Archive for March, 2010
Nicky attended this CIM conference yesterday at the Royal Agricultural College in Cirencester. It was an interesting session that covered the importance of digital marketing to the food and drink industry. We heard about Tesco’s strategy to highlight local products – see www.tesco.com/regionalsourcing/ and the innovative Virtual Farmers Market, who successfully combine ease of purchase with a novel 3D market experience.
Social media has become a hugely important part of the marketing mix and, if implemented correctly, is a fab tool for food and drink companies to engage with customers.
We’re working on our own social media guide at the moment – if you’re interested in receiving a copy drop me a line!
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Charge Bikes are a UK based bicycle company, not too far away from Synergy, in Somerset, owned by riders and specialising in simple and functional bikes and frames. The brand, along with the bikes themselves is distinctive and contemporary. The Charge brand is only 4 years old this summer but has already built a reputation among cyclists for classy design, understated but modern graphics along with a cheeky sense of humour in the way the brand is delivered. For example, all of their bikes and parts are named after objects you’d find in a kitchen, strange, but in an odd sort of way it helps them stand out in an already saturated marketplace. For example, no other bike company has bikes called a ‘Tap’ or a ‘Plug’ or cycling gloves called ‘Oven’!
Delivered with this modern and cheeky brand is an impressive attention to detail with even the smallest bicycle parts such as handlebar grips presented in well-designed, fun and eco-friendly packaging. This attention to detail extends to their website which is well designed, simple and easy to navigate, whilst utilising some beautiful photography. The site presents Charge as more than just a bike brand, more of a lifestyle choice with projects, videos, and podcasts sitting alongside the usual information about products, stockists and the company itself. Charge even encourage you to customise your own Charge bike, then upload images to the ‘My Charge Bike’ section of the site to become part of their community (and also to buy their parts to allow you to do this naturally!)
http://www.chargebikes.com/
Charge Bikes – our choice for our brand of the week, not at all influenced by Christian’s recent purchase of a Charge Plug Freestyler!
This week we have chosen Blackberry! With great functionality together with their own app store and the ability to tweet, update, email and of course make a simple phone call what more could you want from your little handheld friend! As well as its functionality we all agree that Blackberry have really stepped it up recently with new look, stylish handsets and a great new advertising campaign. ‘Love what you do’ is their new line and we all love what we have been doing with ours!
We are keeping our twitter up-to-date with the Blackberry ‘Ubertwitter’ app – Take a look at twitter.com/synergycreative
We love to have a good gossip about brands we like at Synergy and this week our Brand of the Week goes to Malmaison. This luxury hotel group have got great style, great service and a lovely, chatty tone with their communications. We love their humour and quirkiness in the rooms. Room keys that say ‘Stick with me, I’ll open doors for you’ Cleaning the room cards that say ‘This could get messy’ – and your traditional Do Not Disturb saying ‘I need to be alone’.
All aspects of the brand work well together from their visual brand style, to their decor, their staff friendliness and service to their language. We love it!
Why not send us your Brand of the Week? Click here to see how to get in touch with us.
I attended the Bank of England business briefing this morning which provides an overview on the economy for the last quarter. It was really useful and here is a few snippets from my notes:
* The UK economy grew 0.3% in the last quarter, the first rise after falling for six consequtive quarters.
* Consumer spending is on the increase. This could be due to stamp duty relief, car scrappage scheme, the change in vat and people taking advantage of the standard variable mortgage rate.
* Household savings ratio has risen slightly. This may mean more people are paying off their debt as well as being cautious – this is a good thing!
* Company liquidations have not been as high as in previous recessions – yeahh
Outlook:
Economic growth is bumping along and output is a little weaker than was expected back in November. Inflation is rising sharply in the short term but is likely to fall back below target. So in general, cautiously optimistic!