of fundraising, yet it is succeeding in obtaining donations from younger people in a way that collection tins never have. The ICFM claims voluntary organisations spent an additional 45% last year attracting donors in this way, and of the near-500,000 people who signed up, 85% were under 35. Greenpeace registered 25,000 people using street campaigns in 2001 and more than half of these were in their 20s and 30s. "This is often a young person's first contact with a cause they agree with but which they have never found the time to support financially. The technique prompts them into action," says Watt. An agency employed by a charity to recruit donors is usually paid a fee of around £60 for every person it registers or it will charge for the time its staff are on the streets. This overhead is usually covered by the first year of monthly donations. There is a fear that the public will become turned off by this method if it is seen as too intrusive and the high street is saturated with charities on donor recruitment drives. In an attempt to avoid the type of negative publicity and complaints suffered by the utility companies that tout for business in town centres, more than 60 charities, the charity commission and the Home Office have formed the public fundraising regulatory association which is drafting an industry code of conduct. While on-street recruitment is attracting the young in vast numbers, charities also expect new media to generate extra funds. World Vision, the child sponsorship charity providing aid for famine victims in Africa, has obtained the details of more than 55,000 teenagers via text-messaging promotions on its web pages and is considering raising money by charging visitors to access mobile phone ring tones and logos from the internet site. The Giving Campaign, established by the voluntary sector and the government last year to increase the amount of money given to UK charities, is also focusing much of its activity on the young and is drafting plans for a charity week in 2003 to persuade schools to get involved. Barnardo's is extending its own fundraising programme linked to primary schools and university rag weeks. It is also introducing extra event-based activities such as treks to Kenya and Spain this year to attract the attention of the energetic twenty- and thirty-somethings. "The creative work for our TV advertising campaign uses more shocking and contemporary content than usual in a deliberate move to target a younger audience," says Nicky Kenny, its product manager for fundraising. Young people will give money to a good cause if they can relate to the work it does, as the £220m raised by the eight Comic Relief red nose days demonstrates. Getting them to donate more regularly is the challenge for most individual charities who, unlike Breast Cancer Care, do not enjoy the benefits of Girl Power.

The Independent January 17 2005 page 17 Dome Improvements David Campbell has few regrets in his life but buying a 15th Century pub in West Sussex is one of his biggest. There is nothing wrong with The Hollist Arms at Lodsworth. In fact, with its real ales and log fires it is a perfect country bolt-hole for media-types. The former Virgin Radio chief bought the inn in a radical and rather impulsive move soon after overseeing the sale of Ginger Media, the company he co-owned with the unpredictable DJ Chris Evans and Richard Branson, to Scottish Media Group (SMG) for £225m in 2000. Yet the man handed responsibility for transforming the much-maligned London Dome from white elephant capital landmark into leading entertainment and possible Olympic venue is no fan of the licensing trade. He rates the experience of spending long hours pulling pints for locals for limited financial return as unpleasant as being summoned in 2003 to appear at the High Court. He was called as a witness for Evans in the DJ’s failed £8.6m damages claim against Virgin Radio after its parent SMG sacked him. The cross-examination Campbell faced is still a painful memory. He has long since called time on his life as a publican and returned to what he knows best which is media, marketing and entertainment. What he has learnt from his past mistakes is not to rush into business decisions. He thought carefully before accepting the offer to become ceo of Anschutz Entertainment Group UK, the US owners of the Dome. Anschutz is working with joint venture regeneration company Meridian Delta to turn the Greenwich site into a thriving entertainment destination. It needed someone with strong credentials to change attitudes towards the Dome which has suffered from years of poor publicity and consumer derision. Last week the National Audit Office announced the building had cost taxpayers £28.7m to maintain and sell in the four years since it was closed. Work will begin in June to create a 22,000-seater music and sports arena which will host basketball and gymnastics should London stage the 2012 Olympic Games. A super casino could also be based there. Campbell’s knowledge of marketing London undoubtedly helped him get the job. Since 2003 his achievements as ceo of Visit London, the marketing and promotion tourist agency which is effectively the rebranded London Tourist Board, has made him a firm favourite with Mayor of London Ken Livingstone. Livingstone agreed Campbell’s salary of around £250,000 a year with a potential 20% performance related bonus which made him the highest paid executive in the UK visitor industry. In the first six months of 2004 international visitors to London rose to 6.1m compared with 5.3m in the same period the year before. “If you are good at marketing and understand media you can promote any brand. It is harder to market something which has not lived up to expectations. The Dome will need to shout loudly about its content,” says Campbell. If you combine Campbell’s passion for London with his previous experience it becomes clear why Anschutz wanted him so badly. He spent five years marketing big brands such as Pepsi before joining the Virgin Group in 1986 and becoming the founding ceo of Virgin Radio in 1993. He formed Ginger Media with Evans and co in 1997 and did very nicely thank you out of the deal to sell the company and with it Virgin Radio to SMG. He left SMG within weeks of the agreement being signed to dabble in the world of the pub landlord and try his hand as a venture capitalist. He became executive vice chairman of music company Ministry of Sound and later non-executive chairman of Zenith Entertainment, the company behind shows such as CD:UK and Inspector Morse. Talk to those who have worked with him before and they recall a man who is quick-thinking and dynamic, if somewhat erratic and bad-tempered if things do not go his way. “When he takes on a job he has a vision of what he ultimately wants to achieve, but you do have to tread very carefully around him if he is in a bad mood,” says a former director at Virgin Radio. Another ex-colleague describes Campbell as someone people listen to and who gets things done in his own way. “He is the right choice for the Dome because he can come up with big ideas to make things happen. But I remember how he would work long into the night and sometimes miss meetings during the day.” It is Campbell’s love of television as a medium which could be crucial in changing perceptions of the Dome as a waste of public money…(full text: www.independent.co.uk)

Media Week April 2006 World Cup - Why football is more than a man's game Research shows that football's popularity among women is on the rise, with almost nine million watching the big games on TV. Steve Hemsley examines how advertisers are tapping into the trend. Two of the biggest myths in football are that English players don't dive and away teams never get a penalty at Manchester United's Old Trafford stadium. Once upon a time, these may both have been true. Another popular fairy tale long past its sell-by date is that women hate football, with the consequence being that television will get the cold shoulder from them come World Cup time. But according to analysis by the various media and agency insight teams and market research companies, this presumption is simply no longer the case. In fact, the results may shock the owners of female-oriented brands, many of which are considering deserting the small screen during the month-long tournament in Germany and switching their budgets to April and May, or to other media altogether. "There is certainly a misconception that women are not interested in football and clients are very interested in the data that proves otherwise," says Carat's head of insight planning, Jeremy Paul. "Many women watch games with their partner, or in a group, and advertisers need to understand this trend, but be clear about a woman's mindset when she is watching football. This means saying the right things about the right brands in this context." According to TGI, 36% of women (8.9 million) now watch football on television, up from 16% in 2001, while 41% (10.1 million) claim to have an interest in the game. Useful indicator ITV's overall coverage of the World Cup in Japan and Korea in 2002 reached 84% of all women, even though kick-off times tended to be at unsociable times. However, a glance back to what happened during Euro 2004 in Portugal is probably a more useful indicator of how many women could be watching England's bid for global glory this June. Indeed, according to researcher Sports Marketing Surveys, 42% of viewers watching Euro 2004 on television in the UK were female. MindShare represents a number of clients which will aim to reach females during June, including cosmetic brand Dove, which advertised on TV during the previous World Cup finals. Managing partner at MindShare Insights, Doreen Dignan, is convinced more women will be watching this World Cup than viewed the previous event or Euro 2004. "Our research shows almost one in four women watched at least three minutes of 10 or more matches in Portugal. The World Cup is a bigger tournament and the timing of the games will boost ratings overall, including among women," she says. Carat Insight has pinpointed that the UK population fell into two distinct camps: Euro 2004-philes (36%) and Euro 2004-phobes (46%), with the remaining 18% not caring one way or the other. More than a quarter of the Euro 2004-philes were women, with 53% of them watching the final - and England were not even playing. Of course, the level of attention during matches did differ between men and women, with 38% of men closely watching every ball kicked compared to 19% of women. Another agency providing useful research for its female-brand clients, such as Revlon, is PHD. Head of media insights Jenny Lightfoot says only 2% of women really went out of their way to avoid the last World Cup and that around half of them watched at least three minutes of five matches. "When the England team does well, it inspires everyone in the country and it is wrong to assume women will not be watching the national team on television," she says. "Also, the England players and even the manager are celebrities appearing regularly in the women's glossies and this will also draw in the non-core football audience." At the end of February, OMD UK carried out an online survey to see how passionate women were about the forthcoming World Cup. The results suggest interest in football is crossing over age groups and is more accessible to women than four years ago, particularly among younger females. When asked whether they were passionate about football, 22% of women aged 25 to 34 said they were, compared with only 8% of those aged 35 to 44. Some 50% of women under 24 now identify themselves as England fans and 61% of all women questioned will be watching some matches. "When you look at who is in the crowds at games, it's still mainly men and this helps to perpetuate the myth, but football engages with women at home more than we may think," says head of OMD Insight Jo Rigby. The large amount of research available to brands could certainly change the balance of female/male brands advertising during this World Cup compared with 2002. At the last tournament, 34 of the top 50 advertisers on ITV in June were male-biased: car, beer, finance or DIY brands, compared with only 12 during the same month last year when there was no major international football tournament. However, female brands that did book airtime during June 2002 included Unilever's Persil, retailer Boots and Dove. One OMD UK client considering its agency's findings is hair removal brand Veet, whose core audience is women aged 16 to 34 and which counts June as one of its most important sales months. OMD UK associate director Simon Brockman says he will be looking again at the media strategy for Veet following the research. "We buy women targets, but the cost of advertising around England games will probably still be too prohibitive for a brand like Veet despite the numbers of women it appears will be watching the football," he says. The cost of advertising to women around World Cup matches may be the deciding factor for many brands. In June 2002, television revenue went up by 13% year on year, which offset the increase in male viewing generated by so much football that the price of men ratings actually fell by 1.3%. By contrast, the extra 13% was divided by a smaller number of female impacts, for which the price went up by 23.4% for housewives, 35.2% for housewives with children and 25.7% for women overall. Rescheduling June's television money into April and May by female-oriented brands could also inflate the airtime prices in those months. This trend could prompt media agencies to switch more of their clients' money to other media such as magazines. The PPA's consultant Tim Lucas says the media agencies he is talking to expect the cost of reaching women on television during June to increase by between 25% and 35% and that magazines will therefore be around five times cheaper for advertisers. Red herring "The number of women watching football is really a red herring for advertisers, because it is all about value for money," he says. "A brand could buy around six weeks of airtime on television or advertise to the same weight of women in magazines for six months." IPC's advertising marketing manager, James Papworth, says agencies should use the NRS Readership Accumulation Study to plan their magazine ratings weekly in the same way they would TV. "ITV1 will again be very much wall-to-wall football in June and advertisers targeting female consumers will face higher prices and lower ratings - if they can get on air at all," he says. Elsewhere, radio stations will also be working hard to encourage female brands during June. But Nick Hewat, sales director at Virgin Radio, says large brand owners such as P&G will still need a lot of convincing not to switch their FMCG radio advertising into May and leave June to be dominated by male brands. Of course, there are still lots of women who do not like football and many brands will be looking to advertise on television during complementary programming. When an evening match is being shown on the BBC, ITV will be showing a drama or film. Other broadcasters too, such as the Flextech and UKTV channels, are planning packages for advertisers to reach female audiences not interested in the World Cup. Yet, in reality, more women than advertisers perhaps realise have always liked watching football and can be just as passionate about the game as men, especially when the national team is playing. This is particularly true during the World Cup, when the media will be full of little else. WHEN WOMEN WILL BE WATCHING 35% According to Sports Marketing Surveys, female viewers accounted for between 35% and 40% of the audience during television coverage of England's qualifying matches for the 2006 World Cup. 3.5m SMS director John Bushell says this equates to as many as 3.5 million women watching England's group matches. Bushell adds: "It's clear the World Cup is a good mechanic for advertisers targeting women." But it all depends on how many people will be watching on commercial television ... 42% During Euro 2004, 42% of viewers watching on either channel in the UK were female. The BBC is still top dog when it comes to viewers of either sex though. According to MediaTel, 3.5 million people watched the England-Brazil game in 2002 on ITV, with 12.5 million watching it on the Beeb. Media Week

Media Week October 5 2004 Page 32 The media jobs from hell San Francisco Zoo used to have an elephant called Calle who needed a specially-developed suppository to treat a chronic illness. One zoo worker had to wear a full-arm glove to administer the 10 inch long, 4lb cocoa-butter bullets twice a day and was often left covered in elephant excrement. What was arguably one of the worst jobs in the world came to an end in March when, sadly, Calle had to be put to sleep. Jobs from hell in media sales rarely involve having to put your arm up an elephant’s backside, but for anyone who has worked on an obscure media title, dealt with obnoxious clients or had a nightmare boss this industry can be almost as unpleasant - if thankfully not as smelly. Next time your job is getting you down think of the poor sales reps at one national newspaper who were locked in a cupboard by their manager if they failed to reach their targets. Or spare a thought for those MW readers who remember working for a certain newspaper publisher where on closing day sales staff were refused a chair to sit on, could not go to the toilet or have a cigarette break until they had made a certain number of bookings. You might wonder why any self-respecting human being would put up with these appalling working conditions, yet such bad experiences are more common than you might imagine. One former employee of a now defunct small publishing house in South London recalls one time he was on the phone and his boss stood over him looking irritated and waving a wad of £50 notes under his nose. The rep put his caller on hold and was told by his irate manager that if he knew he would get this pile of money for closing the deal he would have done so by now. The salesman promptly made a sale but never got the money, just more abuse. He left the company soon afterwards. Another reader recollects working for a business to business magazine publisher where if you returned from a meeting with an advertising agency without any orders the advertising manager would demand you make another appointment for the following week. This policy backfired in a big way because the agencies being hassled became so annoyed they refused to take calls from any rep working on the company’s various magazines. Despite these horror stories it is perhaps understandable why most people are reluctant to publicly name and shame dreadful workplaces or bad bosses for fear their paths may cross again during their media sales career. However, some individuals are willing to go on the record and recount their tales of employment woe. Total Media’s senior account manager, Rupen Shah, remembers a spell working for a publisher based in Holborn in the mid-nineties. It was his first job after he completed his European Business studies in France. The role was to sell advertising in magazines covering the Chinese transport and constructions industries on behalf of the Chinese government. “I never actually saw copies of the magazines and I kept thinking I would get that elusive booking, but it never happened. My £100-a-week salary kept me going for three months after which I finally gave up having made no sales despite even attempting to sell to people in French,” he says. “The office in Holborn was smoke-filled with some weird characters and in the end I decided to spend the rest of the summer with my girlfriend. It put me off media sales for life.” Working for niche trade magazines, the sort featured on the cultural news quiz Have I Got News For You, can test any media sales person wanting to prove his or her worth however talented they might be. MW’s own recently recruited display sales executive, Estella Scolding, joined from Guild of Master Craftsmen Publications, a hugely successful niche publishing house which produces a host of woodworking and knitting related titles. “I worked on Knitting Magazine and Machine Knitting News and had to talk to people who know nothing about advertising. You could drown them with figures that you knew would help them generate new business but it made no difference. You also had to pretend you were knowledgeable about knitting and the different designers. It was not enough to know their industry inside out; you also had to be passionate about particular products. I know knitting excites some people but it was not my cup of tea,” she says. (full text: www.mediaweek.co.uk)
Media Week February 2005 Page 28 How to sabotage and ad campaign The armchair football fan is a notoriously fickle creature which is why Five booked tactical pitch perimeter advertising during Blackburn Rover’s Uefa Cup tie away at Olympique Lyonnaise televised by BBC1 a few years back. The aim was to sabotage the Beeb’s footie coverage by informing viewers there was a much better match – Liverpool’s 5-0 rout of FC Kosice – on the other side. The BBC could have no complaints about what was a totally legal and clever spoiling tactic by Five to directly target its audience using media information which was publicly available. Subsequent audience research revealed the perimeter board enticed 143,000 BBC1 switchers to Five in the minute following its first exposure - and before the BBC’s sports producer realised what was happening and confiscated the offending advert. Rival companies and brands love to outdo each other and finding ways to disrupt each other’s advertising and marketing activity is a popular tactic. Sport is the perfect arena for such spoiling fun. During the Olympic Games in Barcelona, for instance, Nike bought all the poster sites from the airport into the city so visitors would think that it, rather than Adidas, was the event’s main brand sponsor. Nevertheless, mention the word “sabotage” to clients and marketing directors can shift nervously in their seats; worried any clever idea could backfire on them and their brand. Yet if there is humour involved and the facts are checked thoroughly - particularly in the case of price comparison advertising - this can be an effective course of action. No-one gets hurt and consumers love it. Traditionally it is the market leader in any industry which tends to be on the wrong end of sabotage activity as challenger brands seize any opportunity to take a punch at the big boys. Take British Airways and Virgin Atlantic who have been at each others’ throats for years. Virgin can get away with introducing sick bags with ethnic designs to draw attention to the ill-fated cultural tail designs on BA planes, and erecting billboards proclaiming Heathrow as ‘Virgin Territory’ when it was finally awarded slots at the airport. If BA attacked Virgin in a similar cheeky way its efforts would probably fall flat because consumers expect it to rise above such antics. “Before entering this area an advertiser must ask itself if it is being mischievous or defensive. Challenger brands can be naughty while brand leaders will always be looking over their shoulder. That is just the way it is,” says Crawford Hollingworth, ceo of brand research consultancy Headlight Vision. Brands can generate respect if they are perceived by consumers as the sharp underdog, but Hollingworth warns there must be a weakness in the big brand’s product or service to attack. “Otherwise you can just end up looking like a little dog yapping at the market leader’s heels,” he says. The end of BT’s monopoly for directory enquiries is another example where challenger brands could get away with having a dig. Immediately after de-regulation 118 118 ran full page ads parodying BT in the same editions of newspapers being used by BT for its press campaign. The ads were headlined Public Notice and mentioned services that ‘BT 192 never bothered to offer’…(full text: www.mediaweek.co.uk) “Any company which has previously enjoyed a monopoly is fair game for sabotage, but the key thing is the message. You have to do it from the consumer champion angle and be cheeky for it to work. Basically you need a sense of humour and style,” says Yusuf Chuku, lead strategist at Element Communications, the recent joint venture between ad agency WCRS and Naked Communications whose client list includes The Number 118 118. Obtaining details of a rival’s planned advertising is not as difficult as you might imagine. The media village breeds gossip and feeds on rumour, and good creatives and planners will always have their ears to the ground. Reports in the press will also alert companies to planned competitor activity ripe for sabotage, while new employees recruited from an opponent are a valuable source of information. “Good planners are aware of what is going on; they have their periscopes up and are listening and watching the industry and keeping in touch with the national and international news. They will spot opportunities where clients could benefit from the media activities of others, but any sabotage will only work if the advertiser and its media and creative agencies work closely together to get the message right,” says Nick Hammond, planning director at Total Media. One popular and opportunistic form of sabotage is piggy-backing someone else’s advertising. This can be a cost-effective way for large and small brands to generate awareness and media coverage. Often one advertiser’s creative can prompt copy-cat thinking from businesses in non-competitive sectors which will benefit both parties. Take the Wonderbra campaign featuring Eva Herzigova in her underwear with the message “Hello Boys” and designed to be a head-turner among male consumers. The idea was adopted and adapted by Guinness which used the slightly less attractive sight of comedian Billy Connelly holding two bottles of Kaliber alcohol-free lager.

Marketing Week September 9 2004 Page 47 Finding motivation Chelsea’s new manager Jose Mourinho believes motivation is arguably more important than ability when it comes to creating a winning team. The man given the task of spending Roman Abramovich’s millions to steal the Premiership crown from London rivals Arsenal says it is not enough to have players who can do it – they must also want to do it. It is a psychological theory which served him well at European Champions Porto last season and it is a hypothesis which employers in any UK business can relate to when faced with the dilemma of how to keep staff motivated without spending more and more on incentive schemes. When internal competitions are launched and rewards are distributed there can be an impressive improvement in employee performance and morale. Yet once the initial excitement has died down any enthusiasm built up in the workforce can soon wear off. Richard Denny, a descendant of Elizabethan explorer Sir Walter Raleigh but probably more famous in business circles for his speeches on the subject of staff motivation, says there are a number of rules companies should follow if workers are to remain stimulated. “Short-term incentive schemes are all very well but employees will only stay interested if they have a realistic goal and objective to strive for. They must also enjoy their job, feel their work is recognised and appreciated and see evidence their employer is investing in their future, this usually means being offered regular training,” he says. He claims the schemes awarding money as prizes are often the least effective at generating long-term motivation, while even tangible rewards such as vouchers or bottles of wine can fail to have the desired effect. “The best solutions for keeping employees happy can cost the business very little. Why not let someone who has performed well to leave a couple of hours early or, if they cannot be spared, give them permission to use one of the directors’ parking spaces for a week? Recognising a person’s performance in this way, or by giving them a new job title, can be a more effective motivator than money over the longer period and will increase their loyalty to the company,” he says. Non-financial rewards can also be effective when even the most motivated employee’s inspiration begins to fade. For example, a normally happy worker can become upset at having to work harder than usual if the business is struggling or perhaps vacancies in his or her department have remained unfilled for weeks or maybe months. The alternative way of rewarding people suggested by Denny can also inspire those cynical, long-serving members of staff who regard any incentive scheme as yet another fluffy initiative to come out of the marketing department and something they have seen many times before. Graham Povey, managing director of Capital Incentives & Motivation, says companies must spend more time thinking about what he calls ‘motivational decline’ which is costing businesses millions of pounds a year because their greatest asset – their staff – is under-performing. “Businesses must invest in re-motivation and pick up the momentum of their employees if it is flagging. Sometimes the company profit share scheme is just not enough,” he says. The marketing department does have a responsibility to try and revive excitement in an incentive scheme if interest has begun to wane. “The most successful schemes include clever communications techniques that remind participants of the rewards available. These might involve the sending of clever teaser emails which provide a taste of what can be won if targets or goals are met, or the posting around the office of regular updates of how individuals are performing,” says Povey. There are many reasons why a scheme can go flat. The most common is a lack of imagination among senior managers who recycle the same contest mechanics year after year and then wonder why employees fail to get excited. Other explanations include resentment among staff who are not asked for their input into what type of scheme or rewards they would like, or perhaps the prizes are issued so infrequently that people simply cannot be bothered to take part. Getting feedback before an incentive scheme is launched can save company money and generate better results. The role of senior managers is vital to ensure any initiative delivers on-going benefits. They must be clear what a contest is trying to achieve. For example, is the aim to generate an immediate uplift in sales or is the idea to make staff feel happier about where they work? A scheme has more chance of achieving long-lasting benefits if the workforce is fully briefed and managers can answer questions raised by staff and maybe their trade union. It is also advisable to run a pilot scheme to test whether an idea is suitable for a particular type of business and the people working within it. Once a scheme has been launched its on-going effect on staff motivation must be monitored on a regular basis so adjustments can be made if there is evidence things are not going to plan. Again, it is important to ask staff for their comments to discover why some employees are reluctant to get involved. Maybe the incentives, such as membership of a golf club, discriminates against some staff and this has created a bad feeling within the company; or perhaps some individuals feel their own chances of winning a prize are too slim?...(full text: www.marketing-week.co.uk)
Marketing Week February 24 2005 page 45 Fighting on the same side Sainsbury’s new chief executive Justin King’s acknowledgement that the supermarket must improve its stock availability if it wants to be great again certainly raised a smile among field marketers. The beleaguered grocer has fallen behind its rivals Tesco and Asda in recent years partly, admitted King, because customers are often unable to complete their weekly shop. Brand owners had been moaning about this for years but in the past no-one at Sainsbury’s seemed to listen. King appears determined to iron out the problems once and for all and has been joined on his mission by new supply chain director Lawrence Christensen, Safeway’s former group operations director. Since King made his comments last October field marketers report that their relationship with local store managers and with the merchandising and buying teams at Sainsbury’s is improving. “In the past perhaps Sainsbury’s did not fully understand the importance of field marketing and the mutual benefits it brings to the chain’s stores as well as to the brands they sell,” says CPM sales and marketing director Martin Ryan. “Now we have more access to sales data and can show individual Sainsbury’s managers which outlets have stock problems with certain brands and which categories in particular branches could be performing better.” In fact, the importance of ensuring consumers can actually buy the products brands spend millions of pounds promoting each year is one of the fundamental reasons why client budgets for third party in-store field marketing services continue to grow. Masterfoods recently commissioned CPM to develop a bespoke ROI model which the brand owner is now using to demonstrate to Sainsbury’s the effectiveness of the in-store activity for its various pet food and snack products such as Whiskers and Twix. It is 10 years since Tesco finally overtook Sainsbury’s as Britain’s number one supermarket, while Asda is now number two. Both companies are praised by field marketers for the approach their managers have to the discipline. Asda’s preferred field marketing partner is CPM and the chain’s managers are encouraged by head office to run sampling days and host demonstrations. Asda sees these as the perfect way to encourage customers to try new products and to give them the confidence to change their buying habits. “Four or five years ago the field marketing activity we saw was very basic and there was a lot less coordination, now we have a small army of people coming into our stores,” says Dominic Margetson, head of events at Asda. “We want our managers to understand this is one of the fastest-growing areas of marketing and, although they are juggling so many other things, we need their full support when working with brands and their agencies so that everyone gains.” Margetson produces a calendar of event days on which managers must accommodate in-store activity agreed by head office. There are also store specific days where managers can choose to run promotions. “Customers want a better experience in store and we need to provide it. Individual managers are shown results on how well their stores perform when field work does take place,” he says. Arc Live has been the designated in-store sampling and demonstrations provider for Tesco for the past 12 years. This long-term arrangement means Tesco managers recognise and trust members of Arc’s local field teams, while the grocer’s head office teams can rest assured that the brand work taking place in its outlets is structured and consistent. “Whatever the merits of the work we are doing the store manager is ultimately the king. We have a strategy relationship with Tesco’s head office but whether things happen at all ultimately depends on how well we get on with local managers,” says Tanya Sargent, managing director of LIME, the field marketing division of the Arc UK group. “Some managers will say no because they feel their store is too small for a particular demonstration while others are desperate to be on the supplier’s wish-list of targeted stores because they appreciate the sales uplift that our work will bring.” Arc’s appreciation of exactly what type of promotional work Tesco does and does not want taking place on its shop floor is one of the main reasons it has enjoyed such a long relationship with the retailer. In fact, it is the field marketing agencies that understand how the in-store systems and procedures vary between different retailers who are finding life easier within the multiples. Knowledge is power in this game and by following the rules to the letter brands are less likely to irritate store managers…(full text: www.marketing-week.co.uk)

New Media Age Autumn 2005 – Article on interactive installations as a growth area for interactive agencies One of the most successful innovations at the Prada’s flagship store in New York is an interactive changing room featuring a magic mirror on one wall. Product design firm IDEO installed a camera which displays an image of the occupant on the opposite wall. The image is on a four second delay so the wearer can spin around and view all sides of the garment. Details of the piece of clothing, including designer sketches, also appear on a touch screen and the customer can search the entire Prada catalogue. It seems more and more UK retailers want to create similar relevant and engaging touch points for their customers, and interactive agencies are set to benefit. Stores such as Marks & Spencer, Selfridges, Top Shop and O2 are already using interactive installations. Last Christmas M&S commissioned agency de-construct to produce a smart window installation at its Oxford Street branch to promote its chargecard ‘&more’. It used a combination of interactive technology and an audio application to create a live brand experience triggered by passers by. Shoppers were serenaded by the Dean Martin classic ‘That’s Amore’ and the window even interacted with the colour of people’s clothing and their movement past the shop via a tracking camera. “This represented a major change in mindset for a traditional store like M&S and demonstrates how retail is potentially a massive area for interactive agencies wishing to develop this side of their business,” says de-construct’s business development director Dan Douglas. Although interactive installations have been popular in the arts world for some time, the difficulty has always been finding commercial applications for the technology. Yet de-construct is not alone in believing increased interest in these applications from business will generate a regular healthy revenue stream for agencies. Founder of interactive design studio thebigspace, Rob Le Quesne, says the growth in the number of interactive installations in retailers is all to do with the trend towards ‘experience design’ on the shop floor. “Retailers need to encourage consumers to actively participate in their brand vision so they are offering consumers an experience which immerses them in the brand within a retail setting. It must encourage the shopper to relax and distract them so the brand values are re-enforced in ways that are not necessarily linked directly to a product, but more often to the overall brand experience,” he says. Of course, many agencies have been considering the business potential of interactive installations for some time. When the directors at AllofUs worked together at Digit they had an on-going R&D project covering this market. “We were creating our own installations in our own time because this topic interested us so much, even if the clients were not ready for it,” says business and strategy director Phil Gerrard. “There has been a big underground scene but the subject is moving into the mainstream. This is a no-brainer really because we are employing the networking technology we already have to create a better user experience.” He agrees the potential within retail is particularly exciting. “Anything that can be produced on a website can now be created in-store,” says Gerrard. “But this is about more than just slapping plasma screens everywhere. This is about how interaction can be integrated into the whole shopping experience and we are now working with interior design companies when they are fitting out stores.” The automotive sector is another industry predicted to lead the demand for this type of work for agencies. For example, thebigspace was asked to design an interactive installation to promote Fiat’s Lancia Ypsilon model to a female audience at a Paris fashion store where the car was being displayed. The company used fashion-inspired sound reactive animations which appeared on a screen and responded to noise, such as music, shouting or clapping. The user was guided into a touch-screen finger-painting experience where she could create a personalised image of the car. Pete Duggan, creative director at design agency Glass, works with British superbike team Rizla Suzuki and agrees automotive clients want commercially-viable ideas that will appeal to consumers in a way traditional digital media cannot. “With Rizla Suzuki we are targeting bike enthusiasts in their late twenties and are considering leisure-type installations, such as enabling people to race motorbikes up escalators on the London Underground,” says Duggan. “The challenge is to devise things within a budget, but this is possible because we are using existing technology.” Duggan says car brands with dealerships could commission an installation which lets the user interact with a live show vehicle without the need for a salesman. Using holopoint technology where users simply point inside a frame to control interactive content on any size screen, and a projected 3D model, a person could rotate the vehicle, click on hotspots for handbook and style information, watch promotional adverts and even book a test drive. Another of Glass’s clients is global advertising group McCann Erickson which represents a number of automotive brands. Its head of interactive, Clare Horbury, is aware of the potential but still has some reservations. “The concern for clients is that the costs and benefits are still unproven because this is still such an innovative area,” she says. Nevertheless, interactive agencies are also winning new business from traditional venues for these types of applications, such as museums and galleries, and from other public buildings. For the Energy exhibition at the Science Museum AllofUs developed an interactive exhibit consisting of three large wheels with images on their circumference each containing radio frequency ID (RFID) chips. Children could spin the wheel to locate objects which were registered as the RFID chips passed by an LCD touch screen in front of each wheel. The screen produced a fun question and answer game to help young users understand where energy comes from and how to conserve it. Curator Hanna Redler says the museum needed to communicate to seven-14 year olds who can find science boring. “Our brief demanded interactive design, stunning graphics and a creative idea. The interactive element had to mean something as well as engage the target audience,” she says. Such is Hi-Res’ founder Florian Schmitt’s confidence in this market that he has even formed a specialist division called Nanika to develop interactive installations for clients. Nanika is working with Top Shop in London to create magic mirrors for its windows which will show how people would look wearing different clothes. The agency is also working on a secret project for a telecoms brand which wants to experiment with new ways to interact with its customers via screens, cameras and voice controls. It is not just brand owners that are talking to agencies. Media planners and buyers are also keen to work with interactive companies to develop what is a growing interest in this area among clients. Posterscope, whose core business is out of home advertising planning and buying, has already seen how new technology can have a massive impact on its offer. Interactive posters that use Hypertag technology and bus shelters with flat-screen TVs and buttons to press enabling travellers to watch film trailers are already in place. It now wants to take things further. “We are keen to move from an interruption-based advertising model to an engagement-based model facilitated by technology and creativity,” says Posterscope’s client services director Glen Wilson. “There is a thirst among our clients to have a deeper conversation with consumers out of the home and interactive agencies are well-placed to help them.” As with any new development there will always be challenges and many clients are still put off taking a leap of faith by the cost of these applications and uncertainty over the return on investment they can expect. They can also be nervous about the actual installation element in case something goes wrong. There is nothing worse for a brand’s image than consumers looking at an installation and having an error message flash back at them. “We can only learn from doing more of these types of installations because there is no manual,” says Hi-Res’ Schmitt. “Few clients have experience in this area so we can find ourselves talking to the wrong person or department because no-one has interactive installations within their sphere of responsibility.” Investment in these products will rise substantially if agencies can demonstrate a talent to move interactivity away from screen-based media and can show clients that large numbers of users will engage with any application, whatever the location.
Campaign magazine – September 16 2005 Universal Music has been busy encouraging ad agencies to license songs from Scottish band Texas’s forthcoming album Red Book, but with little success. Similarly, EMI Music Publishing is mystified why it has failed to secure any interest for artist James Blunt’s music to be used in commercials despite the singer topping the singles and album charts this summer. The fact these two music industry giants still find it so hard to match artists with the exact needs of the advertising community says a lot about the relationship between these two creative and passionate businesses. It is a partnership which has traditionally been strained and full of suspicion. Record companies and music publishers accuse agencies of leaving the choice of songs to the last minute and not appreciating the value of music. They also slate client briefs for being too confusing and contradictory and say agencies expect global and all-media rights for a track but will rarely spend more than 2.5 percent of the production budget on music. In the other corner the music business is criticised for taking too long to clear rights and not indemnifying an agency if clearance fails to materialise after weeks of waiting. Agencies also complain they are being charged too much considering the promotional window such TV exposure provides for established and new acts. Agencies are also distrustful of the record labels’ own marketing agenda, accusing them of pushing bands who have new singles or albums due out rather than offering tracks that meet the agency’s brief. Texas’s album is out on October 31 by the way. “We are two very different industries and want the other to work how we work and that is never going to happen,” says Tracie London-Rowell, Universal Music UK’s director of film and TV advertising. “The music business is perceived as being full of money-grabbing bastards, but the market is changing and at Universal we understand we need to be more flexible.” On the subject of Texas she points out that rather than being wary of attempts to push songs from a new album ad agencies should be more open minded. She urges creative teams to see the cost and brand association benefits of licensing tracks from an established band before the songs become hits and licensing fees rise. EMI Music Publishing managing director Guy Moot accepts his company will push certain songs but he is frustrated that few ad executives really appreciate the importance of music to a creative campaign. “Many advertising people do not get a warm feeling about music because they see too many obstacles. We want to work with agencies to exploit different marketing opportunities, especially across new digital platforms,” he says. “We also have a strong team of song writers who could be writing more exclusive songs for ads.” The music industry may be offering an olive branch but the agencies remain wary. They claim this is happening only because the record business is suffering from falling singles sales and internet piracy which is hitting revenue. BBH, which formed its in-house music publishing arm Leap Music in a joint venture with former Zomba Music Publishers executive Richard Kirstein in 2003, says the pressure record companies are under means agencies can negotiate better value synchronisation deals. The creation of Leap did nothing to smooth over the cracks between the two industries. Record executives accused BBH and Kirstein of creating an unwelcome divide and invading their territory. Head of TV production at BBH, Frances Royle, is unrepentant and says Kirstein’s experience has speeded up the licensing process because he knows exactly who to speak to and whether a fee is fair. Indeed, Kirstein’s knowledge of the music industry is probably unrivalled in ad land. How much an agency should pay for a song is a complex calculation and depends on an act’s chart pedigree and profile as well as how enthusiastic they are to be linked with a product. “We can certainly push for better deals but we may still have to use different tracks for different countries if the cost of a multi-territory licence is too high,” says Kirstein. JWT’s head of TV admin, Tim Millin, is more sympathetic to the record business and accepts music should be introduced into the creative process earlier. He also understands why rights owners are annoyed when agencies try to negotiate on a piecemeal basis by adding extra territories months after an initial deal has been agreed. “If you talk to the rights owner in plenty of time and put your cards on the table and say this is your budget most music companies can be flexible,” says Millin. The negotiation and cost of rights is at the root of the distrust in this market which is fuelled by the on-going debate of who needs who more. A strong song can make or break a commercial but an ad is a valuable promotional tool for any record company. Contracts are also more complicated these days because agencies will want all media rights across many territories and, with singles sales declining, are starting to negotiate a royalty rate for any album sales generated on the back of a licensed track. This has been prompted by the trend for record companies to exploit interest in a song by putting it on an album. Examples include Velvet Underground’s I’m Sticking With You used in a Hyundai commercial. It was not originally on the greatest hits package but the album was quickly re-issued containing the song. More recently Norman Cooke wrote a track for O2 which was added to the Fat Boy Slim album Palookaville, boosting sales this year for Skint Records. Ultimately the choice of music for an ad will ultimately depend on the emotion the creative team wants to generate rather than whether a song can produce any incremental income for the agency or brand. With this in mind it is hard to point to any commercial where the music selection was actually wrong because this is so difficult to measure. There are things agencies should avoid, however, such as using tracks with lyrics which clash with the ad’s narrative, or choosing music which is considered too bland for the product being advertised. It is understood this was one of the reasons EMI Music Publishing has had trouble licensing James Blunt’s hit single You’re Beautiful. Record companies often criticise agencies for not testing the music they select. Entertainment Media Research founder Peter Ruppert wants to work with agencies who he says should base their decisions on more than gut-instinct. “They should be asking themselves if the brand values of the artist fits the image and qualities of the product their client is trying to promote,” he says. One way to avoid having to make the often exasperating round of telephone calls to discover who owns the rights to a song is to use a music consultancy. “With so many misconceptions about both industries the solution is for both sides to play to their strengths and recognise synch licensing is ultimately a small piece of their respective businesses,” says Richard Corbett, director of music consultancy Ricall. “Record companies and publishers do not have the core competencies to develop creative hooks for brands in the same way ad agencies have no expertise developing music and selling it.” Despite the reluctance of some agencies to go with unproven tracks many will adopt unsigned or newly-signed acts in commercials for creative as well as obvious cost reasons. “Agencies are more open to using up and coming artists because they realise the association an act could bring to a brand over the long-term,” says Barbara Zamoyska, head of film, TV and advertising at Universal Music Publishing. BBH’s Leap Music has begun purchasing material from unsigned bands. Earlier this year it sourced the song Finding Your Feet from unknown act The Aches on behalf of agency Mustoes for an HP Sauce Official commercial. Although there are tensions between these very different but equally creative businesses, there is evidence both industries want to collaborate more. EMI Music Publishing and Abbott Mead Vickers worked together to produce this summer’s commercial for BT Broadband’s i-tunes promotion. Four of the five tracks were from EMI, including A-list songs by Blur and Supergrass. “Rather than having the first discussion about the music in the final few days of post production we were sending over music to the producer and getting feedback at script stage and during the shoot. This has to be the way forward,” says EMI’s director of commercial markets Adrienne Dunlop. The IPA and the Music Publishers Association (MPA) operate a liaison group and have produced a joint document which includes all the questions agencies might have regarding licensing music. The MPA has also published notes to explain why it can take time to get rights cleared. An artist could be on tour or a deal may have to be cleared by executives in the US, for example. The group last met in August to agree the terms of a standard music synchronisation document which could reduce agency lawyers’ fees. Just how many promotional CDs MPA members left on the table during this particular gathering for agency representatives to pick up is unclear, but you can’t blame them for trying.

PR Week November 5 2004 Page 29 Impress the press At the Labour Party’s former press centre on the ground floor of Millbank Tower in July the British Olympic Association unveiled Britain’s team for Athens. Athletes such as Kelly Holmes, Steve Backley and Phillip Idowu were at the press conference which was broadcast live on BBC News and Sky News and attended by more than 50 journalists eager to get to speak to some of the nation’s sporting heroes before they left for Greece. The event was organised by Lewis PR which has a 10-year lease on the refurbished media centre at Millbank, with its 200-seat auditorium, broadcast media links for BBC, ITN and Sky newsrooms as well as impressive translation facilities. The venue is likely to be used again by representatives of London 2012 in the next few weeks when the organisation is ready to disclose more details of the bid to bring the Olympic Games to Britain for the first time since 1948. Of course, not all organisations have such a high profile as the Olympic Games or can use such impressive venues to entice busy journalists to their events. In a modern media age where editorial teams are stretched and news is available 24 hours a day via the internet, companies increasingly need PROs to advise them on how to get editors to leave their desks. Press conferences remain a useful tool in a PRO’s armoury but they are no longer the weapon of mass destruction they once were. Tony Bradley, national vice president at the IPR and a partner at Bradley O’Mahoney Public Relations in Newcastle, says journalists’ needs have changed and events must reflect this. “For generations the press conference in a swanky hotel followed by lunch was an efficient way of ensuring good media coverage but things are different now,” he says. “Unless there is a regulatory or legal reason why nothing can be said outside of a set time and venue – and the media knows this is the case – it is easier to accept that everyone is looking for their own angle on a story and to work with them to meet their aspirations and their deadlines.” Bradley cites the example of a press conference he organised in September for Teeside Airport which was being renamed Durham Tees Valley Airport. It was a contentious subject and local journalists were demanding exclusives. Although nothing was said on the record before the conference Bradley allowed the morning paper to run with a factually accurate preview piece, while the evening paper had the new logo and an artist’s impression of the new terminal building. The press event itself included a chartered flight around the area to encourage journalists to attend even though the story was broken in the morning before the official press conference. Editors are inundated with invitations so any event must be planned meticulously. This means choosing a convenient date, time and venue and ensuring the client’s spokespeople can talk authoritatively about their subject and answer questions confidently. Increasingly PROs must be more innovative to woo journalists, such as choosing an unusual venue or ensuring invitations are creative enough to stand out from the rest of an editor’s morning post. Cookware company Meyer Prestige always hosts press conferences to unveil new products and marketing manager Alison Senior tells her PR agency EHPR to be imaginative when selling events to the media. To promote its Anolon professional cookware range it hired Raymond Blanc’s cookery school and restaurant Le Manoir so journalists could witness the famous chef using the products. “There must be a good reason for a journalist to be there so we usually have a product demonstration or offer exclusive interviews. It is important writers, especially those working for the home press, get the products in their hands so it inspires them,” says Senior. “Meeting a journalist face to face also means our PROs understand the type of information he or she needs so we can target them better.” Whenever you talk to journalists about press conferences there are some common complaints that arise. They get very annoyed when the story they were promised turns out to be much weaker in reality, and they become irritated if an event clashes with another conference or a magazine’s editorial deadlines. The contents of the traditional press pack can also get on their nerves. Editors want copies of a presentation, a press release and other relevant information including photography. Promotional gimmicks such as branded mouse mats, pens, note books and mugs they can live without, they claim. “My advice would be to ensure there is always a good story and never to spin out an event over a day or weekend for no reason. A couple of hours should be enough,” says Julian Hunt, editor of William Reed weekly The Grocer. “PROs must understand and be sensitive to the competitive rivalries that exist between different magazines when giving exclusives. We also need as much notice as possible. If Tesco calls me to say it is announcing a merger tomorrow I will be there, if a food manufacturer is opening a new factory I would expect to be told a few weeks in advance.” Of course, for national and international news stories press conferences are often hastily arranged. Porter Novelli’s head of media relations, Ben McCarthy, had 15 years working as a broadcast journalist for BBC, ITN and Sky News. He attended numerous high profile press conferences including those arranged during the Soham murders investigation. He says when a big story breaks a conference is the ideal vehicle to reach all the media at once while the people involved can control the flow of information. “Journalists will attend at short notice if the story is important enough, and questions from the media can provide new leads for the police and help prompt responses from the public,” he says. “The press conference can add to the drama of a story if people see the cameras, so it can be disappointing for broadcasters if they turn up and hardly anyone is there.” It is important to get feedback from journalists so they will attend future press conferences. Ask them how an event could have been better and if they spoke to the people they needed to. Basically, did they get the story angles they were looking for?... (full text: www.prweek.com)
PR WEEK: Litigation PR: I won't see you in court Published on May 20 2005 As lawyers urge more of their clients to settle out of court, litigation PR must change with the times, says Steve Hemsley. Immediately after Martin Bashir's high-profile documentary Living With Michael Jackson was broadcast on ITV in 2003, litigation PR specialist Bell Yard set to work for the singer, devising a rebuttal strategy to respond to hostile media coverage. Working closely with Jackson's legal teams in the UK and the US, Bell Yard focused media attention on the betrayal Jackson felt he had suffered at the hands of Bashir. It prompted a full front-page story in the Evening Standard. It is an ongoing contract for Bell Yard as Jackson continues his claim for damages from Granada Media Group, although activity has been halted because of the performer's child-abuse trial in the US. Jackson's legal teams understand how an effective litigation PR campaign can win over those inside and outside of the courtroom. PROs involved in this specialist area have a close relationship with lawyers as well as journalists. Yet the role of the trad itional litigation PRO is changing. Increasingly, parties involved in disputes, whether they are celebrities or corporations, are choosing alternative methods of resolution, such as arbitration, mediation and adjudication. This trend started in 1999, following one of the biggest changes to the civil justice system, when the Access to Justice reforms came into play. These measures were intended to lessen the burden on courts by encouraging people to resolve their grievances by alternative and more cost-effective methods than a court hearing. The reforms appear to have worked. According to the Department for Constitutional Affairs, the number of claims heard by the High Court's Chancery Division, which deals with disputes relating to intellectual property, patents and trademarks, fell from 8,720 in 1998-99 to 6,335 in 2002-03. Similarly, the number of claims heard by the Queen's Bench Division, which assesses damages claims for breach of contract and libel, were d own from 72,161 to 14,191 over the same period. Lawyers are increasingly advising corporate clients to avoid court because even if a company wins its case, it can take years for a brand's image to recover from negative media coverage. Lawyers are even encouraging the use of arbitration clauses in business contracts to pre-empt future disputes. For journalists, the reforms were bad news because, unlike in the High Court where juicy details are made public, discussions during arbitration are confidential. There is also argument over whether the workload for PROs will also suffer from this growth in non-litigation resolution. 'Many lawyers are pushing their clients into legally binding third-party arbitration, and if more people choose this cheaper and less public course of action they will have less of a need for litigation PROs,' says Stephen Lock, general manager at Mmd Public Relations (Russia). Lock has worked on a number of high-profile intellectual pro perty actions, such as the 'grey market' battles of Nike versus Sainsbury's and Tommy Hilfiger versus Tesco. 'Often litigation PR relies on an exclusive being given to the Sunday papers and usable quotes being given to titles that cannot afford to have journalists in court all day. We will see less and less of this,' he argues. While many PROs accept the number of court cases requiring their services will continue to decline, there is debate about how far levels of business will fall. Many insist there will always be demand for their services as disputes must be settled one way or another. 'While the current trend is bad news for the media, which won't get as much colourful copy from the courts, it is good for PR because it means clients will not be washing their dirty linen in front of judges,' says Partner PR director Jonathan Hawker. 'But clients will still need PROs who understand the legal process and appreciate the impact a dispute can have on reputation ,' he adds. Indeed, for clients that do face the prospect of a lengthy and costly court battle, PR can be a useful weapon to convince the instigators of legal action to resolve things differently. 'There can be tremendous pressure surrounding a legal action in terms of the impact it can have on the standing of a company or person. Good litigation PR and the media coverage it generates can govern whether people settle, arbitrate or mediate. A lot of our work goes on before a case begins,' says Weber Shandwick Legal managing director Jon McLeod. He worked with lawyers representing Hollywood couple Catherine Zeta Jones and Michael Douglas during their much-publicised court battle with Hello!. However, he believes that in the future, celebrities will be more inclined to settle out of court, particularly when it comes to libel cases. Full story: http://www.prweekuk.com/thisweek/index.cfm?ID=238236&site=1

MUSIC WEEK May 14 2005 If big is beautiful then the music industry should find the £711m broadcasting giant created today by the merger of Capital Radio and GWR extremely attractive. Known as GCap Media, the new super-size group reaches 17.1m listeners a week, according to the latest Rajar figures. It encompasses strong radio brands such as Classic FM and 95.8 Capital FM as well as the Century Radio and The Mix local networks, 104.9 Xfm and a host of digital stations. Capital FM managing director Keith Pringle says the size of the deal means the new company can compete head-on with Radio One and Radio Two when it comes to supporting live music and promoting new and established artists to a national audience. “We are inviting record companies to get around the table with us over the next few months and to think innovatively about how we can work together to push albums and launch and re-launch careers. Many artists appeal to listeners of virtually all our brands so we can make a huge smash across the country with one message,” says Pringle. Yet there is work for the new group to do. The Rajars reveal that 95.8 Capital FM’s audience fell from 2.3m to 2.1m in 12 months, while 104.9 Xfm’s reach slipped from 559,000 to 517,000. Classic FM, meanwhile, fell disappointingly under the 6.0m mark and has lost more than half a million listeners in a year. The merger comes at a time when the BBC has stretched its market share lead over the commercial sector to more than 10%, at 54.2% compared with 43.8%. This fact meant the independent companies were not in a party mood for what was actually the 50th Rajar press conference. It even prompted Emap’s head of radio Mark Storey to remark that all commercial groups must learn from the Capital and GWR deal and work closer together to attract and keep young listeners. He cites the success of UK Radio Aid in January which involved 200 stations as a perfect example of how the industry can collaborate effectively. The commercial sector may even be going through something of an identity and image crisis because 14 stations have changed their name since the last Rajar. The latest figures for the BBC brought particularly good news for the national music stations as Radio One and Radio Two both increased their reach and share compared with this time last year. Radio One now has 9.9m (2004: 9.8m) adult listeners while its share has risen from 7.6% to 8.4%. Chris Moyles has added 250,000 listeners in 12 months at breakfast and is now heard by around 7.0m adults a week. One notable result for Radio One which illustrates the pressures on commercial stations at the moment is that the network reached more people in London, almost 1.4m, than Kiss 100 (1.29m) during the three months. It is the first time this has happened since 2001. “That particular result demonstrates what we are offering appeals to a wider international young audience in London. Our huge web presence is also raising awareness of our music and programming,” says controller Andy Parfitt who is busy preparing for Radio One’s traditionally hectic summer. The station is committed to 25 large-scale events in the UK and internationally and its live music schedule always boosts its second and third quarter Rajar performances. Radio Two saw its audience rise to 13.3m (12.9m) and it achieved another record share of 16.5%. “We started to get the music policy right a couple of years ago and now have the balance correct between new music and established artists. When people listen to us they know our presenters believe in what they are playing and that really matters,” says Radio Two controller Lesley Douglas. The national commercial stations saw their overall audience fall slightly but their share rose from 9.9% to 10.2%, helped by their digital services. Among the digital stations to post a strong rise in audience was Planet Rock, part of the new GCap Media group, which now has 286,000 listeners, up 18% in 12 months. The rise in interest in digital radio also benefited the BBC. BBC 6 Music saw its audience grow from 187,000 a week a year ago to 311,000, while 1Xtra’s reach was up from 263,000 to 351,000. Steve Lamacq began presenting five days a week on 6 Music at the beginning of April. Head of programmes at 6 Music, Ric Blaxill, says the figures are an endorsement of the station’s approach to music radio. “This is a crowded market but we have a strong playlist. We champion new music and mix that with core artists while allowing our respected presenters free choice in their shows,” he says…. (full text www.musicweek.com)

EVENT Magazine London faces stiff competition in its bid to host the 2012 Olympics. Steve Hemsley assesses the French proposal. A giant water wall-clock has been erected in the old French port of La Rochelle, counting down the days to the International Olympic Committee’s (IOC) final decision as to which city will host the 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games. Water will cascade between the two ancient towers at the entrance to the port until 6 July, when the French hope to celebrate with something much stronger. Indeed, if Paris beats New York, Madrid, Moscow and, of course, London to the biggest prize in the global sporting calendar, you can expect plenty of champagne to be flowing throughout the country. Around 85% of the population support the bid and Paris has been considered a frontrunner. The city’s transport and venue infrastructure is certainly impressive, having successfully staged the Fifa World Cup in 1998 and the World Athletics Championships in August 2003. The head of the 13-strong IOC evaluation committee, former Moroccan 400-metre hurdles gold medallist Nawal El Moutawakel, could not help mentioning the quality of the Paris dossier before she left France at the end of the IOC’s four-day inspection visit in March. She also dismissed suggestions by mischief-making rivals that the general strike to defend France’s 35-hour week, which unfortunately took place during the visit, was a threat to the city’s chances. Despite Paris’ position as a 2/5 hot favourite with some bookmakers, the bid team is taking nothing for granted before July’s full IOC meeting in Singapore. Paris hosted the Games in 1900 and 1924, but its failed bids for the 1992 and the 2008 Games still hurt. It was therefore a somewhat nervy French sports minister, Jean-François Lamour – a former Olympic fencing champion – and city mayor Bertrand Delanoe who met El Moutawakel and her colleagues at Charles de Gaulle airport on 8 March. Remaining neutral The delegation was met by thousands of online skaters cruising down the Champs-Elysées wearing Paris 2012 T-shirts. However, the IOC will never be swayed by pomp and ceremony or enthusiastic crowds, and much of its visit was spent behind closed doors analysing the Paris Bid Book, submitted last November. One reason why the city’s position is so strong is because it will not require a massive building programme that would cost the country many billions of euros. The total budget for a 2012 Games in Paris is an estimated €4.1bn (£2.8bn), of which €2.2bn (£1.5bn) would come from ticket sales, merchandise and sponsorship. The remainder would be shared between private business, Paris local government, the regions and national funding. The French business community is getting behind the bid through the Paris 2012 Corporate Club, which has 17 major international French company members including Accenture, Airbus, Air France, France Télécom, Publicis and Renault. This level of support illustrates how the corporate sector views the economic and social opportunities for Paris and the whole of France. Research by the Boston Consulting Group suggests 42,000 new jobs and €35bn (£28.8bn) of additional revenue would be generated across France by a Paris Games. “In the past ten years Paris has organised 26 world championships across different sports, from football to table tennis. Our slogan is ‘L’Amour des Jeux’ or ‘Love of the Games’ and that extends to a love of organising games,” says deputy CEO of the Paris 2012 bid team Essar Gabriel, who worked with the Australian organising committee on the 2000 Games. Nevertheless, the IOC has to be convinced that Paris can host something on such a massive scale as a modern-day Olympic Games, and the delegation insisted on visiting existing venues along with the site of proposed developments. The Paris concept is ‘One Village, Two Clusters’ and the IOC travelled by bus between the north and the west of the capital. The bid team is adamant only a small number of new venues will be needed, which will avoid the problem of any stadiums becoming white elephants once the Games has finished. The two most conspicuous permanent new builds would be the 20,000-capacity Aquatic Centre in the northern cluster at Aubervilliers for the swimming events, and a 22,000-seater Superdome five kilometres from the Olympic village for gymnastics and various Paralympic sports. First stop for the IOC was a disused railway yard in a 111-acre area of the Batignolles district of north west Paris, where the Olympic village will be built. This will be within a ten-minute drive of 18 of the 30 proposed venues. The delegation was then driven to the impressive Stade de France, which is also in the northern cluster. This 80,000-capacity stadium hosted the 1998 World Cup final and would be the flagship venue for the 2012 Games. It has been renamed Stade de France Paris 2012 to support the bid, and would be used for the opening and closing ceremonies, track and field events and football. After taking lunch with French sportsmen and women, the IOC travelled to the western cluster. The committee visited venues such as the 14,000-capacity Roland-Garros stadium and the Croix Catelan – site of the Olympic Games in 1900 – which will take the form of an additional temporary 3,000-seat venue to host the modern pentathlon. Last stop was the Eiffel Tower, where from the second floor the inspectors could overlook the northern and western clusters. Beach volleyball would take place beneath the tower. The third day of the tour included presentations from leading politicians on subjects such as anti-doping and security. The itinerary included a working lunch with Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin and the country’s transport, finance and foreign affairs ministers. In the evening, the IOC committee descended on the Elysée Palace for dinner with President Jacques Chirac. Knock-on effect Should Paris manage to convince the IOC, the opportunities for the corporate event, hospitality and exhibition market from an Olympic Games will be huge. Gabriel notes that as the Games will take place in August, many venues and event organisers can only gain from such an occasion. “Look at how venues in Barcelona and Sydney exploited the Games before, during and after the event. It is up to the professional convention centres in France to leverage something like this and put together attractive offers for business,” he says. Full story: http://www.eventmagazine.co.uk/features/Features_story.cfm?ID=4098

The Grocer. Summer 2004 – Ireland Supplement Nigeria’s answer to James Bond is more likely to down a glass of Guinness than a dry Martini. Adventure character Michael Powers drinks Guinness in the hit African movie Critical Assignment, and such brand endorsement has done sales of Guinness Foreign Extra Stout and Malta Guinness no harm at all in the region. Guinness is arguably Ireland’s most famous global brand although most drinkers in Africa are probably unaware of the brand’s Irish heritage because it has been brewed in Nigeria since 1963. In fact, Diageo sells more Guinness in Africa than in Ireland. Sales in Nigeria were up 15% in the last half year while they fell by 7% in the Emerald Isle. Nevertheless, like most of Ireland’s largest food and drink producers, Guinness will exploit its Irishness whenever it can when it comes to branding. The level of marketing activity linked to St Patrick’s Day celebrations around the world is testament to that. While from a business perspective it made commercial and branding sense to shut the Park Royal brewing arm in London earlier this year and concentrate production for the British and Irish markets at its historic Dublin brewery. “If you wanted to launch a beer brand today you would not invent a dark, strong bitter, so the continued global success of Guinness emphasises that the strength of the brand is often more important than where it comes from. It stands for different things in different countries. In Africa it is seen as a fertility aid, while in Britain it demonstrates a drinker’s individuality and ability to stand out from the crowd,” says global brand director Jon Potter. Guinness is not Diageo’s only global Irish brand, of course. Baileys accounts for more than half of all spirits exported from Ireland and represents 6% of all Irish food and drink exports. When the brand was launched in 1974, 8,000 cases a day were produced. That figure is now almost 47,000. The company has re-branded Baileys and a global marketing campaign this year will attempt to drive global sales up from 79.2m bottles a year to 120m by 2007. For most sectors of the Irish food and drink industry it is an important part of any sales strategy to shout about a product’s Irish heritage. Ireland’s year-round mild weather caused by the Gulf Stream often gets a mention, particularly in the dairy trade. It allows the cows to graze on grass for up to 11 months of the year and this has created the most natural milk production system in Europe. Glanbia is one of Ireland’s real business success stories. Quoted on the London and Dublin stockmarkets and with a market capitalisation of £480.1m, it is challenging the world’s biggest cheese manufacturers and suppliers of dairy-based nutritional ingredients. The group also includes Glanbia Foods, the second largest integrated cheese producer in the UK. Much of its recent success can be traced back to the new corporate identity it adopted in 1997 when the Avonmore and Waterford dairies merged to create Europe’s fourth largest dairy. It needed to re-brand itself if it was to appeal to a global market and successfully introduce added-value products. Branding consultancy Corporate Edge devised the name Glanbia, which means ‘pure food’ in Gaelic. It also proposed a fundamental repositioning of the company as a market-focused, international food company, rather than as an Irish manufacturer of dairy products. Full text: www.grocer.co.uk

The Grocer- January 2005. Store Manager Recruitment Sir Clive Woodward’s desire to test his skills in the world of soccer after guiding the England rugby team to World Cup glory will strike a cord with some of the country’s most talented retail managers. Woodward is convinced the technical and coaching practices he employed with the oval ball could be adapted and applied to the round ball game. He is probably right. And, like many store managers working across various retail sectors, he does not want to be pigeon-holed and the assumption made that his talents cannot be adapted to a different -but similar - role. You do not have to spend too long talking to experts in recruitment and human resources to discover grocers have suffered in the past from a closed-mind attitude when it comes to utilising the skill-sets of senior store managers from other retailers. Yet as the supermarkets’ share of non-food sales has soared they have been forced to cast their recruitment net much wider to find talented managers of the future. Of course, recruiting store managers from non-grocery backgrounds has meant a steep learning curve for everyone. The different volumes involved between food and non-food categories, the speed at which some lines leave the shelves and the logistics of sourcing, storing and supplying many items, such as electronics, can require a significant amount of hand-holding for managers in the early months. Unfortunately the supermarkets are discovering the talent pool is not as deep as they would like it to be. There are still concerns over whether someone who has run an out of town electrical multiple could handle the fast-moving and price-sensitive world of food, while the differences in the retail and employee cultures between working for a department store compared to a grocer can be too difficult for some senior people to overcome. “In reality there is only a small group of people who can cope with the modern day supermarket store profile, so the grocers need recruits with experience in non-food who can implement best practice in these new areas as quickly as possible,” says James Bass, manager of Retail Professionals, a division of recruitment, retention and development consultancy PRO. He adds: “The modern grocery format needs this external expertise in its management team to get to the next level and the struggle to find the people they need is fuelling a new talent war between retailers from all sectors as every company wants to hold on to its best people.” The supermarkets not only want people with a depth of knowledge of non-food but increasingly need the executives they recruit to be effective business managers at store level. This means candidates for any senior post must be able to demonstrate they can oversee a team of specialist category managers employed beneath them, and who themselves may have been recruited from various backgrounds. “The grocers must keep a complete open mind about where the next generation of managers will come from. It is no longer the case that a Sainsbury’s manager will move to Tesco and vice-versa. The clever employers are looking at recruiting from companies in the leisure sector such as Whitbread or Costa Coffee, or from call centres. Basically, from anywhere where senior people are skilled in customer service and in winning repeat business,” says Simon Hayton a co-director at Imagine Recruitment. The fiercely competitive nature of this end of the business is expected to drive up salaries by as much as 10% during 2005, although grocery chains may be able to resist any large-scale clamour for more money from their managers because of the strength of the various supermarket brands and their reputation as good employers. Although the supermarkets have to search hard for people with the complementary skill-sets they need there is no shortage of applications for store manager posts when they arise. Managers of large format retailers such as Matalan, Gap or Ikea can reach a crossroads in their careers when looking for their next step up and feel the need to look to grocery to progress professionally. These store groups, plus others such as Woolworths and Debenhams, are predicted to provide an increasing number of grocery managers over the next few years. Full Text: www.grocer.co.uk

Builders Merchants Journal September 2004
Garden Landscaping

The dreary weather system which hovered above England and Wales on June 23 was the deepest depression for that month ever recorded by the Met Office since it began measuring such things back in 1854.
As fascinating as this piece of trivia might be to the many Britons obsessed with the weather, it will not impress anyone involved in the selling of garden landscaping products.
Above average rainfall across the country in May, June and early July (source: Met Office) kept consumers indoors. Another type of depression, this time associated with England’s disappointing performance at Euro 2004, added to the nation’s gloom at the start of the summer and distracted people when they should have been spending money enjoying their gardens.
It means merchants and suppliers have had to work hard to ensure what is a seasonal business at the best of times has not been a complete wash-out.
The warm weather at the end of July came as a big relief to everyone, but Marshalls’ marketing director, Chris Harrop, believes it is more of a case that sales were simply put off for a few weeks or months rather than lost altogether. “In May and June we looked at the order books for installers and they were busy. The early summer wet weather meant a lot of the work was delayed, but many projects are being commissioned by time-poor, cash-rich consumers who are not DIYers but want the jobs done for them to achieve a look they crave. They are prepared to wait,” he says.
Of course, suppliers and merchants involved in garden landscaping have not only been peering out of their office windows to see if the rain has stopped. They have also been looking for signs that consumer-spending is slowing down. Recent jumps in interest rates are designed to make consumers think twice about adding to their debt burden and, however nice it looks, installing a new driveway, paving or decking remains a luxury purchase for many.
Harrop admits there are signs the private housing RMI sector is slowing. “Marshalls tracks this market more closely than anyone. We expect 2% growth this year with sales static next year. Yet, if we do things right, we have the skills to create a strong market whether people are moving house or staying put,” he says.
If there is pent-up demand ready to be converted into hard sales during the autumn then installers will be extremely busy. A local landscaper can only work on a limited number of gardens each week because of fading daylight so it is essential the merchant he or she visits sells as much added-value products as possible per branch visit.
Harrop says this should not be too difficult. Studies by Marshalls reveal that around 75% of consumers it questioned said they want quality products and are not simply looking for cheap solutions. The company provides a design service, installation guides and helps consumers to colour-match paving and walling products so they blend in with the architectural design of a house.
Brett Landscaping’s marketing director, Mike Woodcock, reports that by July some merchants were reporting sales down by around 30% compared with last year because of the poor weather. He believes the best the industry can hope for now is to see sales in the second half of the season match last year’s levels.
In reality, Brett already has its sights set on 2005 and beyond having invested a significant sum in a new concrete paving plant at Barrow-Upon-Soar in Leicestershire. It was officially opened in May at a launch party attended by more than 80 merchants and contractors.
“The weather this year has come as a shock to everyone after the hot summer of 2003, but over the longer term we see continued growth of around 5% per annum in concrete paving. Landscaping is still media-driven and we will continue to work with merchants to help them get their displays right so it is easier for them to sell up,” says Mr Woodcock.
As BMJ went to press, Brett had still to unveil the additions to its range for 2005, but during September merchants should receive a revamped product guide featuring the new products. This publication follows a new-look Atlas Stone brochure published in March which provided merchants, installers and consumers with design ideas using classic paving, natural stone, aggregates and rocks. Brett has also given its website an overhaul, again to provide installers and homeowners with design ideas and advice.
Brett is not alone in investing in new plant in anticipation that the garden landscaping market will continue to expand.
Plasmor has spent £5.5m on a 2,275sq m factory at Boughton to develop its Plaspave brand throughout Nottinghamshire, Lincolnshire, Derbyshire, Leicestershire and Warwickshire. This is the company’s eighth production site and sales director, John Swain, says merchants are already benefiting from the increased capacity…(Extract only)

Builders Merchants Journal October 2004
Employees buy into business branding

If you ever have time to ask your employees to write down what your merchant business stands for and how it differs from its competitors most of them will probably just stare at you blankly.
It is all very well talking about customer service and value for money in external advertising and marketing literature, but if your staff are unaware of what it means to be part of Joe Bloggs Builders Merchants and have no idea what the company’s brand values are then tradesmen will be sceptical too.
The term ‘employee branding’ may sound like a fluffy marketing industry initiative, but it is a strategy being implemented across British business as more and

If you are one of the lucky ones Tim Seager will buy you a drink this summer.

Media Week April 2006

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