Idealogy Update | News, PR and ramblings from the office

My goodness! Simple’s US launch consumes bandwidth

2012-02-09T16:07:00.001Z

Simple, the UK’s No.1 Facial Skincare brand*, and now one of Unilever’s personal care brands, launched its US website on 1st February 2012. Following an intense development program and a strong pre-launch awareness campaign around the United States, http://www.simpleskincare.com/ went live and very quickly broke all kinds of traffic and visitor numbers.

Within the first few hours, the site experienced 5-6 times the traffic of the equivalent UK site. On top of that, visitors were downloading countless terabytes of streaming video and HTML5 data – ‘off-the-chart’ short-term volumes often only experienced on a monthly basis. And, to be perfectly honest, all this interest and support very nearly brought the site to its knees.

However, a realistic back-up plan that enabled Simple US to regroup on a new server cluster ‘averted any issues’.

But a week is a long time in website life and the day-to-day performance is now fully aligned with the very high service levels provided by the brand’s UK web experience.

With a dedicated Australian Simple website due to go live early in 2012, it will be interesting to gauge the comparable activity in the Southern Hemisphere. But in the meantime, it’s fair to say that Simple, as a brand, continues to grow from strength to strength.

*SymphonyIRI Group All Outlets UK Non Medicated Facial skincare 52 w/e 3rd December 2011

Posted by Idealogy

This may be of Pinterest

2012-02-06T12:00:00.012Z

The Pinterest Mission
“Our goal is to connect everyone in the world through the 'things' they find interesting. We think that a favorite book, toy, or recipe can reveal a common link between two people. With millions of new pins added every week, Pinterest is connecting people all over the world based on shared tastes and interests.”

So how does Pinterest work?
Pinterest is a virtual pinboard that allows you to easily organise and share all the interesting things you find on the web.

You can create pinboards to capture images of anything you want to keep as reference for the future. From fantastic design ideas to inspirational photography, from illustration styles to ‘cats in hats’ – the choice is yours.

You can also discover new and interesting images by browsing the pinboards created by other people, people who share your interests and more.

Interested? Have a look at http://pinterest.com/

Posted by Idealogy

What’s hot up top - the second floor’s account of what’s grrrrrrrrrreat

2012-01-19T12:44:00.009Z

In what is to become your monthly dose of positive thinking from the Idealogy team, managed and written by the annoyingly positive fool that I am, here follows some stuff we like, within our walls, and without (does that work? I mean outside right… but you knew that).

Paul W

Inside
Something that is taken for granted but not everyone knows about is the web-conferencing and online-meeting software we use (www.fuzemeeting.com) which essentially allows us to present creative proposals via a web link remotely to anyone around the globe. We use it here on a weekly basis for our clients outside the UK, which it’s great to say seem to be increasing, in number and in workload – thanks!

Outside
My new Virgin TiVo hard drive is nothing short of genius; I can essentially find things to entertain my boys 24 hours a day at a touch of a button, bliss.

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Simon D

Inside
We’re proud to be involved in branding and communications frameworks consultancy for Mettler Toledo Retail right now. A workshop in Frankfurt and feedback presented in Shanghai – that’s China (thanks boss –Ed) I’m immensely proud of that relationship, the work our project team has put in and how it might develop in the future into valuable new work.

Outside
Love the new Sherlock series and how the BBC have cleverly adapted the old Conan Doyle themes – A Scandal in Belgrade became A Scandal in Belgravia. The Hound of the Baskervilles became The Hounds of Baskerville. Shame it’s only 3 episodes long, but we hear that series 3 is already commissioned – hurrah!

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Nick Hart

Inside
It’s always easy to moan at having to do pitches for work; working without being paid, but we’re into a few here at the moment and it’s pretty good fun. We’re getting all blue-sky creative with Kitchen Machines, all user experience with Spanish Food, and seriously design with Hydrographic Mapping. Admittedly I’ll be EVEN MORE positive (is this possible?) when we win some of the work, but for now, we’re having fun and demonstrating some serious capability.

Outside
I’m going BBC here too. I’ve loved both Dickens' adaptations over the last month, and whilst I was forced to watch Call the Midwife I ended up thinking how well produced it was. I’m kinda proud of what feels like a very British brand – good old Auntie!

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Charlotte B

Charlie neglected to comment on time, so let’s assume these are her answers…

Inside
I love working with Simon, Paul and Nick – they’re such a dedicated team of professionals. I admire them and wish I could be a bit more like them. They’re the best.

Outside
The BBC on my TiVo. Simon, Paul and Nick told me about this and I love them, so I love this too.

Posted by Idealogy

Customer Experience Engineering

2012-01-12T12:00:00.005Z

It’s a fairly simple proposition, customer experience engineering; rather than developing something you think (or know) is incredible, and then putting effort (and money) into trying to explain why your customers need and want it, you start with what your customers need and want and reverse engineer your products, services, communications and even your behaviour, to suit.

Sounds like a pain in the proverbial? Well, I won’t use the old ‘easy as 1, 2, 3’ cop-out slogan, and if anything it’s closer to ‘STOP, LOOK and LISTEN’ but… read on.

Step 1 – who are we, really?

You need to understand (and agree upon) who you are and what you have that’s desirable. You need to understand how to think, behave and respond to the people you work for… your customers. You need to say, at the outset; ‘this is us, this is why we’re good at this, and this is the value we deliver’ – we use BrandPrint to help identify a complete business strategy so that your entire business, from Finance, HR, NPD and Marketing understand how people, products and processes can be focused to deliver a better customer experience and improve the bottom line.

Step 2 – are we understood?

You need to understand your customer experience – we use a TouchPoints system to identify every possible place your business ‘touches’ a customer, and how they’re likely to feel about what the experience at this point. From your logo and web presence to the way you answer the phone and the tools you use to process sales, it all has an affect on how you are perceived.

Step 3 – how well do we listen?

You need to understand your customers – you need to engage with them and ask them to become involved with your brand, to feel ownership for what you do and what you make or do for them. A customer involved and valued in this way can very easily become an ambassador for you, sharing good experiences with peers and defending you in times of trouble. We have seen how a good Social & Digital Strategy can rapidly build a database, and drive product development and sales the right way.

Idealogy have been doing these things for our customers, because they’ve asked us to, for years. It’s scalable too; we’ve done it for businesses of 12 people, and we’ve done it for businesses of 7,000 people. If you’d like us to talk you through it, how it works, what you need to commit (money included) and what you’ll get out of it, please let us know… we’ll be there.

Posted by Idealogy

It's official...

2012-01-02T12:00:00.029Z

Idealogy always likes to be ahead-of-the-game when it comes to solutions for our clients, so that's why we now have official Apple, Android and Blackberry Developer certification. That means in 2012 we're ready to develop and distribute Smartphone and Tablet apps on behalf of our customers through the iTunes App store, Google Android Marketplace and BlackBerry AppWorld.

And we have a plethora of registered in-house test devices to ensure that the apps are going to perform and behave as expected, including an iPhone 3GS, iPhone4, and an iPad2 - HTC Android 2.2, Android 3 and 4 and a Blackberry Playbook 1.0.7

So if you're thinking about a mobile solution in the new year then get in touch at ideas@idealogyltd.com

Posted by Idealogy

Cheers ‘til New Years

2011-12-22T13:00:00.003Z

Deck the bells and away with that manger, it’s time for us to head for homes, families, fires, Quality Streets (other Christmas chocolates are available, but may not be accepted by Idealogy team members) and films we’ve all seen before. We’ve had our Christmas bash, weird to do it on a ‘school night’ this year, but tasty, jolly and more than a teeny bit merry it was nonetheless, cheers all!

We hope you’ve received our Christmas card by the way, and that you’ve visited the site – searching-for-stars.com – to watch our festive vid, fun to make and, we hope, fun to watch.

So ‘that’s all folks’ - all that remains for us is a smoked-salmon bagel, a glass of bucks fizz, a quick game of darts and the obligatory setup of the Out-of-Office Assistant, who’ll assist in not a lot of ways save to inform any who care to write in that we won’t be back until January the 3rd. Of course if you REALLY need us in the meantime, you know where we are, among the Quality Streets, watching films we’ve all seen before, so give us a shout if all hell breaks loose, we’ll still help.

Thanks all for a great 2011, see y’all in 2012… we can tell… it’s gonna be a blinder!

Posted by Idealogy

Some Simple Christmas presence...on Facebook

2011-12-21T12:00:00.013Z

Since January 2007, Facebook has had an average of 250,000 new registrations per day and there have been over 52,000 apps built on the platform.

There's no getting away from it - with more than 800 million active users, these days it's vital for B2C brands to have a Facebook presence. It's the perfect environment to drive engagement and discussion between people, communities, and brands of all sizes.

One of Idealogy's biggest clients, Simple Skincare, had been using Facebook for about 2 years and we'd already implemented various 'fan pages' and feeds from other social networks that we'd set up for Simple, like Twitter and YouTube.

After an 'All-Agency' brainstorming session, of which Idealogy were part, the Simple 'Best Kept Secret' was born and having prior Facebook experience, we were asked to develop an app for the campaign. The premise was simple (no pun intended!), drive users from the simple.co.uk site to the app via a teaser banner on the homepage.

Only people who did this would be privvy to Simple's 'Best Kept Secret' - by installing the app into their Facebook page a user would be given access to unique content not available to users who had only 'liked' the regular Simple Facebook pages.

Simple had revealed their secret and now the user could tell Simple about theirs - be it skincare-related, something funny or a touching story - this could then also be shared with any of that user's Facebook Friends, thus spreading news about the campaign and encouraging further engagement.

Simple would pick their favorite user's secret each week and that person would be entered into a grand prize draw to win a holiday worth £3,500.

The campaign is doing very well so far - have a look at it here.

If you're interested in how Idealogy could help you use Facebook effectively then email us at ideas@idealogyltd.com

Posted by Idealogy

An Idealogy Christmas in 3 parts...(or 3 bah humbugs and 2 Hail Marys)

2011-12-19T12:00:00.007Z

CHRISTMAS CREEP (Part 3)

The Nightmare Before Christmas

Deadlines! Who needs ‘em?

They are the ultimate driver for everything we do in commercial life and at this time of year the ultimate deadline is Christmas. Having been in Brand and Market Communications for almost 4 decades it hasn’t escaped our attention that during December the deadline condition is amplified – creeping into the already exaggerated operational tension to create almost total panic! From the very start of the Advent season a form of terror sets in. It feels as if our partners, suppliers, even our clients, invent projects that seem to have appeared on schedules when the previous week they weren’t there. Budgets have to be spent (or we’ll lose them), when for the rest of the year budget management is always an unshakeable mantra. Diaries have spaces that need to be filled in an impractical attempt to continue the facade of ‘busy’, right up to the bitter end.

And what’s funny here is that we just don’t seem to learn – each year the same pantomime unfolds before our eyes. Is it fair to call it a farce? How about seasonal symbiosis? Probably not! But the rush towards year-end does make people behave in a way that, for the previous 11½ months, you would consider to be out of character.

So what happens? Well, it becomes very difficult to get relevant content together so deadlines get stretched into January to allow for more ‘research time’. Meetings, conference calls or WebEx’s get cancelled because key participants “can’t make it!” – code for not feeling well after the office party or out doing Christmas shopping or, in a more sympathetic light, legitimate victims of the ‘office sickness’. And travel becomes difficult or inconvenient when people take a more pragmatic look at calendars, or become concerned about waiting for an empty train to leave a deserted station as the next winter storm approaches.

And so, 2 weeks of a forced dance gives way to a pre-Christmas calm when the reality sets in.

The creep into the seasonal psyche recedes and we focus on the important stuff – like our own Christmas party.

Which, of course, is another story!

Posted by Idealogy

An Idealogy Christmas in 3 parts...(or 3 bah humbugs and 2 Hail Marys)

2011-12-15T12:00:00.014Z

CHRISTMAS CREEP (Part 2)

For maybe the last 10-15 years, the spread of the festive season has crept into parts of our lives that many of us find astonishing.

Who would have thought, for instance, that the ‘competition’ for most decorated (not even ‘best’ decorated) family home would become such an emotive subject? There is no doubting the attention value of a local house illuminated from chimney to front door with snowflakes, Santa and his Reindeer, seasonal eulogies and even the Manger in Bethlehem – really! And, handled tastefully, it can create a sense of neighbourhood pride and a powerful festive fillip as we wander the streets posting Christmas cards to family and friends.

But so often, life’s not like that. Streets can be full of competing homes who, each year, add more and more garish dancing lights and festive sound effects in a distasteful bout of one-upmanship – and often with little or no attention to the impact on their more sensitive neighbours or their own electricity bills. This year, we saw the first ‘Christmas home’ in November and the chances are that the effort to get the building ready for the Seasonal ‘switch-on’ was part of the competitive pact as well. By that, we mean it was probably just the flick of a switch. So many homes simply leave the lights in place from one season to the next that it has ceased to be a creative contest – if that’s what you call it!

But what started this ‘Strictly Come Santa’ condition?

Well no prizes for guessing that it might have ‘kicked-off’ in the US. However its true inauguration was much closer to home at the beginning of an almost circular journey. The tradition of decorating homes began in Ireland in the early 1800’s prior to the start of mass immigration to the US. A devout Catholic nation, the use of garlands and religious artifacts in windows to symbolize the Christmas season was a simple, creative and effective embellishment in an otherwise depressed national psyche. At Christmas time, Irish families would leave their doors unlocked and place burning candles, or Christmas lights, in their windows as a message to a priest that those within were believers and the priest was welcome. Of course, the Irish explained away their Christmas light custom to their English overlords by saying that the custom simply meant their home was symbolically open to Mary and Joseph, who had sought and not found refuge that first Christmas Eve.

So, the Irish took their deep-seated beliefs with them to the New World and what followed was a cultural and innovation collision that, at the very least, explains our love of bright lights. In 1879, contrary to popular opinion, Edison did NOT invent the light bulb. That honour went to Davy, Swann and Brush. However, he did discover how to make an electric light that glowed and lasted a long time. Shortly after Edison’s technical leap, the vice president of his company, Edward Johnson, decided to adorn his Christmas tree with eighty red, white, and blue bulbs and put it on display in his New York home for others to see.

The custom grew from placing a few simple candles in windows to hanging and placing thousands of electric Christmas lights, in every imaginable shape and size, on homes, in neighborhoods, on municipal buildings and churches. From that Christmas light show beginning in the 1880s, we now place electric Christmas lights on our windows, rooftops, in and about our gardens and plants, fences, and every other conceivable location. And, of course, as more and more of the people of the UK traveled to the US for holidays, family visits and business, so the inevitable next step was for the tradition to return, enhanced(?), to our shores.

So there you have it. You can blame the Americans or the Irish or even Thomas Edison himself for our ‘Blackpool Illuminations’ style statements of Christmas individuality. But you will only have yourselves to blame when the electricity bill creeps through your letter box in January!

Posted by Idealogy

An Idealogy Christmas in 3 parts...(or 3 bah humbugs and 2 Hail Marys)

2011-12-01T12:00:00.005Z

CHRISTMAS CREEP (Part 1)

Sitting here at the denouement of November, writing this 3 part set-up for how Christmas has changed over the years, I can’t help thinking that, just possibly, I am contributing to the condition of Christmas Creep – ‘if you’re not the solution you’re part of the problem!’ to paraphrase many awful movie scripts.

But it is undeniable that Christmas Creep is a real phenomenon. So, before I explore the subject, here is the Urban Dictionary definition. A phenomenon where the Christmas season starts earlier and earlier each year. ”If they don't keep the Christmas creep under control, the season will start in June before we know it.”

The signs are there if we want to look for them – spotting the first Christmas TV advert in early November. The German Christmas Market now appearing in over 150 of our precincts, 2-3 weeks earlier than the previous year. The ‘end of season sales’ suddenly becoming a series of ‘seasonal sales’ from the end of October through to early January. This year we even had the trailers for the Christmas movie – ‘Arthur Christmas’ – airing in the summer. And what about the social ‘one-up-man ship’ of when you receive your first Christmas card? You have to wonder if there is enough goodwill to go round?

So, lets get down to brass tacks! What is causing this extension of Festive Season bonhomie?

It could be the UK trying to align itself with the US holiday season, an increasingly protracted social orgy that extends from Halloween at the end of October, includes Thanksgiving, Christmas and goes all the way through to New Years Eve? And who doesn’t like a long holiday?

Or is it the current financial climate (that old chestnut!), demanding that major retailers provide consumers with a way to extend their Christmas spending? Encourage them to purchase across a longer period so they don’t feel the pain. Or, at least, until the deferred statements arrive!

But, like it or not, Christmas Creep is very real and it’s here to stay – and we must be on our guard! Because the moment that I hear people discussing their Christmas plans in July, I’m off.

But the next question is “where to?” This is not just a UK and US malaise. Nor is it confined to the Northern Hemisphere. In Australia, shops have been known to have their Christmas merchandise available as early as late September. Why? Because they don’t celebrate Halloween in the Antipodes.

So there you have it. Proof, if required, that Christmas Creep is undoubtedly a merchandising phenomenon - the evil retailers taking every opportunity to relieve us of our precious coinage.

The sad thing is that we fall for it every year – bah humbug! (No. 1)

Posted by Idealogy

Comment without Responsibility – (or how The News Of The World came to the rescue of journalistic standards)…

2011-11-24T15:06:00.007Z

Let’s begin with what many believe to be the lowest common denominator where research is concerned – good old Wikipedia.

“Journalism is the practice of investigation and reporting of events, issues and trends to a broad audience in a timely fashion. Though there are many variations of journalism, the ideal is to inform the intended audience.”

So, there’s a platform to build on and a simple enough principal to apply to the craft of reporting, whether you work for the Financial Times, the Daily Echo, the local Church magazine or you are a self-styled proto-blogger, bombarding the bandwidth with your ‘internet voice’, mostly because it gives you the key to unlimited, but casual, un-monitored publishing.

Somebody once wrote of David Foster Wallace, the brilliant novelist, essayist and short story writer who tragically died, aged 46 in 2008:
“Wallace’s nonfiction abounds with qualifiers like “sort of” and “pretty much” and sincerity-infusers like “really.”

I suppose it made sense, when blogging was new, that there was some confusion about voice. Was a blog more like writing or more like speech? Soon it became a contrived and shambling hybrid of the two. The “sort ofs” and “reallys” and “ums” and “you knows” that we use in conversation were codified as the central connectors in the blogger lexicon.”

Fascinating stuff, but as with so much of the social media melancholia (and lets not forget that a staggering proportion of published narrative on-line is negatively based) it has created a conversational style of discussion that is badly researched and, even worse, non-attributable. Which, come to think of it, is largely how we conduct our day-to-day dialogue.

But with the potential, and the melancholy, and the ‘complaint’ comes responsibility. It is too easy for may ‘bloggers’ to drown in their own self-modulated funk and not do what even the laziest journalist should – do the research and get both sides of a story.

There’s too much space to fill, deadlines are terrifyingly aggressive, and the pressure to keep generating new content is like water torture. Another day in the blogosphere is another challenge to keep creating new stories. But new stories about what? No one wants to deal with the big issues – so the focus is on gossip, rumour, innuendo and political incorrectness, the white noise of everyday life. What’s important about that?

I digress. The truth is that the pressure to publish means that we are largely subjected to unsubstantiated nonsense that those glued to on-line delivery soon turn into ‘the truth’. A ‘publish and hide mentality’ that means smaller business, without the means, the resources or the cash to defend themselves, become embroiled in – ‘guilty by association’ because some idle hack couldn’t be bothered to join up the dots.

It’s a symptom of the ‘holidays and cup cakes’ importance that permeates all social media – the ‘look at me’ generation squeezing every ounce of self-importance out of a few on-line column inches or a post on Facebook.

If this all sounds like we’ve been on the wrong end of a piece of ‘less than casual’ journalism recently you’d be right. Those venerable publishers Haymarket recently ran a front-page story in Campaign magazine and Brand Republic about KENWOOD “Reviewing its global advertising requirements” with the reason for it drawing reference to an ASA ruling about a TV advert as the reason for the review. The facts around both stories were inaccurate and caused both KENWOOD and Idealogy angst and wasted valuable time. If it showed what we can achieve when we are collectively mobilised to right a massive wrong – you’d be right on that count as well! But what a waste of energy. And will it stop third-rate, inaccurate publishing of un-worthy tittle-tattle? Not a chance. It’s a world that, in truth, we co-exist and feed in. But it doesn’t excuse poor craft and even poorer research – that’s fundamental, and should be non-negotiable. But until we can find a broad and reactive church that takes these people to task then comment without responsibility is a behaviour we had all better get used to.

But wait – change may be on the horizon! The Leveson Inquiry is all over the news, sitting astride the contemporary challenge of controlling the culture, practise and ethics of the press. It will be making recommendations on regulation and governance consistent with maintaining freedom of the press and ensuring the highest ethical and professional standards. Will it drill down to ‘computer eyed-oiks’ sitting in a Kenilworth bedsit trying to punctuate their 15 minutes of fame? Probably not! Will it focus on the ‘publish and be damned’ tabloid comics that millions ‘read’ every day. Most certainly! But it’s a step – the direction will become clear when we stop having to rant like this.

Posted by Idealogy

New clothes for the Emperor again! Pt.2

2011-11-21T12:00:00.045Z

Time for some pragmatism, Time for a digital idealogy!
To be effective in digital strategy “Discover yesterday, enjoy today and visualise tomorrow”.

5 Digital Idealogies

1. Ensure relevant and manageable self-sufficiency
2. Turn existing assets and activities into profitable pilots
3. Prioritise your housekeeping - search, social, information architecture and content strategy
4. Always follow the chronology of strategy > creativity > technology
5. Test! Test! Test! There are no rules of engagement!

This is where our Idealogy Digital Fingerprint can help…
Every business will have a digital fingerprint.

Idealogy’s Digital FingerPrint is a proprietary process designed to inform Digital Demand Strategy:

1. Gather and process past insights and behaviours
2. Apply current brand trends and commercial initiatives to the user experience
3. Provide a vision to influence future customer experiences and behaviours

By definition, your Digital FingerPrint will consist of a number of unique components, all of which are influenced by:

1. Roleplay
As in business contributions categorised by:
     •    Entertainment
     •    Transaction
     •    Information provision
     •    Engagement
2.    Brand fundamentals
3.    Channels and segments
4.    People, skills and competencies
5.    Technology platforms
6.    Information architecture
7.    Content

In order to define your unique fingerprint, we have developed our Digital Fingerprint process and modular framework.

If you’d like to know more then contact us.

New clothes for the Emperor again! Pt.1

2011-11-14T12:00:00.001Z

The digital galaxy is like the ‘Emperor’s New Clothes’ to anyone associated with the sales and marketing process.

The new technology, new challenges and the inevitable new sales initiatives that follow can leave budget holders completely bewildered.

In the nineties, we had the branding explosion; every design and advertising practitioner became a brand expert overnight. Some thoroughly poor advice was given and impractical ideas were implemented as a result of an industry eager to please and over-position itself.

Consequently, following a similar chronology of events to the branding explosion, many clients had their fingers burnt and still bear the scars today.

It began with the .com Crash and is now being followed by the .app Olympics!

The cloud and the airwaves are full of digital opinion. In the end, it will all come down to finding the role digital can play most effectively for your business, treating data as currency, prioritising your spend and setting realistic return-on-investment measures.

Let’s not forget we’re all rats in a giant lab being tested for behavioural trends daily. The textbooks have been burnt and the traditional ‘line’ has eroded, which means we have to come up with our own opinions based on continually evolving insights and a staunch commitment to innovation.

Idealogy’s BrandPrint™ reputation spreads across 2 continents

2011-11-07T12:00:00.000Z

It’s been a busy 9 months for Idealogy consultants. So far, 2011 has seen us roll-out our BrandPrint™ process in a number of glamorous locations around the USA and Europe – Frankfurt, Treviso, Tampa, Zurich, Chicago, Northampton, even Manchester – for several of our key B2B and B2C accounts looking to refresh, reposition or redefine their brand for internal and external business development.

As the name suggests, BrandPrint™ defines your brand: it’s the combined perception of everything you are, everything you say and everything you do. We set out to reach consensus by running workshops that target the unique commercial, cultural and personality characteristics of your products, your services or your business. BrandPrint™ accurately positions your brand within its market landscape and business context and the final discovery document underpins an integrated product, design and marketing communications strategy. It can even inform an Investment or Mergers and Acquisitions policy.   But, most importantly of all, it’s a shared, collaborative experience, owned and understood by everyone within your company. And the undeniable proof is there for all to see – this year we’ve successfully concluded BrandPrints for DeLonghi, Arvia Technology, METTLER TOLEDO Retail & Lab Products, PaperlinX and Eagle X-ray Technology (formerly a Smith’s Industries Division).

The outputs are almost always unique and range from developing Brand Fundamentals that influence new product development and even HR, through to proposition development for broad media campaign implementation. On more than one occasion, the BrandPrint™ outcomes have even influenced cultural change within a business.

So, the BrandPrint™ reputation is growing and Idealogy has seen a huge increase in the interest for this commercially effective process. But, without doubt, the real value in our process is the achievement of business wide consensus – shifting brand value away from the control of the few to becoming a rallying cry and a belief system for the majority.

Sorry, must dash – time to dust off the Passport again!

Posted by Idealogy

Do you need Facebook or Twitter? pt.2

2011-10-27T12:00:00.012+01:00

The You Tube Example

Understanding your Internet audience is one of the hardest things to do. While in the business world there is a lot of structure and business models that can work each and every time, in social media your work is always reflexive. This of course has some similarities with the principles of marketing and PR, but you’ll find there isn’t time to spend a month looking at figures, trying to work out how to improve your next mail out AND it means that traditional marketing techniques can fail!

It’s the here and now that dictates the break-neck speed in which you need to react, interact and direct your activities, as well as something more than a transparent offer.

Evaluating a Strategy

If you go to You Tube and type in PS22 Choir, you will get a considerable amount of results. Set up in 2000, their rise to fame has amassed them 37 Million hits on You Tube so far and they have been featured on some of the biggest programmes in the USA – while attracting a lot of celebrity attention.

However, despite subsequent TV appearances (generated from interest in their You Tube channel), their core audience are and has always been Internet users.
There’s no giveaways, there’s no mass marketing strategy, there’s no PR to speak of, just a group of people utilising You Tube to ‘share’ their information.

Next, type in Susan Boyle and you’ll see she has amassed well over 150 Million hits (if not more) on You Tube, but her core audience initially was TV, with the Internet providing a further sharing platform – hence the amount of views.

Now, is either one of these media channels more or less successful than the other? And just because you haven’t heard of PS22 Choir, does that mean they are less successful than Susan Boyle? The answer is a subjective one at best, but what’s more important is that the PS22 Choir has gained fame specifically online but the more sophisticated media companies (TV channels, agents etc) have managed to manipulate that space for Susan Boyle by harnessing what they see as another opportunity to raise awareness of the brand.

So, returning briefly to the PS22 Choir – they represent a genuine Internet based phenomenon so by looking at what they’ve done, how they’ve done it, how many views they have had, should give you some indication of how you build a strategy.

You need to look at audience BEFORE you look at product or brand and decide if you use a platform, how you can manipulate it past the point of base one.

Moving Forward

The realty is, just because you have a giveaway on your Facebook page does not mean you will be guaranteed success. It’s what you do during and after that will make the biggest difference to you and your brand online. There are promotions that run with minimal entries on Facebook, yet people like the page anyway. How can you explain that in marketing terms? Essentially there being no reward for ‘liking’ you?

The trouble with social media and the real world is that the approach to both is assumed to be the same, when it is in fact most definitely not.

So, rather than assume you need Twitter and Facebook because they’re there, have a think about the end users – not as marketing demographics but as people. Try and position your strategy so that it allows people to invest emotionally in your product or brand and do not get on the ‘discount’ or ‘free giveaway’ offer unless you have a specific plan of action when it’s all over.

Posted by Idealogy

Do you need Facebook or Twitter? pt.1

2011-10-20T12:00:00.028+01:00

Writing a blog about Social Media for business is actually a fairly easy exercise – and I’m not trying to be flippant about it.

People want to know the basics such as; do I need Facebook or Twitter? How do I get more followers? And so on, but while these are good questions they only really scratch the surface of something that’s ultimately much larger and sophisticated than it appears.

The irony perhaps is that while businesses sweat blood and tears trying to build Facebook and Twitter followers, they do not always spend the time trying to understand the way in which the social media landscape actually works – effectively creating a bit of a ‘catch 22’ situation when it comes to finding and keeping followers active on their behalf.

The theory is – the more followers you have the better you’re doing but if they’re not buying in to you or what you’re “selling” they’re actually valueless. So in this article, rather than offering up another cute blog on the latest Facebook profile changes – which you can find all over the Internet at the moment, I thought we’d spend some time highlighting how you can identify what’s really going on socially.

If you gain more understanding of your potential followers in the digital world, you will be more able to develop a better strategy for your business and social presence moving forward – something that should help you avoid social accounts with tumble weed rolling through them.

You Tube is King

If you think social media is all about Facebook and Twitter then think again! Aside from being the third most popular search engine globally, You Tube can define the social media landscape more easily than any other social platform.

Put in simple terms, You Tube allows you to see what digital savvy people are interested in online because popularity of videos is dictated by end-users themselves. This popularity counts for ‘in the moment’ videos as well as ‘long shelf life’ video content that can build communities of fans.

With Facebook and Twitter, there is a lot of information being broadcast and it can actually be very difficult to distinguish the good from the bad or indeed what is relevant to you and therefore can be harder to develop successful strategies for.

It’s obviously not quite as simple as posting a video up and waiting for the millions of hits to accrue though and you can manipulate the space once you understand it, but for now, we’re going to use it to get some insight in to online users and how they interact with content

So what now?

Over the past year especially, there have been attempts to define social media as a ‘marketing tool’, a ‘PR tool’, an ‘SEO’ tool etc. and while it is actually a combination of all of these things – with some band wagon jumping in between – all of these approaches tend to be about taking a product or brand to Internet users at large and expecting some miraculous result.

This is by far the biggest mistake you can make with social media. And why?

Because online users are more difficult to define in terms of traditional demographics found in marketing or PR.

Social relies on Internet users finding you. While you can use techniques to get them to your Twitter and Facebook pages, the real trick is keeping them there and ensuring they are interacting with you. This is why you need to have a solid strategy based on the digital environment.

You have to motivate your followers to work FOR YOU. They will share your content and they will interact but only if you put in the groundwork and go the extra mile.

Posted by Idealogy

We've been busy on Flickr!

2011-10-18T09:19:00.003+01:00

If you want to see what we've been up to over the past couple of months then get over to Flickr and check out our latest content. You'll find a mix of film, brochures, HQ reception concepts and interiors, email marketing and websites.
Enjoy!

Posted by Idealogy

Don’t Go Breaking Our Hearts – Kiki D has the Portland Street Office under close control!

2011-10-06T11:00:00.017+01:00

Karine Djivanian – who wouldn’t want a name like that?

She could be the mysterious love interest for any of the 3 Musketeers (in 3D). Maybe she could be the Curator for The Louvre in Paris. She would be a brilliant interpreter at the UN.

She could be anything she wants – but she’s Idealogy’s own Office and Client Services Administrator. Which is better than all of the others, don’t you think?

OK, let’s run with the mysterious French lady metaphor! Kiki (that’s her code name) was born in Paris’s 12th Arrondissement on New Years Eve, 1972. Her favourite colour is black, she loves dance music, going to the movies, adores children and, here’s where it starts to get a little thin (another passion) watching Eastenders. Then there’s chocolate – dark, rich French chocolate – mmmmmm!

Karine left Paris at 20 for the cold, dark (alright, warm, blue-rinsed) streets of Eastbourne, and it was while living there that she completed her BA Hons. in Hospitality Management at Brighton University. Her next move was to Southampton, to work at the Botley Park Hotel Golf and Country Club before, arguably, her biggest leap - a 12 year stint at Southampton International Airport as Customer Service agent, Flight Dispatcher, Load Controller and Supervisor – though not all at the same time!

A brief period at Kenwood in Havant then became the prelude to her current project at Idealogy where she takes enormous pride in her role as Office and Client Services Administrator. What’s that, I hear you ask? Well, it means that our office environment is always world-class, clients are well catered for when they visit us, and the Management team always have a smile on their faces because she takes away the stuff that none of us want to do.

At a personal level, Kiki loves Mauritius, especially when her family go there (generally for 3 months at the start of each year), using her airport connections to get back to Paris regularly to be with Mum and Dad, and then there’s skiing in les Gets.

What’s closest to her heart is simply looking after everyone and making sure things just work. Which means that we don’t have to worry about it – and that’s perfect.

If that’s a trait of being French/Armenian, then we should extend our diplomat relations. We need to open our borders right now!

Posted by Idealogy

It’s all in the detail

2011-10-03T11:00:00.017+01:00

On a daily basis we at Idealogy have to think not only about the ‘big’ ideas and the processes that will get us to the best solution, but we think about the detail too. We are used to thinking about the little additions and tweaks that make the difference but were still blown away when we saw the level of detail that Dalton Ghetti works at ALL the time!

Dalton Ghetti is a 49 year old carpenter, who for the last 25 years has been creating sculptures on a tiny scale. He uses three basic tools – a razor blade, sewing needle and sculpting knife to bring these minature works of art to life and amazingly he doesn’t even use a magnifying glass! While a figure will take him several months to make, he has spent two and half years on a pencil with interlinking chains.

He explains. “When I got into sculpture, I would make these huge pieces from things like wood, but decided I wanted to challenge myself by trying to make things as small as possible. I experimented sculpting with different materials, such as chalk, but one day I had an eureka moment and decided to carve into the graphite of a pencil”

Here are some of our favourites:

Yes this really is from ONE pencil!

Posted by Idealogy

Paying 20th Century Fox a 21st Century visit – in a Square, far, far, away!

2011-09-26T10:36:00.004+01:00

There’s no sitting on the fence with this. It’s a bit like Marmite, you either love it or hate it!

Star Wars…there, it’s out there. So where do you sit – if you’re prepared to answer the question?

But, whichever camp you have a foot in, why does it always feel like Mr Lucas (not Matt!) is trying to tickle his Storm Troopers into coughing up more money for new games, new toys, new comics - you name it.

Well, this September is the biggest event of all the very many huge Star Wars events. The complete series of numerically challenged films (4,5,6,1,2,3) is released in glorious, expensively re-mastered, sumptuously high-definition Blu-Ray. (You can feel the queues forming as we speak!). Well no, it was even bigger than that.

20th Century Fox, the Star Wars studio, announced a very limited, one-in-a-lifetime screening of one of the films in their private Soho Square screening room. 30-40 lucky, handpicked guests. A one and only event for the UK and no obvious way to get onto the guest list – unless, of course, you’re ‘street enough’ to know about HMV’s ‘Cool stuff money can’t buy’ programme.

Enter Steve Barnes, Idealogy’s resident movie-production expert (he spare-times with a local film production company) saw the deal, got 2 tickets and ‘Bob’s yer Mother’s Brother’ a Star Wars man-date was in motion.

Now, if Steve is a movie-lover (which is a strong claim as he hardly ever goes to visit the Big Screen), Dave Birch is a movie-monster and a bona-fide Star Wars addict (just recently, a fully functioning Light Sabre arrived at Idealogy’s Portland Street office. Do we need to add any more?) So, our very own C3PO and R2D2 (make up your own mind) sallied forth to London Town on 9th September and sat, goggle-eyed and emotional through the unique screening of ‘The Empire Strikes Back’, the second in the, let’s be quite honest, genre-defining series.

The problem is we can’t really get to the bottom of what happened. Start to talk to them about it and they become a little quiet and distracted. They’re happy to talk about quality, and “you can see where they spent the money”, but it’s as if the specialness will dissipate if they provide too much detail. So, their secret is safe with us, and maybe that’s right. To the aficionado’s, a day like that places you fairly high up the Star Wars social kudos ladder.

Now, all we can do is join the queue for the Boxed Set. And that’s exactly where George Lucas wants us.

Obi John Mikel – up the Blues

Posted by Idealogy

It’s Good To Talk – so why won’t anyone talk to me?..(or how a once iconic brand lost it’s voice!)

2011-09-22T12:50:00.004+01:00

I can’t be alone in this thought but why is it so difficult to speak to BT nowadays?

I would advise you to try their website but, for a world famous telecoms company, it’s a wilderness of useful contact numbers. And when you find them it’s because you’ve lost the will to live, accidentally click on a pretty icon and, hey presto, a number appears to entice you to waste hours being told how busy BT are at the moment – before someone within BT puts down their newspaper and coffee in, happily, Newcastle or Glasgow, utters monosyllabic nonsense and then packs you off into ‘Telecoms Hades’ to wait for another useless answer.

But, before this becomes another ‘Grumpy Old Man’ rant, let me put this in context. Over the last 5 years, I have been one of the old-fashioned creatures who actually pay for a ‘service’ from BT – in detail, I pay for a land line to a London Apartment, providing the ‘old tech’ link for the rather more ‘new tech’ Broadband service from another provider. It’s a phone line, plain and simple. In the early days we could even make phone calls as well as receive digital bandwidth, but that stopped 3 years ago (no reason why). The fault was suitably non-invasive so we didn’t report it – mostly because the broadband kept working.

Recently, however, the broadband stopped working. We tried to speak to BT about what was wrong and were told that the line had been cancelled. Why we asked? No idea came the typically BT response, you’ll need to talk to the Technical people, someone has cancelled it and the ‘system’ doesn’t say who. Mysterious…so we tried to speak to the Technical people, having been conveniently passed on by the Accounts people. We waited. And we waited. And we waited a little longer. And finally, after 38 minutes of ‘BT is very busy at the moment. We will answer your call as soon as we can!” we hung up and called another provider who was both more efficient and much, much cheaper!

But the episode left a nasty taste – and some concerns about how this would sort itself out. We determined to settle the matter with BT and draw a line in the sand – after all, life is short and full of lovely things to do. But this doesn’t quite make the short list.

That was 2 months ago. I am now the master of finding concealed contact information on the BT site but sadly not a master of speaking to anyone within those ‘evil chambers’. During July and August I made 6 attempts to make contact. I spent almost 2 hours of non-contact time not talking to someone.

Yesterday was a watershed moment. I received e-mail from BT with a bill (for services NOT provided, I suppose), which prompted more furious non-talking time. During 94 minutes of listening to how, miraculously, BT are still busy, I spoke to 3 plainly less busy people – 1 Technical, 1 Accounts, 1 Acquisitions (whatever that is) – I was bounced from Newcastle to Glasgow and back again, quite painlessly I might add, and I asked 2 specific questions to each person. Why was the line cancelled and would this be the last bill I would receive from BT? And guess what? Not one of them could answer either question.

SO, now I’ve worked it out! The reason the UK’s largest telecoms company doesn’t want to give you telephone numbers is because it doesn’t want to talk to you. And when it wakes up from it’s non-talking slumber, it has nothing of any value to say to you anyway.

Time for a company name change me thinks! Any suggestions?

Posted by Simon Dover

Using Innovation to Map our Key Accounts

2011-09-15T12:00:00.005+01:00

Most companies fuel growth by creating new products and services. But many repeat the same growth-sapping mistakes in their efforts to innovate. In practise, to innovate successfully you need to have made those mistakes in order to build potent solutions.

Now, we’re all worldly–wise. We know that innovation goes in and out of fashion as a marker for business growth, but just occasionally it provides just the nudge a business needs to resolve a number of inward facing issues.

As an example, one of Idealogy’s key strategic accounts is METTLER TOLEDO, the world-leading manufacturer of scales and analytical instruments. Currently, we work for 5 of their 9 Divisions, in 6 countries, from 11 locations and from a network of almost 50 contacts and associates. And to be frank, it’s a logistical nightmare – so what more persuasion do we need to try a bit of our own innovation.

Enter stage left, Key Account Mapping. Through a combination of collaboration, innovation, communications, programming and key account management expertise we’re coordinating a number of in-house management information systems, adding a sprinkling of public domain, easy access mapping and – hey presto, we’ve started our own journey of enterprise-wide improvement.

Key Account Mapping will allow us to view an account as a marketplace or landscape, providing clear direction on how to build the best communications strategy. It will be a forward looking tool that allows us to develop unforeseen opportunities, providing the personnel, service and international linkage that exists in large B2B account structures. And it will enable us to analyse our current position within an account, understand the relationships between divisions, prioritise where sales or business development effort needs to be applied, provide qualification of key individuals, and paint a clear geographical picture as a way to optimise management expenditure.

Is it ready yet? – NO! But we’re way beyond the ‘proof of concept’ phase. We’ve bolted together our Filemaker MIS and Basecamp systems. We’ve learned how to combine current email comms as live RSS style feeds within that framework and we know how to overlay a Google maps style geographical interface. SO, the pieces are falling into place. Some might say that we should just go out and invest in a CRM system – and they might have a point. But what’s the point of that? A challenge like this brings every part of the business together – from Relationship Managers, to Project Managers, and from Finance to IT.

And how many opportunities does a small business have to demonstrate how good it is at collaborating – especially with itself?

Posted by Idealogy

Twitter – redefining ‘Social Kudos’

2011-09-08T12:03:00.006+01:00

Twitter - the micro blogging tool that stormed the digital world all that time ago, and yes, in the digital world, years are like centuries, so it was an age ago…

I like Twitter. There are some seriously talented people on there and a wealth of information to be found, as long as you have the time to read it. If you’re not on Twitter then you’re missing out, especially if you have ‘niche hobbies’ or other passionate interests. It’s a useful personal interest tool but it is also a powerful business development mechanism - as long as it’s used in the right way! This brings me neatly to my topic: following vs. followers.

One thing I see a lot is people with huge numbers of followers - impossibly large amounts of people! I mean, seriously, how can you keep up with 14,027 people/brands? It’s impossible; you just can’t, well, in my opinion! It’s one thing to build up your following by relying on the ‘follow me and I’ll follow you’ system, and I understand that people have certain strategic objectives, but when I see individuals following 23,902 people with a similar number of followers it just makes me laugh! And it’s an easy target if you have no real strategic aims. Social media, particularly networks like Facebook, seem to encourage the numbers rather than the quality of the communication. How can anyone have 1,000’s of friends and keep them all happy. You couldn’t do it in real life, so why is the web any different? It just becomes ‘social kudos’.

Don’t get me wrong, numbers have their uses depending on your aims, but surely interesting content should be the real driving factor for ‘being followed’?

At Idealogy we follow those we think have something interesting to say and who we actually invest time in reading. That’s probably why we follow so few people - we just don’t have hours of spare time. That said, I did have an aim for the critical mass of our Twitter account - to have at least a 1:3 ‘follow to follower’ ratio. At present, we’re on 1 to 3.06, which is brilliant, so we must be doing something right.

I have the utmost respect for most ‘Tweeters’, however they gather their following, but I reserve my highest respect for those who have cultivated a healthy ratio of ‘followers to followed’. If you’re a brand, this is relatively easy (depending on the brand size). If you’re famous it’s even easier, but as an individual it’s very hard and, in my opinion, relies purely on the value of the content you produce.

So again, kudos to these people. You’re informative and interesting. You invest time in Twitter and it repays you with your following. And great content equates to popularity. At least, that’s the way I think it should be done.

Posted by Simon Johnson

Hands up if you all agree!

2011-08-25T10:15:00.001+01:00

Consensus – that’s a good word! The Oxford English Dictionary defines it as “majority of opinion: general agreement or concord; harmony”. It’s one of Idealogy’s ‘watchwords’. Which is OK if you can get 15 people in a room and everyone puts their hands up when decisions need to be taken. But life’s not like that.

One mans content is another man’s discontent. So, with the huge amount of widely differing content required for the new site, we set up a 3–man team, charged with engaging everyone in the business and getting as much (or as little) of their views and opinions down on paper. We had to create Customer stories. We had to generate and get approval for client testimonials. We had to write about things that we either knew very little about, or the people that should know had, frankly, forgotten. We had to integrate 23 years of company history and keep it fresh and interesting.

That was the challenge, and the internal consensus is that, largely, we’ve achieved that. But now comes the important part – your view! That’s when you’ll see the hands going down and people slipping quietly out of the room – “I wouldn’t have written it like that….”

Posted by Idealogy

No pressure then!

2011-08-25T10:10:00.001+01:00

One of the reasons this new site has been so long in development is that we have been maxed out with a number of ‘marquee’ sites and user experiences for major B2B and B2C customers – like Simple, Fitness First, Lifetime Awarding, Paperlinx, Millbrook and FastLane. And as with all things, success breeds success.

The combination of web management and the social media reputation explosion has meant our eye has definitely NOT been on the ball! Then you need to factor in the heightened level of expectation – we’ve been talking about this moment for so long (to anyone who would listen) that we have kind of scared ourselves; maybe we should add this? What about if we did that? That’s not working – we need to redesign! I don’t like the sound of that!

So, what we’re launching today is probably only about 30-40% of all the stuff we want to do. We still have Merchandising on the table. We haven’t done enough work on our ‘moving pictures’ portfolio etc, etc. So this really is a work-in-progress – but one that we’re very proud of. The next incarnation will probably take a similar time – so just keep waiting! It will be worth it…

Posted by Idealogy