Basics

A couple of weeks ago, those nice people at British Gas decided to send its customers a heartwarming message about its commitment to the environment. I received a small box containing four low-energy lightbulbs, and a nice leaflet explaining how much money they might help me save.

Except - and stop me if you've heard this before ...

1. I got two boxes, a couple of days apart
2. The name on one of the letters was wrong
3. The salutation on both letters was gibberish
4. The postman had to knock on the door each time, because the box would not fit through the letterbox (or indeed _any_ letterbox, so his round that week was taking a very long time indeed, about which of course he was rather upset)

Arrange the following words into a well-known phrase or saying: foot, shoot, the, in, yourself

I think I understand how this has happened. At the same time I am speechless at the waste, ignorance and arrogance the whole thing betrays.

The letter was signed by the Managing Director. I may not be the first to be writing him a slightly more carefully crafted response.

Crunch?

1. The local coffee shop says it has never been busier, and they are surprised, as they expected to be an early casualty of people cutting back on discretionary spending.

2. A household name in doors and windows quoted us a laugh-out-loud high price for a replacement door, admitted that 'they don't sell many of these', and ended the call.

3. One of our many local charity shops is dutifully offering '3 for 2' packs of its (charity!) Christmas cards.

It's a confusing picture of the economy at the moment, almost as if we don't quite know how we're supposed to behave.

Picture: 30cakesin30days

Utopia

Attended a briefing session yesterday from the Gloucestershire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust. Not only was the content fascinating, it was also interesting to listen to the language being used.

One initiative in development, Utopia, is actually an exercise in the management of the complete customer lifecycle (the Chief Exec calls it the 'patient experience', and acknowledge that they are at the 'foothills' of this approach).

They are developing a programme of 'Evidence Based Design' which will involve patients in the re-design of the way care is provided.

There is acute awareness of the challenges of the marketplace which has been created by the changes in funding and oversight of the health service.

It's a hugely complex organisation, with 700,000 patients / customers a year. And it's starting to talk about the patients' perspective, and how to incorporate that into service delivery. For an organisation whose processes were mostly built in the 1940s, it's impressive stuff. What are you doing at your company?

photo: Frank C Muller

Trousers

So after all the prohecies of doom, the UK figures on retail spending last month showed a very small drop. All that noise and frenzy, and maybe things aren't really that bad. Except we've had our attention distracted by the noise and frenzy.

Walking the dog yesterday afternoon, I passed a mother and child. The child was probably three years old, dressed warmly against the chill of the early twilight. The mother was on her mobile phone, and had been since they came into my view. As our paths crossed, I could hear the child saying "Mummy my trousers are falling down", as she continued to chat. He was right, they were.

Beware the distant voices, they might be distracting us from the real business at hand.

Posturing in the wilderness

In the last few days, three friends have expressed their amazement and frustration at the way in which some marketing agency people work (time management and ego seemed to be a common theme).

That's not entirely a revelation, since it's been that way for a long time. It is amazing though that someone hasn't changed the prevailing model to fit better what clients want, and how the world is starting to work (collaborative, peer-to-peer networking, rather than sequential hierarchies). What a huge opportunity for an agency prepared to make the change. Or to build something new.

The idea for a specialist service around data-driven, media-neutral creativity and execution, is starting to look more like an idea for a new kind of marketing agency.

Photo: Yogaslackers.com

Falling

Word is, direct marketing response rates are falling in many sectors. Some companies are starting to talk about reducing or even cancelling their dm spend.

Or ... what you could do ...

... is be smarter with the spend. Use your data and your insights to create marketing that is better targeted, more relevant, data-driven, to strengthen customer relationships, and improve lifetime value.

We should be doing this anyway. With tighter controls being put into place, and sharper eyes on the budgets, all the more reason to do it now.

Photo: George Johnson

Fear

Attended a presentation last Thursday evening by key players in the campaign for Thomson Holidays that won the Business Performance Awards from the Institute of Direct Marketing.

Brilliant work. A great example of the kind of creativity, precision and skill that I want to deliver too. Hats off to the client and to their agencies WDMP and Creatormail.

Also learned something acutely depressing. It appears that the same agency is behind the excellent work for Carphone Warehouse that created highly personalised - and effective - welcome books and upgrade packs.

So three examples in the UK where data, creativity and technology have brought fantastic direct marketing results (the third is the TUI travel ticket book, now copied by Thomas Cook too) - are all from the same agency. I asked the guys what they thought was stopping anyone else doing this kind of work.

Their answer was that clients were afraid.

If that's true, then we're all falling down on the job. Or, maybe, from the 'glass-half-full' view of the world, there's a huge opportunity out there.

Photo by Terry Goss