You have to admire How Do’s knack of putting together a decent speaker line up and consequently pulling in a decent crowd. The ‘How Do Manchester Creative Business Forum’, held at the stylish Studio at The Hive yesterday was typically well attended by a healthy mix of creative industry types drawn in by a wealthier mix of creative industry leaders. The speaker list was topped by Sue Little, Chief Exec of Mccanns, the acknowledged largest agency outside London, which if translated into the famous ‘That was the week that was’ sketch with the Two Ronnies and John Cleese, puts her firmly in the John Cleese position on the left – we all look up to her. Her presentation, whilst b2c biased and inevitably Mccanns view of the world, did capture the current mood of change with its challenge everything message – “think the unthinkable and do the undoable” driven by the rise of social media and newly empowered consumers. Liane Grimshaw, former Amaze director, punchily delivered some widely
known but ever relevant home truths summed up, really, as focus – focus on your team, your clients and what you’re good at. And finally there was a dry but fascinating presentation by a ‘Deputy Agent’ (disappointingly not dressed in Cowboy get up as I imagined) from the Bank of England on the overall picture of the economy which turns out to look like a lot of complex graphs cleverly vague enough to accommodate sizable margins for error and frequently caveated by global economic factors outside their control or ability to predict. Summed up, I think, as cautiously optimistic. Which I felt was the general mood of the event, coupled with the ubiquitous rhetoric about collaboration.
Category: industry news
So I went up to The Storey in Lancaster, a labyrinthine and fascinating venue ran by an equally fascinating Chief Executive with more connections than a Meccano Ferris wheel set and a business CV that wouldn’t flatter a Dragon’s Den panelist, with some nervousness but no real expectations. That nervousness was soon dissipated by a friendly compere – Byron Evans of Wallop Video who must be just as comfortable in front of a camera as behind one, a quick pint of Peroni and some fat comfy leather couches which set a relaxed and homely tone. Although this is reduced somewhat when you look up to see a lecture theatre with rows of faces looking back at you.
The debate soon found itself sidetracked by what exactly constituted a ‘big’ agency these days although the panel was well placed to consider this with a fairly representative spread – ourselves with a dozen people, Wash Design with 5 or 6, Juice Digital again 6 but part of Tangerine PR which is in the mid 20s and Red C Marketing at 42. Perhaps predictably it was the PR guy, Steve Downes,, who proposed that it wasn’t numbers of people or revenues but ‘fame’ that mattered. Rather trickily, this is unquantifiable, although the success of the likes of ‘Love Creative’ has clearly built a reputation leading to work from some big brands. Such examples also reinforce my assertion that it’s all about doing a good job.
Unquestionably size has been less and less of a determining factor which is evident in all the small agencies working on big brands, although capacity must have some bearing. Over the last 20 years or so, the best regional agencies such as The Chase in Manchester and Attik in Leeds, have broken London’s stranglehold on the industry through the excellence of their work setting a new precedent for big corporates to source creative work outside London.
Personally, I believe technology has also played a massive role to assist this and in two ways; firstly as a communications enabler – you don’t need to be next door to your clients with email, electronic documents and innovations like video conferencing and Skype. For example we’re currently working on a project for HP’s Ericsson account in Sweden, the final stages of which have seen alts made in real time in Indesign on our machines, viewed in their virtual conference suite. Secondly, very the nature of the job includes ever increasing digital media involving new skills and technologies. It’s often been smaller agencies that have reacted faster to learn and adopt the skills to deliver these emerging media – web, mobile, apps, viral – and so, when companies have needed these skills, they’ve had to work with smaller agencies either directly or through partnerships. Then, assuming they’ve delivered, credibility is built and any wariness dispelled. This, in turn, leads to more work for them and opportunities for other specialists of any size. At least that’s our experience.
This joint Marketing Industry Network and Creative Lancashire Event at The Storey in Lancashire on the 11th May is set to discuss the benefits or otherwise of Agency size and how small businesses manage to work with big ones. I’ve agreed to be one of the panelists, although having never done anything quite like this before, do so with some nervous concern, mostly about the potential of making a fool of myself in front of lots of people. Plus I’m going to have to start paying attention to panelists on the telly for style tips – David Dimbleby? Michael Portillo? Ian Hislop? Simon Cowell? Perhaps The Hoff? I suppose, given that bd2 is a dozen people in Wigan but we’re currently working with several businesses with revenues in excess of $100 Billion, I’ll have something useful to contribute.
However, and I’m not sure I should reveal this before the event, I don’t think there’s any big secret; it’s all about doing a great job, being professional and looking after your customers.
For more info, or to book tickets, see http://minetwork.me/2010/12/30/big-brother-little-brother-does-size-matter/
Well it was a buffet actually. And it was tea time. But I may well have just had my last free lunch at last night’s Creative Wigan event.
On the upside it was quite a nice buffet.
It seems that small businesses don’t need to buy into the idea of the “big society” because it’s going to be a compulsory purchase. With the demise of the RDAs and diminishment of Business Link – today the North West’s version lost nearly two thirds of its staff with 198 redundancies – it’s looking like self-help is the only help available. That might turn out to be an unfair comment, but having heard fairly senior speakers from both bodies last night, and having recently attended a dinner at which the NWDA’s outgoing head Steve Broomhead made similar noises, it’s very clear that the situation is very unclear. No one really knows what support there will be for small businesses, or more specifically and more selfishly, those businesses in the creative and digitial sector, except that it’s going to be much less and it certainly won’t be financial.
There are some bright lights on the horizon, such as the much vaunted Media City, which you can see taking shape, although it’s still a bit of a mystery how to get into it. Creative and digital as a sector is stronger than many other sectors and there are some bold efforts to link arms and fight together such as the newly reconvened Manchester Publicity Association, although it remains to be seen how effective that is and if it ends up being completely Manchester centric like the other trade bodies. However, as elaborated upon in a recent post ['A message in a bottle bobbing in the marketing industry's 'Perfect Storm'], collaboration offers the potential of ‘stronger together’ and it’s certainly the buzz-word of the moment, although it’s not clear how much of it is actually going on. For my part, I’d be happy to chat synergies with like minded creatives and, again, offer an open invitation for tea and biscuits in our boardroom, or a pie and a pint in The Brocket Arms.
We may well have had our last free lunch, but let’s try and make sure it wasn’t the Last Supper.
It might just be me, but I can’t help associating ‘Expos’ with places like Barcelona, Milan or Cologne rather than Wigan. Then again, I never thought the word ‘Wigan’ would appear in the same sentence as ‘Premiership football’, but it’s been five seasons now. That brings me neatly, if admittedly in the style of a local radio DJ’s cheesy segway, to the first Wigan Business Expo held at the Latic’s DW Sports Stadium. The event consisted of a small exhibition, populated by a broad selection of local businesses – including bd2, a main seminar room, a smaller seminar room and a couple of rooms for ‘meet the buyer’ one to ones.
The success of the event is perhaps best illustrated by the only two criticisms one could make; namely that the venue wasn’t big enough and it didn’t go on for long enough. A truly positive indictment. There’s always a vibe at these things and I felt immediately a good ‘buzz’ amongst the exhibitors and the more than respectable number of visitors. There was a real sense of pace, bustle and efficiency being driven through by the organisers. The seminars were all of interest and kept to quick fire 15 or 20 minute presentations as were the meet the buyer sessions which allowed many local businesses access to key individuals from a series of local procurers from the Council, NHS and Heinz.
Understanding the procurement practices of some of the larger businesses and public sector organisations in the town has long been a frustration of mine. Over the years I’ve spent a lot of time just trying to find the right door to knock on or just hoping that they will include local suppliers when sourcing any service but I’m often left wondering why they don’t look local first. It’s not impossible of course – take the work we’ve done for Milliken a large American owned company based in Wigan but using London agencies. It took a great many approaches but when we eventually got in front of the Marketing Director at the time, and earned an opportunity to show our abilities, it lead to numerous projects over many years – although her perception was fairly typical:
“We were genuinely surprised to find a local agency with so many diverse services and such a high level of creativity right on our doorstep. We are used to dealing with leading London agencies so finding bd2 was extremely refreshing.”
So it’s great to see such a positive start to Wigan Council’s buy local initiative and to see the public sector and larger businesses engaging with local service providers, who, as our experience with Milliken demonstrates, can compete on service, quality, capability and virtually always on cost. And it’s ‘hats off’ to the organisational leg work of Claire Walsh at Wigan Council and Keith Molloy’s vision and drive to get the ball rolling. I’m delighted that material from the day will be published on the way-to-work website we recently built for Wigan MBC which demonstrates both the Council’s increasing willingness to buy local and our ability to deliver.
I really hope that the success of the Business Expo provides the platform for further effort into the drive to buy local. I’m sure that this will include future Expos which will probably need to be held in a bigger venue; ideally extended to a full day with the seminars repeated morning and afternoon so that delegates don’t miss any; and finally, some additional buyers who will hopefully be attracted by the success of this first event.
In looking back over the last ten years working both on the agency and the client side of the marketing and creative industry I am happy to say that in ‘being creative’ I have always had more questions to ask than solutions to offer. I hasten to add that there has been a goodly chunk of creative solutions delivered, and would hope that those who have worked with me would back me up on that. In simple terms then, what I’m saying is that I do ask a lot of questions. None more so than those that I ask of our industry itself.
My relationship with the marketing and creative industry is passionate and sometimes filled with frustration. I fall out with it regularly, albeit quietly and mostly in private. I sometimes get disenchanted by it but mostly it fills me with inspiration, energy and motivation. I am sure that I am not unique. In fact I am sure that there are a great many creatives working in the NorthWest who believe that they and the Agency they belong to are the ‘box deluxe’. I am also sure that the majority who believe this are absolutely right. Can you sense a ‘but’ coming?
The marketing industry in the NorthWest is young, vibrant, capable, slick, intelligent and tech savvie like never before, and yet the financial climate across the UK has businesses on their knees and struggling to get back to their feet. The combination of business-centric technological creativity bubbling to the surface amidst a sea of businesses taking on water, has to be looked upon by the NorthWest marketing industry as a big opportunity, or, as Tony Foggett of CodeComputerLove described it recently – a Perfect Storm. Perhaps the new Media City will be the Ark within which some of us can find shelter – an opportunity for NorthWest agencies to get involved with big business, big projects, big creativity…BUT (there it is), I fear that the Ark probably isn’t big enough to house us all and I’m not entirely sure where the front door is anyway. Some, like Code, probably don’t need the Ark as, in comparison to the majority of us channel ferries and sail boats, they look like a supertanker with bows lapped by a mild surface ripple.
This view is reinforced by the plethora of agencies and specialisms out there, just look at the number of categories for entry into this year’s Marketing Industry Network Awards: Advertising Agencies, Design Consultancies, Digital Agencies, Integrated Agencies, DM Sales promotion Agencies, B2B Agencies, Public Relations Consultancies, Market Research Agencies, Media Sales Agencies, Marketing Agencies, Events Companies, Media Agencies, Social Media Marketing Agencies, Full Service Agencies, Outdoor companies….. yep, there’s a lot of us.
Those who attended the recent Insider Business of Media summit [see previous post] repeatedly heard the case for collaboration and tweeted “Collaboration is key”. Then we all went back to our day jobs and continued to read about other agencies going belly up and quango’s that have quan-gone. Question: Hand on heart, and despite what we all say in public, do we really want to collaborate with other, possibly competitive, agencies given all that paranoia about looking up each others skirts? Well, for a start off, it means being truly honest about our respective in-house capabilities, rather than purporting to be experts at everything. I feel that historically there has been a concern that opportunities are missed if agencies don’t at least try to be good at everything, although creativity by it’s very nature is organic and so an agency’s creative offering naturally grows with experience. Conversely though, as agencies become known for certain areas of expertise there is a convergence toward that particular discipline, probably at the cost of other less practiced or less profitable disciplines. It is this convergence towards real expertise if combined with true honesty, I believe, that creates the opportunity for genuine collaboration.
It’s my opinion that in order to better ride the huge swells that this ‘Perfect Storm’ is generating, we need to get our cards on the table and be honest about our in-house capabilities in order to create effective cross-agency collaboration that brings together the best combination of minds and skills.
So here’s another question: How many times in the last five years have you seen the inside of another agency? Once, maybe if at all? Well, this message in a bottle ends with a permission to come aboard – an open invitation to bd2 studios. We have always been honest about our in-house capabilities, as we, along with our clients know where our expertise lies. So, with our cards on the table, and our skirts held high, I am positive that we can create a real buoyancy by exploring potential fit with our creative peers and then through true collaboration. I’m sure it’s not just me that would like to see the various professional bodies, trade associations and business media working together to devise a better platform for dialogue than the usual networking events, and believe that if any industry can find a creative solution to the collaboration conundrum it should be ours. Last question – where’s the harm in an exploratory chat over a pie and a pint? The boardroom’s always available but I’m hoping it’s not big enough!
Another engaging event by North West Business Insider, who seem to me, to be trying that bit harder recently. It follows a recent ‘Leaders Dinner’ at the Lowry Hotel which featured a rather entertaining speech by Mr Dave Whelan, owner of our client DW Sports. He was on great form, full of tales about starting up his first market stall, then his discount stores and taking the captivated audience up to the point of buying JJ Bradburns, the single sportsstore he then grew into the once mighty JJB Sports empire - stories that mostly took place just a short stroll down the road from our offices.
The Business of Media event took place within the brightly coloured and very curvy interior of the Lowry Centre, as opposed to the completely unrelated Lowry Hotel, I suppose if it’s in Salford it seems it has to be named after Lowry. Compered by Insider’s editor Michael Taylor, in his usual robust fashion that never shies from interjecting a Yorkshireman’s style ‘a spade’s a spade’ comment or forcing speakers to meet the agenda, it featured a solid mix of subject matter from an array of appropriate presenters.
It kicked-off with some scene setting by Deloitte’s Media and Communications partner Ed Shedd, who had the good grace to make fun of his own name [but left me wondering if the full version was Edward Sheddward?]. He ran through some of Deloitte’s sector research, which can be loosely summarised as TV is still the media king, especially in emerging markets; that the UK leads the way in adopting digital media; and virtually everyone still prefers to get their hands on an old fashioned printed newspaper or magazine rather than an e-version.
You expect to see the odd bloke [in both senses] with a pony tail at these events, but it’s usually a geek who’s so busy with geekery that he hasn’t seen the Armstrong and Miller Show. It was a little surprise then when the pony-tailed next speaker turned out to be the money man from White Horse Capital although his CV revealed he’d made his money in publishing and media, which still doesn’t justify a pony tail. Then again, being loaded, he doesn’t need to. He delivered an excellent precis both of what investor finance is [angel investors and VCs at least] and what the ramifactions of trying to engage with them are. And he managed to pull off that rare combination of simplifying things for the uninitiated without being patronising.
The MPA has recently relaunched and its new Chief Exec, Cindy Simmons, tried to reassure us all that it was still up for the legendary parties of the past, but was also a serious vehicle to bring together people from the media, film, creative and digital industries to do serious things. And to party. It seems harsh to ask if we need another one of these when the MPA was one of the originals, but do we? There seems to be so many industry representative associations all with slightly different angles and agendas, all very well intentioned but all overlapping to a greater or lesser extent. And all too Manchester centric?
This was followed by a Dragon’s Den style series of pitches by various businesses to a distinguished panel of experts for their consideration and advice. Starting with Simon Sinclair from new ad agency ‘Waggledance’ who, dressed in ‘It ain’t half hot mum’ shorts, Dunlop Greenflash tennis shoes and bright pink chequered linen shirt had either assumed that there’d be far less suits in attendance or had suffered the inverse of losing his suitcase at the airport when returning from holiday – lost all his work clothes so only got holiday clothes left? Some of the creative was imaginative and highly amusing however, and the company’s ethos was a good one; I especially liked the idea of finding a brand’s ‘nectar’ – the sticky bit that attracts customers and their friends and keeps them. The business side was a bit vague however with more work won and completed than seemingly feasible for a start up, leaving one with the assumption that this was some kind of phoenix.
Al Mackin from SEO agency The E Word recounted his business’s impressive growth from start up to 16 people in double quick time. Seems like a great business but probably one that needs to diversify further from pure SEO and PPC as its work will no doubt be eroded as clients build their knowledge and do it themselves, that the low cost of entry allows cheaper competitors to undercut them [even if the service is not like for like, will clients understand the added value?] and then there’s Google’s drive to level the playing field for natural search and sideline the manipulators.
Scream management are a talent agency for young actors built up by MD Tracey Bell who gave a charmingly understated account of the business and outlined its ambition to develop a ‘Fame’ style school in Manchester. An early occupant of space in MediaCity, Scream would seem ideally placed to exploit the new opportunities there and is already working with an impressive array of clients including Disney and Nickelodeon. Add the right advice and some solid business support to this and Scream can no doubt continue to grow and to open its school, which is great if you like spending time with loads of precocious kids.
Most interesting, at least from my perspective, was the presentation by Tony Foggett from Code Computerlove, the recognised leading digital agency in Manchester. Their projects and client list are enviable and Tony gave some great insights into how their business operates and how Code have achieved success with a strategic approach which has had to adapt to the ever-changing media landscape and has, in turn, led to a greater emphasis on collaboration.
The event finished with a Q&A session with Philip Coen, CEO of In the City, who gave us the advantage of his considerable experience. Overall then, a stimulating and motivating event hosted just across the water from the guilded temple of the new MediaCity which, in theory, provides some fabulous opportunites for creative media businesses in the region. Although I couldn’t help feeling that I was looking across a moat without a drawbridge, and this might be closest I can get to it.
