The BrandSpankin' Blog

Why you should probably NOT spend money on print advertising!

2011-11-29T10:21:00.001Z

IF YOUR business is a start-up, or just a small business, you face the challenge of managing your limited resources whilst trying to generate a return.

In difficult economic circumstances, winning new business – even generating leads can be hard. Then there’s the question of building awareness more broadly, to ensure that when prospects make a “buying decision”, your business is front of mind.

It’s usually when you’re toying with these imponderables that the phone rings and some slick-talking smoothie says that the publication he works for has an available page, they’re due to go to print imminently and out of the goodness of his heart, he thought he’d offer it to you at a very reasonable discount. Yes, that old chestnut!

Well, I’m not suggesting that you say NO to every one of these media-sales types…just 99.9 per cent of them. Brass is better in your pocket than theirs!

In short, here’s my advice regarding how to respond when approached to buy advertising space:-

- Ask if their circulation is audited by ABC (Audit Bureau of Circulation). If it’s a radio ad, the equivalent organisation that audits radio listener figures is called RAJAR (Radio Joint Audience Research)

- If they say they don’t have these metrics, but offer a “Publisher Statement”, there may be little basis to whatever they claim as their circulation. Ask them to qualify the figure by giving you their print run.

- Ensure that they offer you a detailed demographic statement regarding listeners/readers. Ask yourself if this demographic is really who you need to be selling to.

- Ask them if they have successfully advertised a business offering services like yours previously. Can they qualify this? Ask them what return on your investment you might expect. If this is answered in a woolly fashion, ask them if they have case studies from businesses comparable to your own. Or better still, ask if you can have the contact details of an advertiser who has gained a measurable return on their investment from advertising with them.

- If at any point when you ask these sorts of things, you are given prevarication or evasiveness, it suggests they can’t give you the assurances you need before you part with your money.

I was with a client recently when a salesperson from a lifestyle publication turned up. She flannelled through most of the stuff I’ve outlined, so I asked her to do a “taster” deal - and that if it worked my client would commit to a series of adverts. The taster I suggested was a free one page ad for my client and he’d pay them half of the profit he generated from any leads the ad generated. Suffice to say, she declined. More to the point, since then neither I nor my client have been approached by the publication. This speaks volumes about their confidence in their product to do anything beyond vanity advertising.

In fairness, you might want to advertise for reasons other than straightforward lead generation, such as long-term awareness building. In which case, at the very least this approach should get you access to better than rate-card prices.

Finally, as a test of a publication’s commitment to giving you a deal that actually works, why not ask them to publish a press release for you? If you get a response to your story, it’s reasonable to assume that if you advertise with them you might see a response too!

Pendle Pub Walk Top 20

2011-06-17T13:35:00.007+01:00

Greetings Pendle Pub Walk pop pickers!

Brandspankin’ is very proud of its sponsorship of Pendle Pub Walk and tomorrow’s walk is set to be the biggest and best yet, with over 500 walkers covering the 10 mile route.

We’re hoping for good weather, but a few summer showers won’t dampen the spirits – especially if you tuck into a pint or two of Spellbinder – the special ale produced for by event sponsor Moorhouse’s Brewery.

In the meantime, here’s our Pendle Pub Walk Top 20 – listen to this tune - whilst reading the following...not ‘arf!

These Boots Were Made for Walking - Nancy Sinatra
Zippin’ up my boots (Going back to my roots) - Richie Havens
I would walk 500 miles - The Proclaimers
Running up that Hill - Kate Bush
Walk On By - Dionne Warwick
Walking in the Rain - The Ronettes
Walking on sunshine - Katrina and the Waves
You'll Never Walk Alone - Gerry and the Pacemakers
I Can See For Miles - The Who
Hurry up Harry (we're going down the pub) - Sham69
Walk This Way – Aerosmith
Run to the hills – iron Maiden
I walk the line – Johnny Cash
Walking back to happiness – Helen Shapiro
Walk on the wild side – Lou Reid
Don’t walk away Renee – The Four Tops
Walk of Life – Dire Straights
Walking On Sunshine - Rocker's Revenge
(You Got To Walk And) Don't Look Back - The Rolling Stones
Raindrops keep falling on my head – BJ Thomas

Funded PR & Social Media Marketing Courses are back!!

2011-04-18T14:03:00.000+01:00

We have managed to access limited match funding for clients who want to come on our PR & Social Media Marketing Course. Total cost is £500 + VAT (£250 of which will be funded). Funds and places are limited, so please call us now to register your interest on 01282 878 301.

Our training courses have been extremely popular and have had a brilliant response from attendees – we guarantee that if you do the course and implement our advice, you’ll get a measurable return on your investment!

The Brandspankin’ PR and social media marketing course trains your business to:-

• Formulate key messages properly

• Write a compelling, “media-ready” press release

• Formulate an objectives-based Comms/Marketing plan that locks your

marketing activity into your Business Plan

• Understand the requirements of journalists and publication editors

• Use a series of freely available tools to monitor and measure the success of

your campaigns

• Understand how to optimise and best utilise your presence on social media

sites including Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Youtube and Foursquare.

• Use a variety of online PR resources to self-publish your news releases

• Use blogging platforms to self-publish

• Massively enhance your online presence – so-called “Digital Asset Optimisation”

• Significantly increase traffic to your website

• Significantly increase profitability

SIMCAM Stan catches nuisance knocker in the act!

2011-04-15T15:29:00.001+01:00

Disabled Stan's ingenious wireless camera system foils phantom nuisance

AN ELDERLY pensioner at a Hull Residential Home has slept soundly for the first time in five years, thanks to an ingenious system that is the brainchild of a disabled entrepreneur!

The pensioner had been plagued by a malicious door knocker for the past five years and had barely had an unbroken night’s sleep. However, thanks to Stan Glover’s SIMCAM the problem is now a thing of the past.

“I have been plagued with a phantom door knocker for the past five years”, she said. “Thanks to that new camera they daren’t knock anymore!”

Stan’s clever device came about after he suffered a massive stroke in July 2008. He was told he would probably never regain his mobility, but plucky Stan, 58, decided to prove doctors wrong and teach himself to walk again. After a fall whilst teaching himself to walk again, Stan almost fallen into the fire and his wife worried about even going to the shops and leaving him alone.

The experience inspired Stan to come up with SIMCAM - a small, portable, alarm remote camera powered by battery or mains and fitted with a SIM card, allowing it to call mobile phones or send emails. The ingenious solution costs a fraction of orthodox CCTV systems and comes with a remote key fob, meaning that if a disabled user falls it activates the alarm/camera.

Solving the mystery of the malicious door knocker is the latest in a series of successful applications for Stan’s SIMCAM device. The SIMCAM has also alerted Nursing home staff to the unauthorised presence of a young Male at 5:45am one morning recently. The Nursing home Manager has the images and expects to identify the person involved.

Andy Rollins, Contracts Manager from 24-7 Security Systems Hull, said: “Our Company had been asked to patrol this area to see if we could apprehend this vicious nuisance knocker. The lady’s life had been made a misery, being woken up at all hours of the night by loud banging on her door.”

He added. “We heard about SIMCAMS and Stan came out in person to show the full range of products. We immediately purchased one of each of his Alert cameras and simply located it near the lady’s door, set it remotely via our mobile for infrared motion detection and lo and behold at 2.30 am that night an alert by text was received on the patrol guard’s mobile. The SIMCAM had taken 8 pictures showing the individual in the act of knocking on this lady’s door.”

Karl Crossland, Managing Director of 24-7 added: “It really does give you peace of mind. We now have images transferred from e-mail to a cd-rom which can be used in evidence.”

“The Nursing home has been shown the evidence. We feel this will be the end of the matter and we will no longer be required to patrol. For less than £200.00 we solved a five year long problem. I think we will be using quite a few of SIMCAMS products!”

SIMCAM Stan catches nuisance knocker in the act!

2011-04-15T15:29:00.000+01:00

Disabled Stan's ingenious wireless camera system foils phantom nuisance

AN ELDERLY pensioner at a Hull Residential Home has slept soundly for the first time in five years, thanks to an ingenious system that is the brainchild of a disabled entrepreneur!

“I have been plagued with a phantom door knocker for the past five years”, she said. “Thanks to that new camera they daren’t knock anymore!”

Karl Crossland, Managing Director of 24-7 added: “It really does give you peace of mind. We now have images transferred from e-mail to a cd-rom which can be used in evidence.”

New Facebook business pages

2011-03-11T13:56:00.001Z

Well yesterday was the day! The day Facebook business pages automatically changed over to the new design bringing them more in line with the design and functionality of personal pages. If you haven’t already looked, your business page may look a bit different today when you log on.

So what are the differences?

One of the first things you’ll notice are the tabs have gone from the top of the page. The navigation is now down the left hand side. There on the left...yes there, can you see them? Small aren’t they?!

According to Facebook it’s what we all expect, so that’s where they’re staying. I’m sure at first the ‘navigational links’ will not get used as often as the tabs were – which could mean lost opportunities, but it does mean we’ll have to be a bit more creative in letting people know about them and, like everything else in life, after a while what once seemed new, weird and different will become second nature.

Another change that will take some getting used to is the fact that wall posts now go through a filtering system and are no longer shown in chronological order. This can be very annoying and confusing, especially for admins - and comments left on facebook’s help pages certainly seem to bear this out. A post made by an admin yesterday for instance could show further down the page than a comment a fan made last week, AND it’s different for different visitors.

Why have they done this you may ask? It’s confusing for you as an admin but apparently not for your fans or visitors. It allows the posts to be more relevant, in a social capacity – rather than placing the most popular post at the top. It also ties in with how many, if any, of your friends have interacted with, commented or liked a post. This is a social network after all and by doing this they are given greater preference to more ‘social posts’ rather than the “shouty” sales pitch that we may want to deliver. But again it just means we have to be more creative and engage with our visitors a bit more, which aint necessarily a bad thing.

Whilst some might see the changes listed so far as negative there are some good amendments. You can now ‘like’ a page and ‘comment’ on wall posts of pages that you have liked. This means that you can go off and find relevant pages to your business and ‘like’ them, which will then show up on the left side of the profile page, under your tiny navigational links, and will rotate with each page refresh. Then, as long as their wall is set to open where others can post freely, you can “like” posts, leave a comment, or post something up yourself. But be careful not to fall into the trap of liking dozens of other businesses and posting comments everywhere just so you get in front of loads of people. This could and should be seen as spammy and could get you banned and cause more brand damage than it’s worth. Think about what and where you post and don’t do it just for the sake of it.

There are other more techy changes to get your head around too, but from what I’m told these are going to make things a lot easier. So, gone is FBML and in comes iFrames. Anything using FBML previously will still be ok, but as of today you’re going to have use iFrames. This, should open up a whole range of possibilities. You can basically put some content onto your website, ensuring its 520px wide, and then embed that page into a relevant navigational link (tab).

And that’s about it really. I could go on and talk about the five thumbnail pictures you’ll see at the top of the page or the fact you can see the activity summary when you log in or about spam monitoring or the fact you can now feature administrators to give your business page a more personal feel...or...or...or, but I think I’ll leave it there for now and let you discover the rest for yourself. Feel free to get back to us with any tips or hints on the new Facebook business pages and we’ll post them for everybody’s benefit!

Jac

NEWS RELEASE: Pendle Pub Walk set to be bigger than ever!

2011-03-02T10:21:00.000Z

ROTARIANS from Burnley Pendleside Club have announced the 3nd annual Pendle Pub Walk, and this year’s sponsored charity event promises to be the biggest yet!

The 10 mile circular walk – scheduled for Saturday 18^th June - will begin in Barley and pass through some of Pendle's most stunning scenery, stopping off at some of the area’s finest pubs as waypoints. This year’s walk is set to raise money for Pendleside Hospice – a very worthy cause that is close to the hearts of thousands of people across east Lancashire.

Grahame Trudgill one of the organisers of the walk, said: “The event gives people an opportunity to enjoy a summer walk through wonderful scenery and in the company of friends and family. It’s also a really good opportunity to meet lots of new people – I was really struck by the atmosphere and camaraderie at last year’s event, as people walked together chatting and stopping off for drinks on the way round.”

“This year’s walk is going to raise money for Pendleside Hospice. So many of us have a connection with the Hospice and everybody is touched by their dedication and the wonderful service they deliver to our community – so I’d urge as many people as possible to get involved.”

People interested in either participating in the walk or sponsoring walkers should visit the website set up especially for the walk - www.pendlepubwalk.co.uk. Organisers say that everyone is welcome on the walk - registration is open and costs just £10.

Last year's event saw 150 walkers raise over £6,000 for Derian House Children’s Hospice and The Prostate Cancer Charity.

Burnley Business sweeps the board at last night’s Oscars

2011-02-28T16:55:00.000Z

Oscars accolade for Burnley’s global leader in sound engineering

A BURNLEY based digital technology business specialising in sound engineering last night enjoyed huge success at the Oscars.

The prestigious ceremony – watched by a global TV audience in excess of 150 million people - saw massive success for films associated with AMS Neve. Winners that used AMS Neve’s technology included The King's Speech, Inception, The Social Network, Toy Story 3, Black Swan, Alice in Wonderland and True Grit.

Notably, Inception won 2 Oscars that are especially pertinent to AMS Neve, given their expertise - Best Sound Editing and Best Sound Mixing. The sound for Inception was produced on the AMS Neve 88RS analogue audio console at Air Lyndhurst (London) and also on the AMS Neve DFC Gemini console at Warner Bros. (Los Angeles).

AMS Neve enjoys global renown in the ultra high-end feature film scoring and mixing environments, the post-production and broadcast industries, as well as in professional and project music studios.

From their headquarters in Burnley, Lancashire the business employs a team of world class analogue and digital designers, software specialists and audio purists who over the years have been at the cutting edge of the advancement and evolution of professional audio products.

AMS Neve founder and Managing Director, Mark Crabtree said: “We’re delighted to see so many films that use AMS Neve technology winning at this year’s Oscars. It’s a great testament to the quality of our work and the dedication of our people. We see ourselves as inheritors of Burnley’s tradition of engineering excellence.”

“This is a great accolade for AMS Neve and for Burnley’s high tech and digital sector. I hope this will support the work of the Burnley Bondholders group, as we transform perceptions and establish Burnley as a destination for investment opportunities, relocation and tourism.”

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Local girl joins Brandspankin PR and Marketing Agency

2011-02-11T16:48:00.002Z

EARBY lass Madeline Horth is the newest member of the Nelson-based marketing and public relations agency BrandSpankin’.

Madeline, a final year public relations student at UCLAN University is on track for a 2:1 degree and will work as a marketing and public relations executive with the business.

Madeline has a passion for public relations and is immensely enthusiastic about her work. Whilst studying for a BTEC Media at Craven College in Skipton Madeline achieved the ITV Yorkshire television award for outstanding student of the year.

This will be a great experience for Madeline and give her an insight to the working world. Madeline said: “I am really excited to work with Brandspankin’ - it is such a fantastic opportunity and the people I am working with have lots of experience in the field so I will be able to learn a lot from them.”

Madeline’s dream job is to move to Dubai and ultimately have her own public relations agency.

ENDS

33 and counting for Harry Garlick’s Long Player!

2011-02-09T11:16:00.001Z

OUR client,electrical retailer, Harry Garlick is set to celebrate the big 33 for its very own Long Player!
But that’s not 33rpm like a vinyl LP – it’s 33 years with the business for longest serving employee Ian Heald, the manager of Harry Garlick’s Barnoldswick branch.

Iain first joined the business in 1978 after he left school and for 28 years worked at the Burnley branch, starting on the shop floor and working his way up to be the branch manager.

He admits that keeping up with the latest developments in technology gets harder as you get older, but he recalls fondly the first thing that he sold - an Ultra Music Centre, that in 1978 cost a whopping £189 – which was the equivalent of three weeks wages for most people!

“It was a music centre,” Iain recalled, “so it was a record deck, a tape recorder and radio - like a radio gram. It was expensive at the time, but now you’d get that type of equipment for next to nothing. At the time it was cutting edge and the thing to have.”

“Things have moved on a lot, because nowadays the thing to have would be wifi equipment, so people can have music all round their house wirelessly.”

Harry Garlick may have diversified into many areas of consumer electronics, but they have a long association with television. Ian says that this is another area where things have progressed tremendously.

“3D is the latest thing in TV, but I can remember in the 1980’s when people were shown 3D and they had to wear green and red glasses. The picture quality was awful and people still think of that. It’s changed massively - I watched the Ryder cup on 3D and it was amazing. The contours on the green were really visible - it was fantastic.”

Besides the changes in technology, Ian fondly remembers the people and characters that he’s worked with and served down the years. But the funniest incident involved his father.

“He rang to say that my son had ruined his new video recorder. My son had been giving him instructions over the phone on how to set it up. When he put the video in and pressed play it just made a horrible grinding noise and got stuck. I asked how was that my son’s fault and he said, “well he didn’t bloody tell me to take the cellophane off the tape!”. So when people come in and say they’re techno-phobic, I tell them not to worry - they can’t be as bad as my dad!”

One of Ian’s sons now works at Harry Garlick’s Clitheroe branch, so it’s fair to say he’s kept it in the family!

“Harry Garlick is also a family run business, so it’s got a very good atmosphere, which is important to me. Plus I think it helps as customers have a sense of knowing that they can trust us to give good customer service. We’ve kept that friendly, family approach throughout my time here – even with the advent of new technology and an evolving market place. So for example, this Christmas we used our TV to have a family skype call between us in Barlick, my sister’s family in Nottingham and her daughter in Australia. Being able to do that so easily for all the family is just amazing, especially for the older generation is just mind blowing!

NEWS RELEASE: Burnley Bondholders appoint Brandspankin’ for PR brief

2011-01-31T12:59:00.000Z

National and Regional media targeted to help change perceptions of the town and borough

A CONSORTIUM of Burnley’s largest businesses and organisations has appointed Marketing and PR agency Brandspankin’ to generate positive coverage across national and regional media and promote the Pennine Lancashire town as a great place to live, work, visit and invest.

The Burnley Bondholders group has been working towards transforming perceptions of Burnley for two years and have committed financially to promoting investment opportunities, relocation to the area and tourism.

Kevin Keith, Burnley Brand Manager, said: “Burnley Bondholders are not followers, they are leaders: people and organisations in Burnley who believe passionately that our town is a great place to do business, who believe more of the right people need to know the right things about Burnley, who champion our world-class aerospace industry; our advanced manufacturing expertise; our all-new schools, college and university, and our breathtaking countryside.”
“Brandspankin’ were selected for this important account in part due to their solid track record of delivering media coverage at regional and national level – it is vital more of the right people know the right things about Burnley - but also due to their drive and determination to show the rest of the northwest and beyond, that Burnley is open for business. We are delighted to have them on board.”

In the first twelve months, the Burnley Bondholder scheme has 90 members representing 50 businesses and organisations, including many of the town’s largest and best-known employers, Aircelle, Burnley FC, Veka Plc and Moorhouses Brewery. In addition to supporting promotional work, Bondholders also enhance the pride the people of Burnley feel about their town.

Julian Jordan, Brandspankin’s Managing Director, said: “Brandspankin’ is delighted to be awarded this contract. It means a great deal to me personally. I made a choice to move back up here from London as I felt it was a better place to bring up my kids.”
“We share the confidence that so many world-class companies have in Burnley. We share the determination that pupils, students and teachers have to excel in Burnley’s new schools, colleges and university. We share the delight of visitors who roam our magnificent countryside or stately homes. We share all of this because we are local - this is our place of business, our place of pleasure, our place to prosper, and we are determined to ensure many others can share this too.”

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About Burnley Bondholders

Burnley Bondholder’s are an influential group of organisations, predominantly from the private sector, who believe what is good for Burnley is good for business, and so contribute financially to promoting the Pennine Lancashire town as a place to live, work visit and invest. Bondholders believe more of the right people need to know about Burnley’s world class aerospace industry; new schools, colleges and university; nationally significant industrial heritage, and breathtaking countryside.

NEWS RELEASE: Harry Garlick appoints Brandspankin’ for PR and social media brief

2011-01-21T14:03:00.000Z

NEWS RELEASE: 20.1.11
Harry Garlick appoints Brandspankin’ for PR and social media brief

ELECTRICAL retailer, Harry Garlick Ltd has this week announced that they have appointed Pendle Marketing business, Brandspankin’ to manage their PR and social media marketing activity.

Having been trading for nearly 60 years, Harry Garlick is one of the best known companies in the East Lancashire and North Yorkshire areas - and besides its retail outlets has a significant online presence.

The company has built a solid reputation for service and reliability and now feels that the full range of its retail offering - and the service it offers - needs to be understood more clearly by a new generation of savvy consumers.

Ian Scothern, Harry Garlick’s Commercial Director, commented: “Over decades we’ve evolved from a TV shop and repair business, to a significant retail player, across the North West and beyond - we’re now one of the top 20 independent retailers in the UK. Our values however, remain as they always were – competitive on price, and excellent on service. To communicate this, we required an agency that understood our business, our customers and our values, so we’re delighted to have appointed Brandspankin’.”

Julian Jordan, Brandspankin’s Managing Director, added: “Harry Garlick is a business with a long track record of excellent service across East Lancashire and North Yorkshire. Besides their retail presence they have 64,000 square feet of warehouse space at their Earby distribution hub and head office. They’re a member of Euronics, the UK’s biggest buying group - all of which means they can offer great deals to people and we’re looking forward to getting that message out there. By using PR and social media marketing, Harry Garlick don’t just provide cutting edge household electrical equipment, they also use cutting edge ways of communicating with their customers and prospects!”

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NEWS RELEASE: Inspirational Stan’s resilience turns adversity into opportunity

2010-12-15T11:34:00.002Z

Pendle man sets up SIMCAM remote camera business after stroke

A PENDLE man has launched an innovative new remote camera business after having a stroke two years ago.

Stan Glover had led an active and healthy life, having previously been a market manager, but he suffered a massive stroke in July 2008. He was told he would probably never regain his mobility, but plucky Stan, 58, decided to prove doctors wrong and teach himself to walk again.

During this time, Stan was terrified of falling over and not being able to get up again without assistance. His wife worried about even going to the shops and leaving Stan alone, especially after one occasion when he had almost fallen into the fire.

However, the experience actually inspired and motivated Stan, who started researching solutions to the problem. That was when SIMCAM came about - a small, portable, alarm remote camera powered by battery or mains and fitted with a SIM card, allowing it to call mobile phones or send emails. The ingenious solution costs a fraction of orthodox CCTV systems and comes with a remote key fob, meaning that if a disabled user falls it activates the alarm/camera.

“Not only can my wife hear everything the camera hears but she can see everything the camera sees. Also a motion detector is incorporated into it, so they can be used for security purposes too – unauthorised entry of a property protected by a SIMCAM will generate a call to a mobile phone.”

“This allows everything that’s going on to be heard and sends very clear images of the intruder. The image is sent with no time delay, and if the first contact’s phone is turned off, it can call up to ten other numbers,” said Stan.

“I’m determined to make a success of it, but in all honesty, I’d be happy if it only prevented one disabled person from being stuck on the floor for hours after a fall,” he added.

SIMCAM has now spawned several versions – a portable one which is ideal for car security and one with a smoke sensor. Stan has even made SIM-CAMS available on a lease system and can provide a completely independent monitoring service.

“The whole process has given me an impetus. I was determined not to let the stroke beat me and SIMCAMS have been a massive part of that, both in terms of keeping me safe and keeping me active. It’s been a real Phoenix from the flames story – almost literally,” joked Stan.

You can read more about SIMCAM at www.simcams.co.uk

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Notes to Editors:

For further information, comment and photographs contact: Julian Jordan at BrandSpankin’ Ltd

t: 01282 878 301 m: +44 7912 786 947 e: julian@brandspankin.co.uk

About SIMCAMS

SIMCAMS was founded by Stan Glover. The business provides a GSM camera solution that helps people with disabilities and reassures their loved ones. Simcam is the first totally wireless remote camera that can alert you wherever you are in the world.
SIMCAM can alert you of any accidental fall, smoke or unauthorised entry in your own home by calling/text message. It also sends images of anything the camera sees to your mobile phone and e-mail – even in total darkness.

SIMCAM can monitor any movement, perfect for checking on baby or loved one. You can also check by listening in, on YOUR MOBILE, from anywhere in the world, whenever you choose. SIMCAM connects to remote smoke detectors and also door or window sensors too. SIMCAM works in your home, workplace car/caravan/van, inside trucks/wagons, in total darkness. SIMCAM is delivered from England completely set up ready to work, complete with recharger and TWO remote control units, that not only turn SIMCAM on/off but also include an emergency button which activates camera, to alert up to TEN different mobile numbers.

http://www.simcams.co.uk/

NEWS RELEASE: SIMCAMS gives PR brief to Brandspankin’

2010-12-02T15:27:00.000Z

NEWS RELEASE: 02.12.2010
SIMCAMS gives PR brief to Brandspankin’

SIMCAMS, the North-west based GSM remote camera business has this week announced that it has appointed Pendle agency Brandspankin’ to manage its PR and social media launch campaign.

The business specialises in remote monitoring cameras that are used in a variety of contexts including monitoring elderly or disabled relatives, as well as home and vehicle security.

The business is the branchild of Stan Glover, 58, himself disabled following a stroke. Stan ignored medical opinion and through sheer determination taught himself to walk again. Stan still has mobility issues though and this heightened his concern that people who are old or disabled are vulnerable when alone – falls whilst unattended can leave them unable to raise the alarm or get help. For that reason, Stan conducted research and SIMCAMS was the result.

Stan commented: “My initial motivation was to assist people in circumstances like my own – eventually I want to set up a social enterprise to help provide monitoring services for people with disabilities. However, in the meantime, our solution is proving affordable and popular as a home or vehicle security solution. I hope to see the security side of the business ultimately help me fund the social enterprise.”

“SIMCAMS can alert relatives if somebody has had an accidental fall, if there is smoke in the house or if there’s been an unauthorised entry into your home. It sends images of anything the camera sees to your mobile phone and e-mail. It can work anywhere in the world and it will alert up to ten different mobile numbers. “

“The next step is to get our message out there, so we’ve appointed Brandspankin’ as they have national media experience, but they also have a specialism in social media, which will help us target specific groups where we think our solution will be particularly valuable.”

Julian Jordan, MD of Brandspankin’, said: “Stan’s story and his determination is inspirational. The launch of SIMCAMS will mean that there is an affordable solution that will give a great deal of reassurance to the families of people with disabilities. So, we’re delighted to be working with SIMCAMS and we look forward to significantly raising their profile.”

---ENDS---
Notes to Editors:
For further information, comment and photographs contact: Julian Jordan at BrandSpankin’ Ltd
t: 01282 878 301 m: +44 7912 786 947 e: julian@brandspankin.co.uk

About SIMCAMS
SIMCAMS was founded by Stan Glover. The business provides a GSM camera solution that helps people with disabilities and reassures their loved ones. Simcam is the first totally wireless remote camera that can alert you wherever you are in the world.
SIMCAM can alert you of any accidental fall, smoke or unauthorised entry in your own home by calling/text message. It also sends images of anything the camera sees to your mobile phone and e-mail – even in total darkness.
SIMCAM can monitor any movement, perfect for checking on baby or loved one. You can also check by listening in, on YOUR MOBILE, from anywhere in the world, whenever you choose. SIMCAM connects to remote smoke detectors and also door or window sensors too. SIMCAM works in your home, workplace car/caravan/van, inside trucks/wagons, in total darkness. SIMCAM is delivered from England completely set up ready to work, complete with recharger and TWO remote control units, that not only turn SIMCAM on/off but also include an emergency button which activates camera, to alert up to TEN different mobile numbers. Or our local monitoring service

About Brand Spankin’
BrandSpankin’ is a creative marketing and public relations business based in East Lancashire, offering high quality, affordable marketing services in a friendly and efficient manner. We service businesses from small start-ups to larger enterprises. We have the experience and scale to help you build awareness and win new business. From media relations to graphic design and print, websites and digital marketing - from contract and trade publishing to advertising, our no-nonsense marketing will help your business stand out from the crowd.
To find out more visit www.brandspankin.co.uk

NEWS RELEASE: Arts organisation relocates to Burnley’s Weavers’ Triangle

2010-11-25T16:31:00.001Z

NEWS RELEASE: 24/11/2010
Mid Pennine Arts opens new Neptune Street HQ

MID PENNINE Arts, the regional arts charity has this week completed a move to new offices in the heart of Burnley’s historic Weavers’ Triangle. The organisation’s arrival coincides with fresh moves to kick-start the long-awaited rebirth of the unique heritage area.

Mid Pennine Arts has built a reputation for innovative art projects that have attracted international attention to Pennine Lancashire – most notably the Panopticons including Burnley’s Singing Ringing Tree, Pendle’s Atom, Rossendale’s Halo and Blackburn’s Colourfields. The organisation is especially committed to celebrating the unique heritage of the area, and sees the canalside Weaver’s Triangle as a prime location for doing this.

Mid Pennine Arts aims to break out of the traditional gallery setting, and to take creative projects directly to a wider audience. The new office base is shared with green energy providers the Low Carbon Energy Company in a new partnership for both parties. The base will also provide a platform for creative work with partner organisations, schools and community groups, to start to breathe life back into a townscape that has long lain dormant.

Nick Hunt, Creative Director for Mid Pennine Arts, said: “The Weavers’ Triangle is hugely important for the future of Burnley and Pennine Lancashire. It celebrates our industrial past, and points to a brighter future. This move reinforces our commitment to highlighting our heritage with bold, contemporary art. Already this autumn we have launched the Contemporary Heritage programme in partnership with Towneley Hall, and this new series of big, cutting edge art commissions will soon provide a fresh view of other key heritage venues across Pennine Lancashire. Alongside those projects, moving into the Weavers’ Triangle makes perfect sense for Mid Pennine Arts and we are very excited about the future, as we reach out to new audiences and aim to put art at the heart of Burnley’s renaissance.”

“Mid Pennine Arts has been based at Burnley Mechanics since the opening of the building. This has been a long and happy association and we are very grateful to our partners at Burnley Borough Council for all their support. Now we want to work with the Council in breathing new life into the Weavers’ Triangle. We also look forward to a ground-breaking new partnership with the Low Carbon Energy Company.”

Mike Cook, Burnley Council’s Director of Regeneration and Housing, said: “This is good news for Mid Pennine Arts, for the Weavers’ Triangle, and for Burnley. It’s an important statement of confidence in the area’s future and in the aspirations we and our partners have for genuine transformation of the town’s historic industrial heart. On behalf of the Council, I’d like to wish them the very best in their new home.”

The arrival of Mid Pennine Arts coincides with moves by Burnley Borough Council to attract private sector developers to take on key sites clustered around the Sandygate development area. The canalside open space opposite Slater Terrace has been agreed as a future new public space, with an exciting new design selected through the recent Pennine Lancashire Squared design competition. This month the Council is ‘greening’ the area that will become Sandygate Square with an attractive temporary treatment to provide a glimpse of this brighter future.

In spite of economic gloom, these initiatives show the future starting to take shape for the Weavers’ Triangle. Mid Pennine Arts, working alongside partners like the Borough Council and the Prince’s Charities, is aiming to lead the way.

--- ENDS ---

Notes to Editors

If you require further information, photography or comment, please call Julian Jordan from BrandSpankin’ on 01282 878 301 or email julian@brandspankin.co.uk

www.midpenninearts.org.uk
www.brandspankin.co.uk

About Mid Pennine Arts

Mid Pennine Arts is an independent arts charity that brings art, people and places together to transform perceptions and change lives.

Although we operate primarily in Pennine Lancashire, we also deliver projects across the North of England. We create and deliver high quality artistic programmes that integrate Visual Arts, Creative Learning and Public Realm.

Created as a partnership, we develop our most successful work through partnerships, networks and creative collaborations. Our work is people-centred, people-friendly, celebrates diversity and promotes equality of opportunity. We embody a spirit of discovery and build a dimension of creative learning into all our projects. We always strive for the best possible creative results and the most ambitious impacts. We aim to break new ground in the content, context and outcomes of our work.

Mid Pennine Arts charity registration number 250642

Pendle Riding for the Disabled Association (Fairweather Riders Project)

2010-11-23T12:24:00.001Z

Your help in supporting this good cause would be greatly appreciated!

VOTING LINES are NOW OPEN !!!

The Fairweather Riders Project voting phone number is;

CALL to VOTE:- 08716268831

Please forward this number to all your contacts, family and friends.
Calls cost 10p from a landline, mobiles vary but are still low call rates.

You can vote 10 times from each phone

Every vote counts…….Last year, a group lost by less than a hundred votes, don’t let that happen to us!

Voting lines are now open until midnight tonight

Don’t forget to watch it on ITV GRANADA REPORTS at 6pm TONIGHT !

Pendle Riding for the Disabled Association (Fairweather Riders Project)

http://www.pendlerda.co.uk

BusinessTalk FM

2010-11-01T15:05:00.001Z

Our MD, Julian Jordan has done a couple of interviews with BusinessTalk FM - one about the implications of government spending cuts for small businesses in the North West and one about Marketing, Media Relations and Social Media.

If you want to hear what he has to say, listen here:- http://bit.ly/aHt6RH

Latest testimonials from attendees of our PR and Social Media Marketing course

2010-10-26T16:13:00.000+01:00

Martin Harvey – MD, Harvey Environmental

I really didn't want to take 2 days away from my corporate life as it’s a cost to the business. But when I was there, it appealed to me because – whilst I knew people did social media, I thought it was just people tinkering around and not really for business use. So I did have reservations about the training.

However, the concepts were explained very well. I’m not completely technophobic, but I am not Bill Gate's programming mate either! I understood everything that was explained and there were quite a few “Oh my God!” moments on the course and the scales fell from my eyes.

It’s made me more confident that we can manage our own Social Media Marketing and PR Strategy. In fact that is what we’re doing now. Since the training, we have been using tools like hootsuite which have saved us lot of time. We’ve also been using Google analytics, which has meant we have been able to more closely monitor our website.

The training has helped our business save/make money and I can put a cash price to that. We used to advertise with Yell and I was never sure if this was money well spend and now, due to the course, we have cancelled that therefore saving us £6500, which is not a one-off saving, it’s an ongoing saving.

Lee Hezzlewood - MD, Secure thinking

"I personally attended Brandspankin’s 'PR and Social Media Marketing' course and found it to be a breath of fresh air. The course was informative, educational and also practical in its approach and focussed on a real world strategy which we have now implemented within our business. "

NEWS RELEASE: Mid Pennine Arts appoints BrandSpankin’ for PR brief

2010-10-24T15:35:00.000+01:00

MPA seeking to raise profile nationally and regionally!

MID PENNINE Arts has announced that it has appointed Pendle-based marketing and PR business BrandSpankin’ to promote its work both regionally and nationally.

The arts charity has recently embarked upon an ambitious programme of contemporary arts entitled “Contemporary Heritage” and has drafted in PR expertise in order to nationally promote Pennine Lancashire as an “arts destination”. Additionally, Mid Pennine Arts is determined to raise its profile across the region, raising awareness of its work in areas such as visual arts, creative learning and public realm.

Commenting on the appointment, Mid Pennine Arts Business Director Rob Carder, said: “In BrandSpankin’ we have appointed a Pennine Lancashire-based business that has a genuine commitment to the arts. Their media relations experience will be invaluable in building national awareness of who we are and what we do, as we continue to bring art, people and places together to transform perceptions and change lives.”

BrandSpankin’s Managing Director, Julian Jordan added: “We are delighted to be working with Mid Pennine Arts, as we share their commitment to transform perceptions of Pennine Lancashire. The launch of “Contemporary Heritage” places cutting edge contemporary art in completely new contexts and settings – and we’re determined to see it and Mid Pennine Arts become recognised nationally. Their exemplary work means that art previously only available in urban centres can now be seen against the unrivalled beauty of a Pennine Lancashire backdrop.”

The recent launch of “Contemporary Heritage” has seen Mid Pennine Arts link up with a series of heritage venues across Pennine Lancashire. The first of these projects is entitled “Not Forgotten” featuring a series of installations at Burnley’s Towneley Hall by internationally renowned contemporary artist Geraldine Pilgrim.

- ENDS -

Notes to Editors
If you require further information, please call Julian Jordan from BrandSpankin’ on 01282 878 301 or email julian@brandspankin.co.uk
www.midpenninearts.org.uk
www.brandspankin.co.uk

About Mid Pennine Arts

Mid Pennine Arts is an independent arts charity that brings art, people and places together to transform perceptions and lives.

Although we operate primarily in Pennine Lancashire; we are also currently delivering projects across the North of England. We are a driving force for the arts in Pennine Lancashire, recognised nationally and internationally for devising and delivering exemplary integrated arts programmes that inspire people and unlock their aspirations. We bring art, people and places together to transform perceptions and change lives. Created as a partnership, we develop our most successful work through partnerships, networks and creative collaborations. Our work is people-centred, people-friendly, celebrates diversity and promotes equality of opportunity. We embody a spirit of discovery and build a dimension of creative learning into all our projects. We always strive for the best possible creative results and the most ambitious impacts. We aim to break new ground in the content, context and outcomes of our work.

We create and deliver high quality artistic programmes that integrate Visual Arts, Creative Learning and Public Realm.

Mid Pennine Arts Charity registration number 250642

An old business adage adapted for the internet era...

2010-09-29T15:40:00.001+01:00

An old boss of mine used to frequently berate the senior managers and directors of the business with the old adage “turnover is for vanity, profit is for sanity.” He used to miss off the next bit which goes...”and cash is king!”.

I often wondered about that. But after all, the business in question had a £500million turnover and was then part of a group that was listed on the FTSE 100. In those circumstances, where the group is swimming in money, working capital isn’t as much of a pressing concern as it is when you run your own business or work in an SME, so the “cash is king” bit was missed off.

Anyway, the thought occurred to me whilst I was looking at Google analytics this morning that the phrase could be reworked for the internet age - and it applies to web traffic. The sentiment remains pretty similar.

I always want to drive more traffic to websites, but is that always a good thing? Would you like a million visitors to your company website per month that then did nothing? Would it be preferable to have less visitors, but gain some sort of tangible response from more of them? And, would it not be best of all if those website visitors then made contact and became paying customers?

So with those questions in mind and an onus on quality instead of quantity, here is our update on the old adage:

“Volume is for vanity, response is for sanity and conversion is king!”

Taking this view, we’ve recently had some great successes with client websites – quickly seeing our clients’ sites pay for themselves and deliver a healthy return on investment. If you’re considering building a website for your business and you want to discuss our approach, give us a call on 01282 878 301.

BrandSpankin's October PR & Social Media Marketing Course

2010-09-16T10:48:00.004+01:00

We’re pleased to announce that we have confirmed dates for our October PR and social media marketing course. Why not call us now – despite the spending cuts we can still get your place on the course FULLY FUNDED if your business has five or more employees. (Even if you have less than five people, call us anyway – we may still be able to help)

The course will run on consecutive Mondays – the 11th and 18th October from 10am to 4pm. The course will be held at Pendle Enterprise Haven, in Nelson Lancashire.

The BrandSpankin' PR and social media marketing course trains businesses to:-

- Formulate key messages properly
- Write a compelling, "media-ready" press release
- Formulate an objectives-based Comms/Marketing plan that locks marketing activity into your Business Plan
- Understand the requirements of journalists and publication editors
- Use a series of freely available tools to monitor and measure the success of campaigns
- Understand how to optimise and best utilise your presence on social media sites including Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Youtube and Foursquare.
- Use a variety of online PR resources to "self-publish" news releases
- Use blogging platforms to "self-publish"
- Massively enhance your online presence - so-called "Digital Asset Optimisation"
- Significantly increase traffic to your website
- Significantly increase return on investment

Attendees also:-

- Have a q/a session with a business journalist
- Have a one-2-one follow up from the course
- Receive presentations from each module of the course
- Receive a "starter-pack" of journalist data and the means to build this for themselves.
- Receive regular updates on new developments that will assist you to stay ahead of your competitors.

Five top tips for SME online marketing

2010-09-09T10:50:00.004+01:00

Firstly, you shouldn’t need convincing that online marketing is necessary. Consumers are online and looking for local goods and services right now – so don’t miss out. Marketing your business online can give you measurable results – you can see where you spent your marketing budget and accurately track where the leads are coming from and what return they are bringing you. It’s relatively low-cost (even free in some instances) and it can deliver a high yield. So, what’s not to like?

Here’s a few things to consider...

1) Take control of your website

You need your website to do a job for you. It shouldn’t just be a brochure. Yes, it should look good and read well, but it should also build awareness for your business, generate leads and (where possible) make money! This process is a lot easier if you can operate the site yourself. If your site has a Content Management System (CMS) you’re laughing. If not, you’ve got a problem. A CMS allows you to update your site through a web browser – which is a lot less hassle than waiting for your web company to update it and charge you for the privilege!

If your business is a start up, there are alternatives if you’re operating on a budget - you could just run a blog until you’ve got the budget for a proper site. Have a look at some of the free blogging resources out there like Blogger.com or Posterous. If you want to be a bit more ambitious, have a look at WordPress, a free publishing platform. If you can spare the time and effort you can build yourself a free site – one client of ours, Ghost Town Records, did exactly this and the result is pretty impressive.

2) Drive traffic to your site

If your website is going to work hard it needs people looking at it – so don’t just wait for this to happen, make it happen. You can pay to do this using Google AdWords – so-called pay-per-click. You only pay when someone finds your ad on search engine listings and clicks through. You can qualify your ad by making it “geo-targeted”. In other words, you can specify the geographic area where you want people to see your ads – why pay to advertise to an area where you don’t want to sell?

However, you can also drive traffic to your site for free using social media sites. Every time you update your blog or your website – post links on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn. Similarly if you got a new offer, let people know – include a link to the offer page on your site. Social media gives you an opportunity to be seen to add value, offer advice and get conversational. Just yesterday a member of the BrandSpankin’ team happened to tweet that her killer heels had lived up to their name and she could do with a foot massage – she got a direct message back from a business called Happy Feet with a link to their site. She contacted them and was offered a free sample! That’s an example of excellent “conversational” social media marketing in action. And suffice to say, BrandSpankin’s high heeled Diva has posted it all over the place and let all her friends know!

3) Build a local list

It’s pretty easy to organise a list of contacts isn’t it? You could even get people to sign up to it on your web site. When you’re at events if you get someone’s card, politely ask if it’s OK to send information through to them. At its most basic you can use social media tools like Twitter to stay in touch. But why not start to send out e-shots to your list? There are free tools out there that you can use to do this, such as Mail Chimp. Not only can you manage a professional looking e-shot for free, you even get to analyse the results as it tells you who opened your e-shot and who clicked through. With that information you can then start to schedule a series of follow up calls and convert some of that interest into business.

4) Get on Google Maps

If you go to Google.com/places you can put your business on Google maps – meaning people conducting a local search will see you business and your location, plus they can click through to your website! Many Google searches show local listings and this is a good way to get your business “above the scroll”.

5) Optimisation

Search engine optimisation (SEO) can be a costly and complicated exercise, but when done properly it will bear significant results. A basic way to enhance your SEO (if you have a CMS) is to ensure that the text within your site contains keywords that your customers and prospects are likely to use when looking for the product or service you sell. You can research high volume search terms by using this tool –

http://bit.ly/KeywordIdeas

This approach will provide some very basic assistance – if you want to explore SEO much more thoroughly, give us a call. (01282 878 301)

However, there are other forms of optimisation you should consider – simply making your business more visible and “findable” will help you to get a return on your digital marketing investment – this is sometimes called Digital Asset Optimisation. We urge small businesses to consider as many methods as possible to create this online visibility. So make sure you’re engaged in the social media conversation – have a Facebook fan page, have a LinkedIn company profile, use a blog, tweet to your followers, use free PR resources (such as PR web or release-news) to publish you press releases, set up a Youtube channel etc, etc.

There are loads of free resources available - and they can be managed in a way that isn’t too time consuming. The opportunity they present is to significantly raise you profile, generate increased traffic to your, website, increase your lead generation, and to generate more revenue.

And, if you’re still not convinced that you can do all this yourself, give us a call as we can provide PR and Social Media Marketing training – and if you’re from a North West business, we can probably get it fully funded for you.

NEWS RELEASE: Contemporary Heritage: a new way of seeing Towneley Hall and Park

2010-09-01T11:03:00.001+01:00

Mid Pennine Arts and Towneley Hall partner on the first Contemporary Heritage commission

BURNLEY’s Towneley Hall and Park is gearing up for the imminent launch of Contemporary Heritage featuring the work of nationally acclaimed artist Geraldine Pilgrim.

Not Forgotten, which opens on Saturday 11th September, forms part of Contemporary Heritage, a Mid Pennine Arts partnership programme inspired by the historic venues that Pennine Lancashire is home to.

Rebecca Alexander Mid Pennine Arts’ Visual Arts and Projects Officer, said: “Pennine Lancashire has a wealth of sites, from Castles to Towers, all rich with stories and history. We are working with our partner venues to commission artists to create new work in response to these stunning locations.”

“We are passionate about the cultural heritage we have in Pennine Lancashire and the opportunity Contemporary Heritage offers visitors to experience major works of art outside a city environment by artists of national and international standing.”

Not Forgotten is the latest work of artist Geraldine Pilgrim, whose installations reveal memories and atmospheres, as well as the history of the space. It is something of a coup for Pennine Lancashire that the first commission of this flagship project has been awarded to Geraldine Pilgrim, a highly acclaimed artist whose previous work has been commissioned by organisations as varied as Girl Guides UK, English Heritage, The National Review of Live Art Festival, The National Trust and Liverpool’s Bluecoat Gallery.

The Not Forgotten installation, commissioned for Towneley Hall and Park, has been inspired by a distinctive portrait of John and Mary Towneley and their seven sons and seven daughters. The work will enable people to experience Towneley in new ways and will cast light on elements of the history of the location that present a compelling meditation on memory and loss.

Mid Pennine Arts have been working with Mike Townend, Towneley’s Senior Curator to develop the programme. Mike said: “We’re looking at new ways of using our collections – so to have provided the inspiration for a nationally recognised contemporary artist is fantastic. We really hope this will engage people and take contemporary art to a new audience.”

“People will begin to see Towneley in new ways - with installations in both the grounds and the Hall. You can stand in a window at Towneley and look out at the installation in the landscape and it gives the place a different perspective. We call it ‘Looking in: looking out’. “

Mid Pennine Arts Creative Director Nick Hunt, said: “Towneley are great partners and we are really excited that Contemporary Heritage is set to launch at Towneley. It’s a really fitting location for Geraldine Pilgrim’s installations and I’m sure Not Forgotten will prove to be extremely engaging and memorable.”

He added: “This marks the latest step for Mid Pennine Arts’ ambitions to see Pennine Lancashire become an arts, culture and heritage destination. Mid Pennine Arts bring art, people and places together to transform perceptions and change lives.”

BrandSpankin PR & Social Media Marketing Courses

2010-08-31T14:25:00.004+01:00

Our next course starts on Monday 6th September and concludes on Monday 13th September. We are now taking bookings for our October course. The normal cost is £500 per attendee, but North West businesses can still get places fully funded

The BrandSpankin’ PR and social media marketing course trains businesses to:-

- Formulate key messages properly
- Write a compelling, “media-ready” press release
- Formulate an objectives-based Comms/Marketing plan that locks marketing activity into their Business Plan
- Understand the requirements of journalists and publication editors
- Use a series of freely available tools to monitor and measure the success of their campaigns
- Understand how to optimise and best utilise their presence on social media sites including Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Youtube and Foursquare.
- Use a variety of online PR resources to self-publish their news releases
- Use blogging platforms to "self-publish"
- Massively enhance their online presence – so-called “Digital Asset Optimisation”
- Significantly increase traffic to their website
- Significantly increase return on investment

Attendees also:-

- Have a q/a session with a business journalist
- Have a one-2-one follow up from the course
- Receive presentations from each module of the course
- Receive a “starter-pack” of journalist data and the means to build this for themselves.
- Receive regular updates on new developments that will assist you to stay ahead of your competitors.

Ten reasons why North West small businesses should use social media marketing

2010-07-30T12:11:00.004+01:00

1. It’s free - and that’s a pretty good price point compared to many other ways to promote your business.

2. It’s measurable – so you can see how effective it is at helping you to build awareness and generate leads. This then helps you to focus your efforts into the areas or channels that are most productive for you.

3. It presents your business as forward thinking. Much of your target market is becoming savvy and uses social media as a part of daily life. You will be more relevant and in-step with your potential customers and you can engage in an instant dialogue with them. Globally, Facebook now has over 500 million users – that’s the equivalent of the world’s 3rd biggest country and you’ve got an opportunity to market to them for free.

4. The tone of social media marketing can’t be too ‘salesy’ or ‘shouty’ – it’s about adding value, sharing knowledge or providing a credible commentary. Small businesses are naturally really good at this – they win business and retain it by building relationships. This approach lends itself well to the dialogue based style of social media marketing.

5. Social media will generate additional traffic to your website. By updating sites such as Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn with posts linking back to your site, you’ll create additional traffic to your site from people who have a specific interest in what you’re doing. Social bookmarking sites like Digg, Stumbleupon and Slashdot will also generate traffic to your website if you frequently write articles and blog posts.

6. Your social media work can build inbound links which in turn supports your search engine optimisation (SEO), i.e. the way your site achieves a high ranking in search engine listings. Many social media sites use so-called NOFOLLOW tags that limit the outbound link value of posts made on their sites. Nevertheless, many leading social media sites allow DOFOLLOW tags including Slashdot, Digg, Furl, Mixx and FriendFeed.

7. Social media will help you to integrate all your marketing and PR activity – and this has great results in terms of your search engine rankings. Search engines such as Google and Microsoft Bing are increasingly interested in indexing and ranking posts and other information from social media sites. Videos from popular internet sites like YouTube can also be optimised for indexing by the major search engines – they also make great viral marketing (check out “Will it Blend” on Youtube – their iPhone blending stunt has had 8.7 million hits).

8. Social Media helps to keep you front of mind with your friends and contacts. It reminds them about what you do and means that they can either to use your services or act as an advocate for your business and refer you to one of their friends or contacts.

9. Setting up a company profile on a site like LinkedIn provides a great opportunity for you to regularly post updates on your activities, as well as important news and trends in your industry, allowing you to position your business as experts, “business champions”, “consumer champions”, or “community champions”.

10. Setting up a blog can provide you with a “destination” at which you can direct your social media work. If you use a technology like Blogger (which is free!) you can even get some free code to integrate your blog into your company website. This means you can efficiently direct traffic to your website to promote things like your latest offer, press releases or market intelligence.

NEWS RELEASE: Mid Pennine Arts brings Contemporary Heritage to Pennine Lancashire

2010-07-21T16:29:00.002+01:00

Mid Pennine Arts moves beyond the gallery to celebrate Pennine Lancashire’s heritage

MID PENNINE Arts has announced the launch of a new programme of high-profile contemporary art, featuring commissions of new work sited at spectacular locations around some of Pennine Lancashire’s many beautiful heritage venues.

Contemporary Heritage’s first installation is set to be on show at Towneley Hall, Burnley for a year from 11th September 2010. The launch date has been chosen to coincide with the Heritage Open Days national campaign (Thursday 9 – Sunday 12 September 2010), which celebrates fantastic architecture and culture by offering FREE access to properties that normally charge for admission. (Towneley Hall offers free entrance for Burnley residents at any time).

Contemporary Heritage is a partnership project with Arts Council England and Lancashire County Council. It will celebrate the unique elements of heritage sites across Pennine Lancashire. Mid Pennine Arts will commission artists of national and international standing to create new works in response to the history, stories, architecture, or collections of Pennine Lancashire venues. The artworks will connect visitors to the past of the venues and provide what organisers are describing as “a new way of seeing” the history we often take for granted.

Contemporary Heritage sees the Mid Pennine Arts move from a gallery based programme in a single location, to an ambitious vision taking in venues throughout Pennine Lancashire. The project will make a significant contribution to raising the profile of Pennine Lancashire as a cultural destination for heritage attractions and outstanding contemporary site-specific art.

Mid Pennine Arts Creative Director Nick Hunt said: “We invite everyone who supported the Mid Pennine Gallery to join us on this new adventure. From September 2010, we will use the whole of Pennine Lancashire as our gallery, and in doing so will highlight some of our best assets. We believe that this bold, new work will provide a terrific counterpoint to some of our heritage treasures, and will attract a new, wider audience to explore the splendours of Pennine Lancashire.”

- ENDS -

Notes to Editors
If you require further information, images or would like to interview Nick Hunt, Creative Director or Rebecca Keating, Visual Arts and Projects Officer from Mid Pennine Arts please call Julian Jordan from BrandSpankin’ on 01282 878 301 or email julian@brandspankin.co.uk

http://www.midpenninearts.org.uk

About Mid Pennine Arts

Mid Pennine Arts is an independent Pennine Lancashire arts development charity which brings art, people and places together to transform perceptions and lives.
Although we operate primarily in Pennine Lancashire; we are also currently delivering projects in Todmorden, Preston, Lancaster and Wyre. We provide a strategic overview of the arts and work in partnership with local service providers and regeneration organisations to develop best practice in arts consultation projects. We have a diverse range of projects at any one time and work with a large network of high quality, independent artists.
We have an education department that works extensively with all the primary, secondary and further education establishments in Pennine Lancashire.

Mid Pennine Arts Charity registration number 250642

East Lancs businesses reaping huge benefits from social networking

2010-07-19T14:03:00.002+01:00

NEWS RELEASE: 19.07.2010

EAST Lancs-based businesses have been ahead of the national picture when it comes to adopting social media to promote themselves, according to a local businessman.

Julian Jordan, MD of Pendle marketing and PR business, BrandSpankin’ has been running training courses for businesses to show them how to use PR and social media to enhance their marketing efforts at little or no cost – and with over 50 businesses having attended the courses this year, over half have come from the East Lancashire area.

“When it comes to using Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn to promote themselves, East Lancs businesses are definitely early adopters,” said Julian. “We’re also finding that many local businesses are benefitting from using blogs and Youtube channels to enhance their more traditional approaches to marketing.”

Prior to setting up BrandSpankin’ in Pendle, Julian managed marketing and media relations for telecoms businesses in London and Manchester, and he thinks that whilst these sorts of bigger businesses are missing a trick, small and regional businesses are adopting social media techniques to market themselves very cheaply, whilst being able to measure the effects and successes of their campaigns.

“In the current climate, social media is great for small businesses because it’s free and effective. It’s much more about having a dialogue with customers and prospects, than shouting your message at them. This is why I think it works really well for a lot of East Lancs based small businesses, as they have always traded on the basis of giving a good service and building a relationship with customers, so the tone of social media really suits them.”

-Ends-

A few social media marketing tools for you to try

2010-07-17T14:43:00.007+01:00

We're constantly on the lookout for new ways to monitor and evaluate media relations and social media work to enhance the "PR and Social Media Marketing Course" we run for small businesses.

There are an increasing number of really good free services, so here's a few for you to have a go at.

http://www.pickanews.com – this is a free online monitoring tool that picks up any print coverage you win. You can search it using key terms or even set up email alerts. It’s got its limitations because you can’t drag PDFs of your coverage off the site – but at least you know when you’ve featured in the “Heckmondwike Herald”, and it’s free!

http://www.socialmention.com – this is a great tool as it picks up online coverage, but also any mentions you might get on social media sites too. It’s like Google Alerts for social media!

http://www.twoolr.com – This is one for those of you that are seriously into twitter. It’s a monitoring tool that allows you to see who retweets you most frequently, amongst other things.

If you discover any new tools yourself, let us know! And if you're considering using social media as part of your business' marketing, why not give us a call on 01282 878 301 to find out about the PR and Social Media Marketing courses we run in East Lancashire? If your business is based in the North West we can help you to get your place fully funded!

August PR & Social Media Marketing Course

2010-07-07T13:49:00.006+01:00

We've just confirmed dates for our August PR and Social Media Marketing course. Why not get in touch with us to see how you can get your place fully funded? Call us on 01282 878 301.

The course will run from 10am until 4pm on consecutive Tuesdays - the 3rd and 10th of August. It costs £500 per attendee, but if you're a North West based business with 5 or more employees, we should be able to help you get the course fully funded.

The course will enable you to:-

- establish your key messages
- write a compelling "media ready" press release
- formulate an easy to manage marketing communications plan
- understand how to measure and monitor your work for free
- get to grips with marketing you business via social media

You will:-

- experience a q/a session with a journalist
- get publication/journalist data to distribute your press release
- win positive media coverage (!!!) to build awareness of your business, its offerings and values
- generate more leads

Don't just take our word for it - here's what some recent attendees have to say...

"The atmosphere on the course was relaxed and friendly. I learned how to write and distribute strong press releases - and monitor coverage. Since the course we’ve had stories in the Nelson Leader, Lancashire Telegraph, Bolton Evening News - plus online coverage. The social media elements have helped with lead generation, so we’ve seen a real return. Overall was thrilled with the course and better still it was fully funded by Business Link!"

Victoria Evans - Office Manager, Uno Coffee, Nelson

“Great course, can’t wait to put it all into practice”

Tracey Taylforth - Marketing Manager, Hillendale Group, Nelson

“Brandspankin’s training has helped us get to grips with PR and social media. We got our first item of coverage before the course had even finished”

Tracey Humphries - Practitioner, Vitality+, Ramsbottom

“Thanks to BrandSpankin’, we’ve now won coverage in business and
regional media – and we’ve been in The Daily Telegraph”

Andy Gott - MD, MobileBroadbandSupermarket.co.uk, Manchester

ReclaimedBricks.com pays for itself in a fortnight!

2010-06-25T10:54:00.002+01:00

Two weeks ago we launched a new website for our client ReclaimedBricks.com. The website generated its first leads within the first hour of going live and within 48 hours had generated a significant order. Today it’s pulled in an order that’s paid for the site!

At BrandSpankin’ our remit is to help our clients build awareness, generate leads and make more money – and what better example of our philosophy in action than the success of ReclaimedBricks.com.

Besides the fact that the ReclaimedBricks.com website looks great, we’ve done quite a bit of search engine optimisation work (SEO), so the website already features highly on Google for searches such as “Reclaimed Bricks”, ”Victorian Bricks” and ”Old Bricks”. Our aim is to build on this good start and use PR and social media marketing to keep building awareness and generating those valuable inbound links!

That way, our client will see a very significant return on their investment and we’ll have built a website that is more than just an electronic brochure – it’s a highly profitable sales channel!

ReclaimedBricks.com

2010-06-15T10:17:00.007+01:00

We went live last week with the new site we've just completed for Reclaimed Bricks and we're delighted with the results.

The site looks great - high quality photography always helps - but more to the point, it is performing really well. It's number one in Google for the search query "reclaimed bricks" as you'd expect, but it's already above the scroll on page one for "old bricks" and "Victorian Bricks". "Handmade bricks" is on page two at the moment but we'll keep tweaking to get that up there too.

The site's traffic has been excellent so far - it was generating enquiries within an hour of going live and it closed its first piece of business (an order for £1,700) on Friday.

ReclaimedBricks.com typifies our approach to web design and build. The site has got to work hard to get the right traffic, it's got to have compelling copy and visuals - and it's got to give the viewer an intuitive journey that makes a sale a likelihood. The outcome has to be a site that acts as a sales channel and delivers a handsome return on investment for the client.

http://www.reclaimedbricks.com

The power of Google Alerts!

2010-06-03T09:47:00.004+01:00

More and more businesses are Twittering, Facebooking, Blogging and generally getting out there in cyberspace. Promoting your business in this way is highly relevant, it hits people in an appropriate context and it's absolutely free!

However, are you monitoring how many mentions you're getting online? This will help you understand the effectiveness of your online marketing. In short, are you awake to the benefits of keeping in the know? Google alerts will help you achieve just that!

Right first of all, how do you set up a Google alert? Start off by going to the following link http://www.google.com/alerts

It is really simple; just enter the key terms you want tracking. Then choose how often you want to receive the alerts and how many alerts you want to receive. After that, you'll get alerts via email covering news and developments as they happen. Being first to know, is a strong position to occupy!

You should follow news on a series of key terms that are of interest to your business, it's prospects and customer. This way you'll have some interesting market intelligence, you can keep track of your competitors and you can track any mentions of your own business. You'll ensure that you're up-to-date with the latest news, techniques and developments. In such a fast moving world it is important to be on the ball, it also means that you can react to news, tweet it, Facebook it or post it on LinkedIn.

Once you start reacting to relevant news and offering an interesting commentary, people will start to see you and your business as a valuable contact on social media sites. You will also ensure that your business is front of mind’ when they come to buy products; they will see you as an expert in your field.

So all in all wake up and get alert with Google.

Valley at Work

2010-06-01T13:37:00.003+01:00

I'm speaking this evening at "Valley at Work", the networking group set up by PEER in Rossendale.

I'm speaking on 'Low-cost marketing and social media marketing for small businesses' at the Russian Tea Rooms in Bacup. I'm looking forward to it for several reasons, but not least because Valley at Work is something I'd like to see replicated in Pendle - I think it's potentially very powerful to have a community enterprise board working closely with a business networking group.

I chair "Enterprising Pendle" - PEER's sister organisation - and it's a model I'm very keen for us to adopt in Pendle.

Tonight I'll be talking about the social media landscape, it's pitfalls and opportunities - but most of all I'll be reiterating the message - measure, monitor, analyse and adjust. This help you to ensure that your marketing spend is doing it's job. It's all about return-on-investment - which requires people to not put the medium before the message.

How to gain followers on Twitter

2010-05-12T11:36:00.003+01:00

We’ve been doing a lot of work with clients around social media recently and those who are new to Twitter frequently ask us how to generate followers. Well, here’s a few steps to consider:-

1. Check out who your friends, contacts, customers and competitors are following and follow them yourself. The rule of thumb is that about half will follow you back.

2. Compelling content will get you followers! So remember, the message comes before the medium, so don’t just tweet any old nonsense. One way to get good material to tweet is to use Google alerts (www.google.com/alerts) to prompt you about stories featuring subject matter you’re interested in and which will interest potential followers. Position yourself as a resourceful contact.

3. Tweet using keywords as it will help you to be found when people search. Equally, you should put the right keywords on your homepage biography.

4. Retweet interesting tweets by people you follow. They may well do the same for you and carry your message to a wider audience and attract you new followers.

You might find after a week or two that some of the people you have followed haven’t followed you back and you might want to unfollow them. You can do this manually, but there are a number of tools that you can use to manage twitter accounts that will do this for you in an automated fashion (such as Huitter).

Be careful when using these not to rid yourself of more than a couple of hundred followers at a time, as it may flag up your account with Twitter. Automated activity sometimes implies spammer activity – and this is usually sufficient for Twitter to suspend accounts - permanently. After all, they’re sitting on a multi-billion dollar intellectual property – they don’t want it to be compromised!

A couple of other tools to consider using are bit.ly and monitter.com.

Bit.ly allows you to shorten URLs that you post (useful, as tweets are limited to 140 characters), but also gives you some really interesting metrics like number of clickthroughs and retweets.

Monitter allows you to follow what people are tweeting in real time around specified keywords and within a geographic radius. So you could follow what people are saying in your area and on key subjects. You can then be first to respond.

We’ll be posting more social media, marketing and public relations tips in coming weeks, so be sure to follow the blog and be first to know!

Uni-play.co.uk

2010-05-05T17:07:00.004+01:00

We've just finished a design and build job - the website for school playground equipment specialist, Uni-Play - have a look... http://bit.ly/9GJZ7G

At BrandSpankin' we strive to build websites that deliver a return on investment for our clients - hence they are very well optimised (as standard - we don't see SEO as a value added service, but as a basic requirement).

However, it's not just a matter of getting the right traffic there - it's also about making the site compelling to read, attractive to look at and simplifying the customer journey. In short the site has to work hard as a lead generation vehicle, as a sales channel - or both.

It's for these reasons that our sites usually pay for themselves fairly quickly - and why we're confident that Uni-play will have invested in an e-commerce site that will reap dividends!

Millward Brown Optimor Survey - top 100 brands

2010-04-29T13:46:00.004+01:00

Just had a read of this year's Millward Brown Optimor survey of the world's most valuable brands. It's on the FT site, here's a link to the survey data:-

http://bit.ly/cU5Edd

Not surprisingly Google was found to be the world's most valuable brand in a field dominated by technology firms.

Google, IBM, Apple and Microsoft topped global leviathans Coca-Cola, McDonald's, and Marlboro in the Top Ten brand value list.

Google's brand was worth more than $US114 billion

PR and Social Media courses

2010-04-28T14:30:00.006+01:00

We've just completed the April course and it went down very well. It was slightly different this month because previously we've done a journalist q/a with Ben Briggs, the Editor of Lancashire Business View. This month we were joined by Chris Hopper, the business reporter from Lancashire Telegraph. Feedback from attendees has been very positive and we fully expect to see them getting as much coverage as previous attendees.

This month we trained staff from the following companies:-

- Petty Chartered Surveyors
- The White Room
- Little Treasures
- Daviker Software
- Printing.com
- Tax Assist
- Art Exchange

I should also congratulate Vicky from Uno Coffee - she attended in January and has several pieces of coverage since then. Here's what she had to say:

"The atmosphere on the course was relaxed and friendly. I learned how to write and distribute strong press releases - and monitor coverage. Since the course we’ve had stories in the Nelson Leader, Lancashire Telegraph, Bolton Evening News - plus online coverage. The social media elements have helped with lead generation, so we’ve seen a real return. Overall was thrilled with the course and better still it was fully funded by Business Link!"

Icelandic volcano top 20

2010-04-19T16:56:00.000+01:00

Greetings pop pickers! We’ve had a poptastic day in the office today. Camilla was supposed to fly to Italy – cancelled. Julian’s Dad was supposed to fly to Istanbul – cancelled. Bill Spear from WDN was supposed to be here from the US – he’s stuck in Dublin. Alison from Uno Coffee – stuck in Spain.

So here’s our Icelandic Volcano top 20...not ‘arf!

(Read whilst listening to this - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mOb4Ac2CLXA)

1. Ashes to Ashes - David Bowie
2. My old man's a dustman - Lonnie Donnegan
3. Another one bites the Dust - Queen
4. Volcano - Damien Rice
5. Lava Lava - Boys Noize
6. Leaving on a jet plane (NOT) - John Denver
7. Fly Away - Frank Sinatra
8. And I would walk 500 miles - The Proclaimers
9. We are Sailing - Rod Stewart
10. Solid Air - John Martyn
11. I Wanna go Home - Micheal Buble
12. Blowin in the Wind - Bob Dylan
13. Great balls of Fire – Jerry Lee Lewis
14. The look of Lava (well...love) - Dusty Springfield
15. Smoke on the water - Deep Purple
16. Led Zeppelin – Misty Mountain Hop
17. Keith Harris and Orville – I wish I could fly
18. R Kelly – I believe I can fly
19. ELO – Last Train to London
20. Cliff Richard – We are all (not) going on a summer holiday

The party leaders debate...

2010-04-16T15:38:00.003+01:00

I watched as much as I could tolerate of the party leaders debate last night (about 10 minutes) and considered the comms implications. I found it difficult really.

Not just that it was tedious and unilluminating. All three party leaders were well drilled and the stock answers pretty much rolled off their tongues. Nobody made any serious gaffs, nobody delivered anything that will significantly shift much in the way of votes - possibly Clegg might have picked up a few more tactical votes than he might have otherwise.

The thing is - the whole election is an anaemic exercise. The age of grand ideologies is over and the so-called election debate is about who can run the show slightly better and who will adjust the tax system so it's marginally more beneficial to your circumstances. Illegal wars and economic meltdown barely get a mention (I know...they were covering domestic affairs last night).

Camilla, our graphic designer just cracked us all up, when she summed up the level of resignation we all feel - she said that the fact that they all wore ties in their party colours was sufficient to make her turn off "because it's about shapes and colours." I'm guessing they can't even inspire on that front either....

BrandSpankin’ to host Mobile Marketing event

2010-04-13T16:59:00.005+01:00

PENDLE marketing business BrandSpankin’ (http://www.brandspankin.co.uk) is set to host a mobile marketing demonstration for east Lancashire businesses that are looking to generate significant footfall and turn passers-by into customers.

The event is to take place in Simonstone, Lancashire on Wednesday 21st April, and will be co-hosted by BrandSpankin’s technology partner, C2-UK. The event is free to attend but places are limited, as there is significant interest in this form of mobile or proximity marketing.
The system operates using mobile handsets that have Bluetooth enabled, allowing businesses to send messages, discount codes and special offers to people who are in the immediate vicinity, allowing businesses to pull in people who might otherwise just pass by.

The UK has more active mobile contracts than people and over 90 per cent of handsets have Bluetooth functionality – potentially giving businesses unprecedented levels of access to foot fall that they would otherwise miss out on.

“Open rates” for this form of mobile marketing are in the region of 13 per cent, whereas traditional small business marketing techniques such as door drops, direct mail or flyers can typically have as little as a 0.5 per cent response rate.

Julian Jordan, MD of BrandSpankin’ said: “At the event we’ll be demonstrating the ease of use of our mobile marketing solution. Unlike a lot of traditional marketing forms you can really measure the effect of this approach and see an unprecedented return on your marketing budget. This kind of solution makes massive sense for small businesses such as bars, clubs and taxi businesses – but equally larger enterprises like football clubs, supermarkets and concert venues can see huge and immediate responses.”

Businesses interesting in attending should contact BrandSpankin’ on 01282 878 301 or 0161 453 3230.

Asda shoppers get the Doodle bug!

2010-04-13T16:59:00.004+01:00

PENDLE creative marketing business BrandSpankin’, has had Colne shoppers doodling for a good cause this week.

Shoppers at Colne’s Asda store took part in Lancashire’s Longest Doodle and supported Pendleside Hospice in the process.

The Doodle is taking shape on a huge stretch of cotton and has had hundreds of people doodling for a good cause. So far the doodle is 130 metres long and filled with the artistic work of hundreds of local people!

Doodlers are also being asked to make a contribution to Pendleside hospice, a charity designed to meet the needs of local people with cancer or life-threatening illnesses.

BrandSpankin’ started the project to promote the regeneration of Lancashire.

Julian Jordan, BrandSpankin's managing director explains: “We believe that creativity generates the ideas that will spawn enterprise and ultimately regeneration. The doodle has already been all over Lancashire and when it’s complete we’ve got plans to roll it down several spectacular Lancashire landmarks.”

Any schools, businesses, or community groups interested in participating in the doodle should call BrandSpankin’ on 01282 878301.

BrandSpankin’ new approach to promoting your business.

2010-04-08T11:23:00.002+01:00

PENDLE marketing business BrandSpankin’ (http://www.brandspankin.co.uk) has launched a radical new marketing solution to help east Lancs businesses make more money.

Mobile or proximity marketing operates using mobile handsets that have Bluetooth enabled, allowing business to send messages, discount codes and special offers to people who are in the immediate vicinity, allowing businesses to pull in people who might otherwise just pass by.

The UK has more active mobile contracts than people and over 90 per cent of handsets have Bluetooth functionality – potentially giving businesses unprecedented levels of access to foot fall that they would otherwise miss out on.

“Open rates” for this form of mobile marketing are in the region of 13 per cent, whereas traditional small business marketing techniques such as door drops, direct mail or flyers can typically have as little as a 0.5 per cent response rate.

Julian Jordan, MD of BrandSpankin’ said: “We’ve spent ages trying to source the best mobile marketing solution and we’ve been really impressed with the kit we’ve got. It’s really robust and the reporting it can deliver is superb.”

“Unlike a lot of traditional marketing forms you can really measure the effect of this approach and see an unprecedented return on your marketing budget. This kind of solution makes massive sense for small businesses such as bars, clubs and taxi businesses – but equally larger enterprises like football clubs, supermarkets and concert venues can see huge and immediate responses.”

Social Media and Media Relations courses

2010-03-16T09:25:00.004Z

BrandSpankin' has just completed the March Social Media and Media Relations course and again we've had some excellent attendees, representing businesses including Daviker Software (www.touchstarccs.co.uk), Weighing Scales Limited (www.weighingscalesltd.co.uk), Function Factory Theatre (www.functionfactorytheatre.co.uk) and Four Seasons Gardening.

Given the popularity of the courses to date (and some of the excellent successes previous attendees are now reporting), we're rolling them out and we'll be considering doing them further afield - with Liverpool and Manchester being possible/likely locations.

To support our efforts, LMA (www.lmaaccountants.com) will be selling spaces on courses from May, as well as managing grant applications for those businesses looking to have their attendees fully funded.

Lancashire's Longest Doodle on tour!

2010-02-18T15:20:00.005Z

There are a few dates we thought we'd share with you in case you felt the creative urge to help with Lancashire’s Longest Doodle and at the same time raise some money for Pendleside Hospice.

On the 25th March Function Factory, an East Lancs based theatre company will be taking the doodle to the ACE Centre in Nelson. (http://www.functionfactorytheatre.co.uk)

Pendleside Hospice are also taking the Doodle out to various local supermarkets. It will be at Tesco in Burnley on the 5th and 6th March, Asda in Colne on the 12th and 13th March and at Asda in Burnley on the 21st and 22nd May. Come along and show your support and have a doodle at the same time.

BrandSpankin' PR and Social Media Courses

2010-02-15T11:36:00.002Z

January saw the start of our PR courses for small businesses. Taking place at Pendle Innovation Centre where BrandSpankin’ is headquartered, we are planning subsequent courses – the next of which will run in March.

The course covers areas such as understanding your business brand values and propositions to determine your key messages, writing a compelling press release, building a comprehensive communications plan, and using social media to support your PR and marketing efforts.

For our first course we welcomed attendees from Hillendale Land Rover, Anvic Developments, Louvreties, Enterprising Pendle, Coffee Uno and Brooklands Retreat.

Let us know if these courses are of interest – we can help you secure funding to cover your costs!

No really...Happy Christmas!

2009-12-11T21:38:00.001Z

I love/hate this time of year. Overbearing sentimentality, commercial meltdown, mountains of Chinese manufactured plastic shite that the kids don't really want, hideous food. Then on the upside there's the mulled wine, office parties, the excitement of my kids on Christmas Eve, the Wizard of Oz.

Still, I don't see why we can't get it over in a long weekend then crack on - I've got work to do, you know.

Anyroad up, whatever you're doing - I hope you have a great Christmas and New Year. There...I said it.

Here's the BrandSpankin' Christmas eshot...

http://bit.ly/5n4HGz

Social Media isn't just for idiots...

2009-12-11T21:28:00.000Z

I read an interesting post on LinkedIn yesterday. A guy from the North West Directors group was clearly trying to be contraversial by suggesting that, in his words, "only idiots think that social media works."

I countered by pointing out that "only idiots DON'T think social media works." And if you think he's right and I'm wrong, here's a story we carried on iSM yesterday...

Dell earns $6.5million from Twitter sales

COMPUTER maker Dell has announced that it has sold $6.5m worth of equipment by using microblogging website Twitter.

This sales figure represents something of a late surge – as recently as June this year the company said it had made $3m of sales via Twitter over the previous two years.

Whilst only a fraction of the $12.3bn sales in the company’s latest financial quarter, it is growing rapidly. The message to businesses is that social media represents a viable way of getting your message out there and generating revenue.

http://bit.ly/8NRwJY

Reclaims4U Press Announcement

2009-11-30T10:17:00.000Z

We issued the following press release on Thursday for our client, Reclaims4U, following a mystery shopping exercise. It's very timely, given the fact that the Supreme Court upheld the Banks' appeal regarding unfair charges.

http://www.reclaims4u.co.uk/

NEWS RELEASE: Reclaims4U Ltd urge caution where firms offer to “write off”, “wipe out” or “clear” your debts

LANCASHIRE financial reclaims business, Reclaims4U Ltd is warning consumers to be cautious when looking to pursue a claim against their credit card or loan agreement for ‘unenforceability’.

In the wake of yesterday’s Supreme Court ruling in favour of the banks over ‘unfair charges’, many hard-up consumers may be looking at other means of pursuing the banks for unfair charges.

As such, Reclaims4U has expressed concern for consumers who may now be considering looking at unenforceable credit agreements, such as credit cards. A mystery shopping exercise conducted by the business revealed some startling discrepancies - such as wide variations in upfront, irredeemable charges and unsubstantiated claims about the potential for a successful outcome. For example, of those businesses questioned, nearly 40 per cent said there was a greater than 80 per cent chance of success with 12 per cent of businesses claiming that that there was a “100 per cent” likelihood of a successful outcome.

It has become clear that a proportion of credit card or loan agreements may not be fully compliant with prescribed terms as required under the Consumer Credit Act of 1974 – and some of these credit agreements could be deemed unenforceable, which means consumers may be paying Credit Cards or Loans which are not enforceable. A large number of businesses have emerged offering to work on behalf of consumers to “Write off”, “Wipe out” or “Clear” their debts, phrases which are not compliant with Claims Management Regulations.

Reclaims4U Ltd – the company that conducted the mystery shopping exercise over the 9th and 10th of November, is urging consumers that whilst credit agreements can be reviewed to assess whether they are enforceable or not, they should be cautious and ask the right questions before instructing a company to get their credit card or loan agreements reviewed.

Reclaims4U’director, Lee Blackshaw commented: “There are a lot of companies trying to cash in on this sector, although not all of them are acting in the best interest of their clients, as whilst they maybe explaining the benefits of unenforceability they are not fully advising consumers of the potential consequences.”

“We found that many of the 39 businesses we spoke to didn’t fully explain the process and its drawbacks. Over 56 per cent said that successful claims wouldn’t affect the consumer’s credit rating, when this is currently not the case.”

“A big concern is that whilst consumers may have credit card or loans deemed unenforceable, at the moment the debt stays on your credit file, which could effect future credit applications such as loans or mortgages.”

“Although Lenders are currently required to register the fact that a debt has been deemed as unenforceable on the credit bureau, there is currently nothing to stop the lenders continuing to register the customer’s payment history. As this is the current Legal position, I’d urge people to proceed with caution.”

“In the current financial climate it is understandable that people will consider this option because they could be struggling to make ends meet. Pursuing credit card or loan unenforceability is an option, but you should be aware of the full facts and also the costs before proceeding with such a claim – over 30 per cent of companies charged an upfront fee between £200 and £300. Over five per cent charged more than £500 and the highest upfront fee we came across was £995!”

“With regards to claiming, there are other options which are worth pursuing such as claiming against mis-sold payment protection insurance on loans or credit cards - most importantly - whatever you do, always talk to a reputable company.”

- ENDS -

Attend our PR Masterclasses

2009-11-20T09:43:00.000Z

Like many other businesses, BrandSpankin’ has been buffeted by the economic climate over the last year – as you can imagine, Marketing and Public Relations are budgets that are frequently first to be cut. Nevertheless, when we meet people in business in our area they often suggest that they’d be very keen to build more awareness of their business, to generate leads and to be seen to have a higher media profile – whether that’s local & regional, trade and business, online or even national. The sticking point for many is the (perceived) cost of PR – especially when weighed against the measurable benefits.

Therefore, we have been looking at ways we can help businesses get consistent, positive media coverage that communicates who they are, what they do and what they stand for – without incurring significant costs. As such, we are proposing to run a two day course in January – and teach a member of your team the tricks of the trade, so instead of having to retain the services of our business (or a similar one), your business will be capable of generating positive headlines using an in-house resource.

Building awareness for your business in this way, will help you to be ‘front of mind’ when your targets are about to make a ‘buying decision’. Recognition of your business and familiarity with your offerings builds trust amongst prospects and customers alike. And you can convert that trust into winning new business and retaining your existing customers.

A member of your staff can join our PR masterclass – this two day course costs only £199 plus VAT, but there are limited places. Not only will your business then be able to make your message more compelling, you’ll be able to target your message appropriately, write effective press releases, get your story published, use social media to give your story much more traction and you’ll significantly increase traffic to your website. What’s more, we’ll be following up with every participant on the course to ensure that they put their skills to good use - to ensure that you generate positive media coverage (that’s worth more than the cost of the course itself!).

The course will be delivered by our MD, Julian Jordan, who has 20 year’s experience as a journalist, media relations expert and marketer. He has been the Managing Editor of The Asian, Production Editor of Unified Communications and Editor-in-Chief of Information Services Monthly. He has also successfully managed Media Relations for brands such as Vivendi-Universal, Onetel, Your Communications, TouchStar Software, Moonfish and MobileBroadbandSupermarket.co.uk

Here’s what a current client has to say about our media relations services:

“BrandSpankin’ have helped us immensely with our media relations. Now, people are blogging about our service and social media activity has significantly increased our website traffic. Most importantly, we’ve generated coverage in trade and business media, regional media and we’ve been in The Daily Telegraph. Building awareness in this way will help us become the first point of reference when people are looking to purchase mobile broadband.” - Andy Gott - Managing Director, MobileBroadbandSupermarket.co.uk

Our media relations course could similarly be the difference that gives your business vital cut-through and differentiation – positive headlines are potentially just a phone call away!

Give us a call on 01282 878 301 - and here are some more details:-

http://bit.ly/1dgldj

WARNING...WARNING...WARNING....idiots in our midst

2009-11-13T18:49:00.000Z

You may know somebody who is deeply gullible, intellectually challenged and socially limited. They may be inclined to carelessly spread OFFICIALLY DEBUNKED, RACIST rumours.

A good way to identify such individuals is that they may have sent the following text message to you today.

“Dear All. This is a very serious message that I hope you can pass on to as many people as you can. Last night at the big Asda in Manchester a 3 year old girl went missing. Fortunately their policy when something like this happens is to lock the doors. The little girl was found in the toilets with 2 Romanian women. One shaving her head and the other dressing her in boys clothes. This come from an employee who was there last night. Please pass the message round to as many as you can and remain extra vigilant with your own children.”

Forget Romanian women, Gypsies and migrants - a bigger threat to all of us is posed by fuckwits who collude with racist crap like this.

Top tips for marketing your small business...

2009-11-11T22:16:00.000Z

Or, how to hold your nerve when all around you are losing theirs

A lot of small businesses we come across are often guilty of ad hoq marketing. Sales are down one particular month, so they decide the following month that they’d better “do some marketing”.

You wouldn’t do your books on an ad hoq basis (I hope!) and you wouldn’t turn up at the office on an ad hoq basis – so why would you leave your business development to chance?

Businesses that prosper are always the ones that plan their marketing and consistently communicate their values, products and services to their targets, prospects AND existing customers.

So here’s a few things to consider:

1. Budget accordingly. Things may take longer and cost more than planned. Look at your business plan – how much growth are you anticipating? Plan your marketing activity to meet that objective. Then ask yourself which areas of marketing have worked for you previously (e.g. a specific publication, direct mail, your website) – then direct your budget to those areas.

2. Your marketing will always require tweaks – and some things that you do won’t work. You need to learn along the way what works best for your business (i.e. gives you a return on your investment). The idea that the savvy businesses don’t cut their marketing budget in a recession is a falsehood – if it isn’t delivering, scrap it and focus your limited budget on something that is!

3. Taken together, these two points should illustrate that easy choices aren’t necessarily the best choices. Just because “we’ve always done it this way”, doesn’t mean it’s always going to work – especially as your customers have an increasingly sophisticated understanding of “media and marketing” - let’s face it, things have moved on from the days when we had just four terrestrial TV channels and half a dozen national newspapers – some of your competitors may be about to steal a march on you!

4. There’s an irrational person in your office – ignore this individual at all costs. The world is full of nay-sayers – don’t let them de-motivate you! So what if they hate your website/new logo/brochure/eshot/press release? An uninformed, knee-jerk, gut reaction says nothing about whether or not something is fit-for-purpose!

5. Getting butterflies before you hit send is almost certainly a good thing – it’s good to have a few doubts. That in itself should be sufficient to check, double check, ask a colleague (not the irrational one), even ask a customer. Nothing worse than blundering through something, absolutely convinced you are right – when the chances are, you’re wrong.

6. You’ll never please everyone, so why try? Even if you only please one in a hundred – do you realise how big a market that is?

7. Sticking to a conviction or principle is very laudable. Doing what demand in the marketplace dictates is very profitable. Laudable or profitable...you decide.

8. Marketing is a means to helping your business make more money. Design work conducted for your business should never lose sight of this. Creativity is great, but only if it serves that purpose...I hate to be the one to break it to you, but you’re unlikely to win an award in Cannes...probably best to focus on generating leads and awareness!

9. Is your marketing measurable? Do you track what effect it’s having? Can you say for every £ you spend, you generate £s? There are lots of ways this can be done – it helps you figure out what works and what you should do more.

10. You will make mistakes, but try not to make expensive mistakes. If you’re going to commit to a marketing project that costs, look at what other businesses like yours have done and assess if it’s worked for them. Are there ways you can mitigate against high costs – there is funding and training available for example (call us and we'll let you know about it) - this could offset your costs and enhance your skills and experience.

So there you go! Food for thought, I hope. If there are any points that provoke your interest or, for that matter, raise your blood pressure...let us know.

And, of course, if there’s anything we can do to help you market your business more successfully – get in touch!

http://www.brandspankin.co.uk/

Enterprising Pendle

2009-11-11T22:11:00.001Z

I chaired a board meeting of Enterprising Pendle - our Community Enterprise Board - on Monday evening. It was very productive - and given our current issues around funding and sustainability, very positive.

Remi Thackrey, our Enterprise Facilitator, reported on activity, in terms of who he's currently supporting and what challenges they face.

It's really encouraging that we now have active clients and that there are benefits being delivered to people who are running businesses, or who are in the process of setting them up.

Pendleside Hospice

2009-11-04T19:58:00.001Z

As you may know, BrandSpankin’ is trying to make Lancashire’s Longest Doodle. Here’s what the Lancashire Telegraph had to say about it - http://bit.ly/XqLjc

Besides the fact that we’re looking to support the regeneration of the area, by illustrating the links between creativity and enterprise, we’re also going to use the doodle as an opportunity to help Pendleside Hospice raise money and awareness (http://www.pendleside.org.uk/).

Currently, they get just 30% of their funding from the Primary Healthcare Trust – approximately £850,000 per year. To operate, the hospice need to raise an additional £2million per year. We’ll be doing all we can in the coming months to support their efforts.

The hospice gets involved in a variety of events in East Lancashire, from fashion shows to beer festivals – it’s all here http://www.pendleside.org.uk/events.php

They issue updates regarding their activities on a Facebook group – I’d urge all Pendle people to join and to offer your support.

MobileBroadbandSupermarket.co.uk using Twitter to assist business travellers

2009-11-03T22:34:00.000Z

Comparison site offers social media based quality of service index!

MOBILE connectivity specialists MobileBroadbandSupermarket.co.uk, have come up with a unique way of monitoring the levels of service that networks are delivering to business users of mobile broadband.

The dongle comparison site has formulated a way to analyse all tweets within twenty five miles of twelve UK cities. All comments about mobile broadband networks and their performance will be logged in order to give a developing picture of the quality of service consumers are experiencing.

The outcome will enable visitors to the MobileBroadbandSupermarket site to see for themselves just how well each network is performing in their area. The current plan is that MobileBroadbandSupermarket will issue a quarterly statement indicating levels of performance across the following UK conurbations – London, Bristol, Birmingham, Nottingham, Leeds, Newcastle/Sunderland, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Manchester, Liverpool, Cardiff and Sheffield.

Andy Gott, MobileBroadbandSupermarket’s Managing Director commented:

“Sometimes people’s subjective experience is a very valuable index of business performance and we thought that by using tweets in this way we were providing business users of mobile broadband with an additional level of insight that will enable them to make an informed choice when purchasing a Dongle.”

He added: “Not only can this assist people to make the right choice based on their area, it can also point out the relative merits of a network in another area – so for frequent business travellers, it will prove very useful as they need connectivity in more than one location.”

“We’re very keen to use whatever means are available to help consumers through the maze of a dongle purchase – and Twitter is a perfect platform to use in this context. Not only is it proving extremely popular, but it is a place where there are already many early-adopters where technology is concerned, so it should prove a rich and informative source.”

Mobile connectivity devices, or “dongles” as they are commonly known, are an ideal way for people to stay connected on the move. They are especially useful to business travellers, who may need to get online whilst at the airport or hotel; for students, who need connectivity but may not have a fixed line connection; and also for some people in rural communities, who may not have very good ADSL coverage.

Here comes the Groom!

2009-11-02T15:45:00.000Z

Oh dear...call me jaded and cynical, but I got outvoted by colleagues and our client when I wrote the following piece. We wanted to have a weddings piece to promote the made-to-measure Pal Zileri suit service at Scruples. I think I ended up ranting...so it's a very toned down version of this piece that's going to appear in the magazine. In any case, hope it gives you a laugh at my expense!

****
Here comes the groom...

Traditionally weddings have been the domain of the bride. It’s her day...so long as she’s happy... These are commonly held misconceptions – why shouldn’t the groom have some say or influence? And for that matter, why shouldn’t he feel like a million dollars too?

With Bridal gowns routinely costing thousands and only ever being worn once, it does beg the question, why shouldn’t the groom get to wear something in which he looks and feels fantastic – especially, as there’s a half chance he’ll be able to wear his “wedding” suit again!

The history of wedding wear is a depressing tale from a male perspective – traditionally the bride wears white as a colour of purity, whilst some say that the groom wears black to represent the "death of his carefree life".

Now, that’s not exactly a case of getting off on the best footing, is it? How many married men would have taken the vows if you were required to agree to...no more drinks with the lads, no more football, no more messing about with cars, no more fishing? Not many of us!

So, just as the bride will have chosen a dress to make sure she looks her best on the day, the groom should choose an outfit which is a little bit special for HIS big day. So don’t just go for the tried and tested after-thought of a plain black suit - or worse, the truly awful morning suit or tuxedo route.

“Black tie” should be reserved for corporate jollies and award events. And, if you’re considering morning suits - good God man - are you getting married, or putting on the Ritz? Frankly, if you are wearing a top hat and you are not Isambard Kingdom Brunel, something has gone horribly wrong.

When have you ever worn one before? When are you ever likely to wear one again? So, why would you wear something so cumbersome and awkward, on what should be the most memorable day of your life?

My advice would be that in order to savour your wedding day and remember it for all the right reasons, you should feel happy and comfortable – so forego the ludicrously formal approach and consider a made-to-measure two or three piece suit.

The beauty of this approach is that you have one less thing to fret about - so you can focus on not losing the ring, remembering your speech and the fact that all your disparate family and social circles are about to collide to the tune of “Come on, Eileen.”

You can of course also have something made in very lightweight fabric – great if you’re getting married on one of the half dozen decent summer days we get, and even better if you’re considering getting hitching in sunnier climes!

There’s nothing to stop you coordinating with your best man, ushers, page boys – even the father of the bride (good to get him onside early!) – and, for this you should consider matching waistcoats and/or tie.

If you manage to get all this to tie in with the general colour scheme of the wedding...Result! Even better you could get your prospective Mrs to come along to your made-to-measure session with Pal Zileri’s tailors – she could help you choose your linings and the colours could match the bridesmaid’s dresses.

All that AND a married person’s tax allowance – PULL OUT THE STOPPER, LET’S HAVE A WHOPPER, BUT GET ME TO THE CHURCH ON TIME!!

Owen Coyle: man for all seasons

2009-10-30T13:52:00.000Z

Here's a version of a feature piece based on an interview I did with Owen Coyle, Burnley's manager. It's for the imminent edition of Scruples magazine - a contract publishing job we do for the Barrowford menswear outlet (You can see last year's here - http://bit.ly/1wGyPt)

****

The global media glare and the intense pressure of the Premiership has seen some managers wilt. Yet Burnley’s young manager, Owen Coyle, thrives on it. When he came for his made-to-measure suit, we asked what makes Owen Coyle tick?

COYLE breezes into Scruples, still in his training kit from the morning’s session. It’s only a few days after the derby defeat to bitter local rivals, Blackburn Rovers, but if you’d expected Coyle to be licking his wounds, think again.

“March can’t come round quickly enough,” he comments in reference to the Turf Moor return fixture.

The positivity and enthusiasm of the man is infectious and clearly he’s cast a spell over Burnley’s players, staff and supporters. That magic has seen a middling championship side transformed to a team that went on a superb run, culminating in May’s championship play-offs, a swashbuckling display in the victory over Reading, and a trip to Wembley to blunt the Blades of Sheffield United in the final.

As Wade Elliott’s wonder goal hit the back of the net that afternoon, the realisation that Premiership football was coming to Burnley started to dawn on the club’s supporters – and they were still pinching themselves as the season started with home victories over the giants of Manchester United and Everton. That’s some testament to the power of Coyle’s positivity and charismatic leadership – but where did it all start?

“I was at Dumbarton when I was thirteen - I had a chance to sign for Dundee United, but my family felt that it would be best for me to serve my apprenticeship at Dumbarton and it was the best thing that ever happened to me. I was just allowed to just develop without any pressure.”

For youngsters coming into the game there’s a high failure rate, so what is it in the make-up of those that succeed?

“There are a lot of elements – ability, desire, hunger and getting the right break at the right time. When kids at sixteen are cast aside, one of two things happens - they either say well it’s natural or they try and go and get careers at other clubs.

“We have sixteen youth team players and fortunately we’ve taken 5 first year professionals on this year - and that’s not common place. So one thing I always say to young players at our club in particular is that this is a job of work and you’re privileged to be doing this. So, don’t let failure be through lack of effort.

“If we decide you’re not to be a first team player, let it be because you’ve worked your socks off and we just don’t think you’re quite good enough. It’s the most difficult part of football, I know we lose games and this and that, but when you have to relinquish the dreams of young players and tell them there’s no contract there for them, for me that’s a really difficult part of the job.”

Regarding his own motivation, it’s interesting to hear Coyle comment on what helped see him through.

“First and foremost I had a very good upbringing and a tremendous support system. I’ve got five brothers and two sisters, so when it’s going well, you never get carried away or you get a clip round the ear and they make sure you remain grounded.”

Family is a recurring theme and it clearly informs his thinking. He cites coming from The Gorbals in Glasgow, where his mother still lives, as a profound influence and he goes back as often as possible. It certainly gave him a notion of overcoming the odds and succeeding – themes he frequently returns to.

“I played weighing 10 stones, which is unheard of as a striker. I knew I was playing against bigger, physical players. So I had to find ways of overcoming and getting the better of my opponent and hopefully I made the most of what I had.”

It’s been a long journey for the kid from The Gorbals, who dreamt of emulating his idol, Liam Brady. His playing career saw him enjoy highlights such as playing for the Republic of Ireland in 1994 against Holland, knowing how much it meant to his Irish parents; he was co-manager at Falkirk when they won the Scottish first division title – he was still playing at the time and scored a hat trick on the day; and, scoring in the play-off final for Bolton in 1995, to see them promoted to the Premiership.

“And I have to say the achievement as a manager at Burnley totally surpassed the achievements as a player winning at Wembley, no doubt about that,” he adds.

For somebody so keen to play the game there must have been difficulties in the transition to manager – even this season he’s turned out for Burnley’s reserves! In addition to that, there are a range of different responsibilities.

“As a player you know that if you do well the manager’s going to pick you. As a manager, you’re not only responsible for eleven players and the team, you’re responsible for a whole town - particularly at this club.

“I absolutely love everything about the town. Most of my career was in Scotland and you’d see buses leaving to support Celtic or Rangers from every part of the country. I love the fact that the first day I was in the job, I went through the town centre and all I saw was Burnley tops. You didn’t see Man U or Liverpool. And I thought to myself, this is my type of place.

“I believe when you walk through the front doors of a place, you know if there’s an atmosphere conducive to a good working environment. And I felt that the first day I walked in at Turf Moor - so I’m big on that, I’m big on atmosphere, trying to build a family club. So, as a manager - as opposed to being a player - I think that it’s important not to just represent your club but your town well.”

“We have an unbelievable fan base – when Turf Moor’s full as it invariably is now, it’s the best possible atmosphere. I mean I’ve played at Wembley and all these 60,000 and 70,000 capacity stadiums, but I’m telling you when Turf Moor’s at capacity, it’s the best atmosphere you’ll find in football. And that’s been driving us on.

“We’re now in the Premier league and our town’s population is less than Old Trafford’s capacity. But we’re in there and we made it and we don’t want to give it up. Burnley’s support in terms of percentage of population… we’ve got the biggest support in the world. Nearly one in four comes out to watch us - no other place has that, we’ve got an unbelievable fan base."

Coyle clearly takes his responsibility to the town and area very seriously – he wants success for the team, but expresses a wish that it can have a ‘trickledown effect’, create positive headlines about the place and help with moves towards regeneration.

“There’s a perception that Burnley’s some sort of back water, well it’s not. Anybody that gives us the time of day, both in terms of the club and the town and surrounding areas will see that there are a lot of not only nice people, but quality businesses.

“We’ve all known difficult times, so I think when you have a chance to be in the limelight for whatever reason, one you don’t give it up and two you look to maximise that. It irks me that people who have never set foot in Burnley want to write us off - and it’s the same with the football team, they’ve never seen us play, but they want to write us off. So all I can say is, if it’s the football or if it’s the area, come and see the quality that’s on show - I think it’s important everybody recognises that.

“In all things, I want to be the very best I can be. And equally I want the very best for this football club. First priority is to maintain premier league status, and put a plan in place that will serve the club well for years to come.

“Who’d have thought I’d be offered the Celtic job and turn it down? Celtic’s my team and they’ll always be my team because that’s what I grew up with, but I recognise we’re in the best league in the world and we’ve got a fantastic football club - that gave me the platform.

“Brendan (Flood) and the Chairman saw enough in me to see I was the right person to take the club forward and I respected that and I said that in the summer that it was important that I showed loyalty to the club.

“I want Burnley to flourish and I want to be the manager who does that.

“I believe I can take this club on and with the right backing - not meaning to put the Chairman and Brendan under any pressure - but come January we’ll obviously need money to push things on and give us another kick again. But if it does put pressure on them, then so be it,” he jokes.

“We all we want the best for Burnley Football Club and I want to make sure we make a real go of this and we’ll leave no stone unturned in our efforts.”

Daily Telegraph covers Mobile Broadband Supermarket

2009-10-30T13:21:00.000Z

I'm very please with the coverage won for our client MobileBroabandSupermarket.co.uk in yesterday's Daily Telegraph - read it here http://bit.ly/1xAqSf

Obviously, it's pleasing to win coverage and drive traffic to the site, but it marks a real stepping up of our activity using social media.

In the past I've run campaigns where we've paid a lot of money for research - usually with You.gov. I've always gone for a regional split within the questions because this means you can produce one generic national news release, but then re-write 'regionalised' versions, which sell-in really well to the big regional papers (Evening Standard, M.E.N., Liverpool Echo, Glasgow Herald etc.) - not to mention regional radio. Effectively, you give yourself several bites of the cherry.

The great thing about using Twitter in the way we are doing is that we're picking up qualitative customer feedback for free, which we can collate and then use nationally and regionally, in order to create an ongoing picture of quality of service. It's a great resource for the site, but also it gives a frequent opportunity to comment to the media!

MobileBroadbandSupermarket.co.uk launches best monthly deals round up

2009-10-22T11:56:00.000+01:00

Comparison site helps consumers identify best new deals and chance to win a PAYG Dongle!

MANCHESTER-based mobile connectivity specialists MobileBroadbandSupermarket.co.uk have launched a monthly round-up to make consumers aware of which networks are offering the best deals to suit their circumstances.

With mobile broadband usage is soaring, the variety of deals in the marketplace can be confusing, so MobileBroadbandSupermarket.co.uk provides neutral and transparent consumer support – on occasion advising consumers that want to buy a "dongle" that it might not be the right choice for them. With the dongle market set for massive growth, MobileBroadbandSupermarket's approach is to help consumers understand the variety of offerings available - not just in terms of price, but also usage limits and levels of service.

Andy Gott, Managing Director of MobileBroadbandSupermarket.co.uk, said: “Anybody considering a mobile broadband package, should sign up for our monthly round up, as it will keep you abreast of the best current offers. Not only will you receive a monthly email, full of the latest mobile broadband best buys, you'll also been entered into our monthly draw, which means that you're in with a chance of winning a Pay As You Go mobile broadband dongle!”

Andy Gott, continued: "The benefit of signing up for the update is that you will be able to make a confident buying decision, without doing hours of research first – it will enable you to make an informed decision about which network is offering the best mobile broadband deal to suit your circumstances.

Mobile connectivity devices, or “dongles” as they are commonly known, are an ideal way for people to stay connected on the move. They are especially useful to business travellers, who may need to get online whilst at the airport or hotel; for students, who need connectivity but may not have a fixed line connection; and also for some people in rural communities, who may not have very good ADSL coverage.

- ENDS -

De...de...de...de...

2009-10-21T12:16:00.000+01:00

Yesterday afternoon I interviewed Burnley manager Owen Coyle for the Scruples Menswear publication that we produce. (Have a look at last year's here http://bit.ly/1wGyPt)

He was as candid as ever - and besides the usual charm and intelligence we've all come to expect, it really struck me how professional and accomplished he is when facing the media. In a previous life I was a journalist and I can honestly say he's amongst the very best people I've interviewed. He wipes the floor with some of the chinless chief executives or vacuous vocalists I've dealt with in my time. It just goes to show, you can have all the media training in the world, but if you've got a set of values that you're passionate about and you've got a bit of personality, it can go a long way.

He was happy to chat for a while afterwards and even offered words of comfort for us Clarets who are still feeling the post-derby blues. He pointed out that Burnley completed nearly four times as many passes as our rivals - a stark indication of our different approach to the game. Referring to the return fixture, he said that March can't come quickly enough. Indeed!

When the publication comes out - in just over a week - we'll put the full transcript of Owen's interview up here.

Twitter clocks up 5 billion

2009-10-20T12:03:00.000+01:00

Social media site Twitter has clocked up 5 billion tweets. Nevermind the fact that a reasonable percentage of those will be drivel...

We're finding that Twitter is increasingly important and we're using it to successfully drive traffic to the iSM (Information Services Monthly) site - http://www.ismonthly.com, as well as those of clients like MobileBroadbandSupermarket (MBS).

Increasingly, we're finding new applications too - along with MBS, we're planning to use twitter to generate regionalised feedback on the quality of service from Mobile Broadband network providers, so we can enhance the service on their site, but also use it as the basis for regional pieces of PR across the UK.

Read more about the 5 billionth tweet here - http://bit.ly/26b8rI

Sunday....

2009-10-20T12:02:00.000+01:00

...Bugger!

Caught in a Bubble

2009-10-17T12:53:00.000+01:00

Tomorrow sees the resumption of hostilities in the oldest derby game in world football – Blackburn Rovers versus Burnley.

I’m one of only 3,000 Burnley fans being allowed to travel to the game, which has been designated a ‘bubble fixture’, where extraordinary police powers are invoked as a supposed means to maintain order and reduce the likelihood of violence and disorder.

This means I’ll have to be at Turf Moor, Burnley’s ground, at shortly after 9am tomorrow, to travel to Ewood Park, Blackburn’s ground, for a 1pm kick-off. The journey is just 11 miles – and our convoy of 60 coaches will take on the short journey down the M65 to get us inside the ground 2 – 3 hours before the game starts. Blackburn pubs won’t be opened before the game and there will be a massive police presence. It’s incredibly draconian and it places enormous inconvenience upon ordinary decent supporters of both clubs (the return fixture at Turf Moor is subject to the same measures) but, let’s face it, there is some history...

I’m not entirely sure where the rivalry and animosity originally comes from – but it’s a lot more than just your average local rivalry, like those that form the basis of so many other derby games. I’ve heard people say that the rivalry dates back to the civil war or the reformation – where the towns were on different sides. I’ve heard its origins were sectarian – blue and white Blackburn were supposedly a protestant club - there was certainly an imported Presbyterian Scottish element to their early history, as they were the first club to embrace ‘professionalism’ in the nineteenth century. Meanwhile Burnley’s roots may well have been more Catholic – the town saw huge Irish immigration in the nineteenth century, as its mushrooming population growth was fuelled by the ‘potato famine’ and the industrial revolution – some of my own forebears were amongst this wave of immigrants. Indeed, before we adopted our famous Claret & Blue, between 1900 and 1910 Burnley wore green shirts. I’ve also heard that as the towns industrialised, disputes arose about goods moving up and down the Leeds Liverpool canal. Burnley people alleging that Blackburn took the best cotton off the barges before they got to Burnley.

The industrial revolution however, saw football progress into a mass sport – and then as today, Lancashire was at the forefront. Both Burnley and Blackburn were amongst the founder members of the world’s first football league in 1888 and this is what arguably makes the East Lancashire Derby between these two mill towns the oldest in world football.

In the post war era, despite being champions of England 50 years ago, Burnley and its football club went into decline – the process hastened by the abolition of the maximum wage for players - a move which was bound to tilt the game in favour of the city clubs over the town clubs, due to their generally greater resources.

By the early 1980s both clubs were pale shadows of what they had once been, but the rivalry was as intense as ever – an article from the Guardian in 2000 comments:

“Burnley have not beaten their bitter rivals since 1979. In 1982-83 Blackburn achieved a league double over the Clarets with Simon Garner scoring twice at Ewood Park in April in a 2-1 victory. The visiting Burnley fans responded by throwing a smoke bomb on to the pitch and a bottle at the Rovers goalkeeper Terry Gennoe before tearing down the roof of the Darwen End. When Garner slotted home the decisive penalty, the travelling support tried to burn the stand down, despite being in it at the time, as a full-scale riot erupted.”

In the years that followed that notorious game, Burnley’s demise was complete as we had to win our last game of the season in 1987 to stay in the football league. As we began to claw our way back a few years later, we were beaten in the Fourth division play-offs by Torquay. As the dismal second leg petered out, a light aircraft buzzed Turf Moor with a banner trailing behind it – “Staying down 4 Ever – Love Rovers. Ha ha ha.”

I was in the Cricket Field Stand that night and if I’d had access to a shoulder launched anti-aircraft device I would have used it.

Shortly after that Jack Walker started pumping his millions into Blackburn and the club who had Margaret Thatcher as their honorary vice president, ascended to the pinnacle of English football ‘winning’ (buying) the title in 1995. Meanwhile, we were being relegated to the third tier after an inauspicious one season stay in the second. It was a loathsome period. We were well and truly in the doldrums and Blackburn were firmly ensconced in the happy, shiny world of the Premiership with all its millions. Many Burnley fans – myself included – blame them in part for the hideous parody the game has become...where hyper-spending has artificially created a playing field that is less even than it has ever been - the uglification of the beautiful game. Blackburn were undoubtedly complicit in starting that ball rolling – and helped sell the soul of the game for the one bite of the cherry it gave them in ’95.

The two clubs last met in the league in 2000 when we were humiliated by 0 – 2 and 5 – 0 reverses. In truth that season we were a third tier team punching above its weight in the Championship, whilst they were a Premiership outfit in all but name - they had their multi-millions and we had a brass buttons budget. Our manager at the time, Stan Ternent described the expectations of Burnley fans as 'wanting champagne football on beer money'.

Our only subsequent meeting was in the FA Cup in 2005 - a 0 – 0 draw at Turf Moor was followed by a 2 – 1 defeat at Ewood, but at least this time our pride was intact after a very creditable performance against a much superior squad.

However, since then things have changed. Blackburn’s turgid, functional, clatter-ball, lack of style has seen them become firmly established as a lower Premiership also ran. Meanwhile, with a modicum of (by current day standards) modest investment and the appointment of the charismatic and inspirational Owen Coyle as manager, Burnley have gelled into a team that has become renowned for easy-on-the-eye football that is both entertaining and effective. That culminated in a superb run during the spring that saw Burnley make the championship play-offs, and a swashbuckling display at Reading saw us then go to Wembley to blunt the Blades of Sheffield United.

As Wade Elliott’s wonder goal hit the back of the net that afternoon, I picked up my son, Jack and we went absolutely mad. It’s not lost on me that Jack’s namesake – my Grandad, who went to school just 300 metres from Turf Moor – took me to my first game along with my Dad, when I was just five years old. As the final whistle blew that day at Wembley I held both my kids aloft – Jack and Ella – both in their Burnley kits and I felt as proud as punch. I don’t mind admitting that my bottom lip had a bit of a wobble. I could barely believe we were back in the big time – there have been points when I didn’t believe I’d live to see the day.

No sooner had the initial celebrations died down than we were chanting: “Bring on the Bastards!” And, despite the presence in the Premiership of world class teams Like Arsenal, Chelsea, Liverpool and Manchester United – the first fixture I looked for when this season’s list was released was Blackburn, aka "Bastard Rovers".

So, tomorrow, at last, we meet the old enemy. I have to say, I know a good number of Rovers fans – friends, acquaintances and business associates. All of them decent sorts - but tomorrow that goes out of the window. As I’m taken in a quasi-military operation to Ewood, I’ll be wishing for one thing only – that they have their most awful day in thirty years of football and I have my best.

To outside observers, it may seem parochial - a fixture caught in a timewarp, but the old cotton mill derby stirs the passions like no other. For those of us in the Claret corner of East Lancashire, this is the first time for thirty years we meet Blackburn with more than just hope. This time we know we’ve got as good a chance as we’ve had in a generation. I can barely describe how much I want this result. It would mark a right of passage and confirm – Burnley are back!

BRING ON THE BASTARDS!!!!

Connected Finland

2009-10-16T16:04:00.000+01:00

Yesterday the Finnish government decided that Broadband access was a 'legal right'. This will make BTs universal service obligation look like chicken-feed - especially as they're saying they want access to 100mbps by 2015!

Read more on iSM (Information Services Monthly) here:-

http://bit.ly/1RgVR0

Enterprising Pendle

2009-10-16T15:47:00.000+01:00

Over the last two weeks I attended a 'Boot Camp' at which the leadership team from Enterprising Pendle (our Community Enterprise Board) and Remi Thackrey, our Enterprise Facilitator, were trained. This brings us up to the point where we can now operate as an effective board and hopefully work with active clients to help businesses and social enterprises to be successful.

Last night we had a board meeting and I was elected as chair. I'm really pleased about it - and very grateful to those colleagues who proposed and supported me. My intention is to support my colleagues and ensure we work as harmoniously as we can, whilst endeavouring to reflect the wide variety of different interests across the borough. I think our work is best summed up by the following points.

• Enterprising Pendle is a network of local people with a wide range of experience, who are drawn from every section of our community.

• Enterprising Pendle is committed to supporting local enterprise and helping people to turn their business ideas into reality.

• Enterprising Pendle is a listening network that will give you confidential, high quality, open-ended, FREE OF CHARGE help to develop your idea for a businessor a project.

• Enterprising Pendle employs and works with an Enterprise Facilitator to provide free, confidential support to local people with an idea for starting or expanding a business or project.

• Enterprising Pendle recognises that Pendle’s greatest asset is its people, and together, with a little help from our friends, we will make Pendle a better place to live, work and play.

If any of this chimes with your gut reaction, let me know, as I'd be keen to get you to meet Remi - or get you inducted, so you can become an active board member.

MobileBroadbandSupermarket

2009-10-15T13:14:00.000+01:00

We've just issued the following release for our client MobileBroadbandSupermarket.co.uk:-

MobileBroadbandSupermarket.co.uk launches tree planting campaign to fight climate change

Online comparison site helps consumers see the wood from the trees!

MANCHESTER-based mobile connectivity specialists MobileBroadbandSupermaket.co.uk have today announced that they have partnered with mokugift to plant a tree for every sale made through the site.

Andy Gott, Managing Director of MobileBroadbandSupermarket.co.uk, said:

“We considered ways we could be proactive about using our business to promote our commitment to sustainability – so tree planting really appealed to us. We’re delighted to be partnering with mokugift as they are an official partner of the United Nations Environment Programme's Billion Tree Campaign.”

“We love technology, but we're all active outdoor types too, and if we're not squeezing in a long weekend surfing in North Wales, or cycling in the Pennines, we're taking a well earned break for a snowboarding trip to the Alps.”

“There's nothing we love more than being involved with, and thoroughly enjoying, the planet on which we live, and it's very important to us that we do what we can to help keep it healthy.”

“At mobilebroadbandsupermarket.co.uk, we view technology as a potential means to reduce our impact on the planet – we can reduce international travel and therefore our carbon emissions using tele-conferencing, video-conferencing and webinars. And, of course this is all vastly enhanced by the ability to use your dongle and connect from anywhere.”

Mokugift plant trees in tropical zones as they have been proven to be the most beneficial to the fight against global warming. The trees they plant help reduce climate change and global warming by absorbing the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide. An average tree inhales 26 lbs of carbon dioxide per year and exhales enough Oxygen for a family of four for a year. Trees also reflect solar radiation back into space by evaporating water back into the atmosphere to increase cloudiness.

- ENDS -

LinkedIn clocks up 50 million users

2009-10-14T20:11:00.000+01:00

LinkedIn, the professional users social media, has announced that they have just surpassed 50 million users.

Not quite Facebook numbers, but pretty impressive for a niche network. It took nearly sixteen months for LinkedIn to reach its first million users. The last million took only 12 days. And all this whilst other social media sites have seen plateaus in growth.

Also LinkedIn seems to be devoid of spam or bot accounts - a good thing considering the 'friends' I've made on Twitter who are implausibly attractive young women who seem to want to sell me their 'hot pics'!

Anyway, for those of you interested, you can find me at:-

http://www.linkedin.com/in/julianjordan

Social Media Revolution

2009-10-09T14:37:00.001+01:00

I spoke at an event a couple of weeks ago about networking for new businesses. I thought it would be useful to go beyond 'organic' networking with people and also look at some of the issues raised by networking via social media.

We've had some success with this approach at BrandSpankin' (http://www.brandspankin.co.uk) using the likes of LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook (amongst others!). For example we've quadrupled traffic to iSM (http://www.ismonthly.com) using LinkedIn and we've significantly assisted MobileBroadbandSupermarket (http://www.mobilebroadbandsupermarket.co.uk) already as well as built a number of inbound links, which is great for their SEO strategy.

We've also just put a Facebook group together for Scruples menswear. We produce an annual 60 page magazine for Scruples which is distributed to their database of 4,500+ customers that they've gained over 25 years. You can have a look at last year's magazine here:- http://bit.ly/1wGyPt

Our intention is to carry a piece in the 2009 magazine promoting membership of the Scruples Menswear Facebook group. As the number of members grows it will give them an opportunity to message members with offers and updates on new lines, as well as their made-to-measure service. It's cheaper than direct mailing (given that it's free!) and they can track an immediate response!

Businesses that are in any doubt about digital marketing are overlooking the fact that by going digital, you can hit your targets in context and in location, rather than taking an old fashioned, expensive, and somewhat scattergun approach. As mobile marketing explodes onto the scene in the next year or so, the landscape will change beyiond recognition.

Anyway, if you're not entirely convinced, don't take my word for it - check this out:-

http://bit.ly/zZsGU

Trust4Business

2009-10-08T09:40:00.000+01:00

I've just seen the new Trust4Business site - they're our landlords here at Pendle Innovation Centre. The BrandSpankin' office is depicted in the shot on the page I've linked to! The site was done by Door4 - their MD Leon Calverley took the shot of us in action.

And, on a related note, I heard over the weekend that Leon had just become Dad to a baby girl, Emma Rose. Conratulations to Leon and Kat!

http://bit.ly/3ze2uh

MobileBroadbandSupermarket.co.uk launches FREE student guide to Dongles

2009-10-02T11:15:00.000+01:00

Free guide seeks to help student’s make informed decisions and save money

MobileBroadbandSupermarket.co.uk, the online comparison service, has launched a web –based student guide to help students choose the best mobile connectivity to suit their circumstances.

The document is hosted on the MobileBroadbandSupermarket.co.uk site at:- http://mobilebroadbandsupermarket.co.uk/studentguide

The guide is free to everybody - so students can download it, but it’s also being made freely available to webmasters on student sites and forums and editors on student publications.

Andy Gott, the managing director of MobileBroadbandSupermarket.co.uk, said:
“We published this guide to help students avoid some of the pitfalls involved with mobile broadband contracts, such as hidden charges and service performance issues. With so many students now considering mobile broadband as an alternative to land line based broadband, these considerations are becoming more important for students wanting to set up a broadband connection during their time at university.”

“We've timed the publication to coincide with fresher’s weeks up and down the country, as this is the time when many students start to think about how they're going to get connected to the internet.”

Recent research has shown that Pay as you go mobile (PAYG) broadband deals are extremely popularity among undergraduates living on a limited budget. Some reports have suggested pre-paid mobile broadband sales have risen by over 70 per cent

Whilst students are aware of the flexibility of some of these deals, some packages incur hidden charges and performance issues. The PAYG dongle route also offers students an alternative to land lines and arguments about usage and billing with house and flat-mates.

With the launch of the student guide, MobileBroadbandSupermarket.co.uk are seeking to add clarity to the marketplace and help students to avoid the pitfalls.

Andy Gott added: “We want to ensure that students can make an informed decision based on the dongle deals that best meet their requirements, rather than marketing hype.”

The PDF student guide is entirely free to use and redistribute - and it’s less than 160kb (which is smaller than many web pages), so shouldn't cause any problems for webmasters who decide to host it on their sites.

In addition, MobileBroadbandSupermarket.co.uk are happy to advise anybody requiring any technical assistance to upload the guide to their sites.

The document is hosted on the MobileBroadbandSupermarket.co.uk site at:- http://mobilebroadbandsupermarket.co.uk/studentguide

Ernesto Sirolli

2009-09-30T23:15:00.000+01:00

Last night I went to see Ernesto Sirolli of the Sirolli Institute talk about Community Enterprise Boards and Enterprise Facilitation. It was very compelling stuff and his delivery is excellent and really passionate. I chatted with Ernesto for about twenty minutes later in the evening about the book he's currently working on - I suggested that he should have an editor, as his publisher had initially suggested a ghost writer. I told him I may know just the man. Smudge...where are you??

Burnley Networking Event

2009-09-30T23:10:00.000+01:00

I spoke this evening at an event at HIX Burnley, that was organised by Kate Mayers of Burnley and Pendle Enterprise Trust. I spoke about networking as part of your marketing plan for SMEs. Also speaking was Andy Cooke from Positive Solutions. It was an excellent event and the majority of attendees were in start up mode, so Andy and I had to think on our feet as we got some pretty interesting interjections. All the attendees stayed back for a good hour or so after the event, which is a fair indication taht they got something from it.

Online advertising overtakes TV

2009-09-30T22:58:00.000+01:00

I heard on the radio this morning whilst driving to work that online advertising had finally overtaken TV in terms of revenue in the UK.

It's not at all surprising really. During a recession it makes sense for businesses to tighten the belt and in terms of marketing spend. You need to be able account for your spend in terms response and return on investment. And online gives you just that - it's dead easy to monitor, so for every pound spent you can account for what comes in.

The important thing is - the most successful online advertisers tend to be the most successful at marketing themselves through other channels too. So the key to it is to have an appropriate mix - and the affordability of online methods (eshots, pay-per-click, SEO, proximity marketing) means that well organised small businesses who have a strategic approach built into their business plan have reall opportunity to punch above their weight.

http://bit.ly/gEkDX

Money saving iPhone application

2009-09-27T19:21:00.021+01:00

I've just come across a great - FREE - iPhone application that can save you a bit of brass. You can find it on the app store as "0870" - it uses the same principle as the site Say No to 0870 - which allows you to dial normal numbers in place of 0845, 0870 etc. http://www.saynoto0870.com/

Basically it allows your iPhone to recognise when you dial non-geographic or premium rate numbers - and then pull up the normal 01 or 02 number behind the 08 or 09. This means that calls to banks, utility companies and credit card companies that can cost you 10p per minute or more now go through your minutes package, so don't cost you a fortune. Excellent - it sticks in the throat when you're calling them to tell them about crap service and they're making money out of your call!

MobileBroadbandSupermarket.co.uk appoints Jordan Communications to handle PR strategy

2009-09-27T18:56:00.000+01:00

Here's a transcript of a press release we issued on Thursday announcing our new contract win!

MobileBroadbandSupermarket.co.uk, the online comparison service has appointed Jordan Communications (BrandSpankin's parent company) to handle their public relations, as they embark upon a significant growth strategy.

With mobile broadband usage soaring, MobileBroadbandSupermarket.co.uk has been building a reputation as a neutral and transparent consumer champion - even advising some consumers that want to buy a "dongle" that it might not be the right choice for them. So, with the dongle market set for continued growth, MobileBroadbandSupermarket's approach is to educate consumers about the variety of offerings available - not just in terms of price, but also usage limits and levels of service.

Julian Jordan of Jordan Communications added: "We're delighted to be working for MobileBroadbandSupermarket.co.uk. It's a perfect match for our skill sets and experience. We've passionately supported the switching agenda over the years, so to be supporting the efforts of a business that is dedicated to adding clarity to a potentially confusing emerging marketplace is a real coup for us. The beauty of the service is its simplicity and its honesty - not only is it easy to use, if a dongle purchase isn't the best option for your circumstances, they'll tell you so."

Andy Gott, the Managing Director of MobileBroadbandSupermarket.co.uk, said: "The major benefit we deliver to people who want to buy a dongle is that we help them to make a confident buying decision, without doing hours of research first. Therefore, we want to build awareness of our service to enable consumers to make informed decisions about which network is offering the best mobile broadband deal to suit their circumstances. We chose Jordan Communications to drive our strategy forward because they have significant experience in the fields of telecoms, internet and personal finance - especially around the 'switching' agenda.

Mobile connectivity devices, or “dongles” as they are commonly known, are an ideal way for people to stay connected on the move. They are especially useful to business travellers, who may need to get online whilst at the airport or hotel; for students, who need connectivity but may not have a fixed line connection; and also for some people in rural communities, who may not have very good ADSL coverage.

http://www.mobilebroadbandsupermarket.co.uk/

***

Lancashire's Longest Doodle!!

This week we set off on our attempt to create Lancashire’s Longest Doodle. Besides the fact that we hope to raise a bit of money for Pendleside Hospice, we want to get people involved in a basic artistic activity – as we think that creativity spawns ideas that can be the bed-rock of regeneration. We’ve seen it happen in London in places like Shoreditch - and we’d love to be part of a process like that in Lancashire and the North West.

The doodle itself is taking shape on a 200 metre length of cotton because we wanted to reference the former economic glories of our area, but our real focus is on future successes! The response so far has been great – and the enthusiasm of the pupils at the two schools we visited last week has been really excellent. We doodled 25 metres in two days last week!

Any schools, businesses or community organisations interested in participating in the doodle should call BrandSpankin’ on 01282 878 301. (http://www.brandspankin.co.uk/)

2009-09-13T10:09:00.001+01:00

Enterprising Pendle

The Community Enterprise Board had a very productive meeting this week. We've not only appointed our facilitator in Remi Thackrey, but we've also scheduled our 'boot-camp' where we'll have an intensive four days worth of training. The bit that comes after that is the exciting bit for me, we'll be up and running and clients - both existing businesses and start ups - will benefit from the collective experience of the board. There are numerous examples of Enterprise Boards, but in Pennine Lancashire we have 5 that border one another. So long as we maintain the momentum, I think that we could create something extremely powerful that will have a profound effect on the perception of the area and will contribute enormously to regeration.

***

Down but not out...

I've just been reading the comments of fellow Burnley fans after the 4 - 0 trouncing by Liverpool at Anfield - it's very disappointing stuff. I'm not so much bothered that we got tonked - after all the average 'value' of one of their first team players is more than it cost to assemble our whole team. No, the really disappointing thing is to hear that - as expected - the 3,000 Burnley supporters never stopped signing and creating an atmosphere, whilst the other 40,000 who attended barely came out of their corporate comas. Sadly, this is what the promised land of the Premiership is all about - and I know from experience that it's no better at Old Trafford, Stamford Bridge or the Emirates. I can take a trouncing - but I couldn't bear for my club to lose it's passion and tradition. I'm sure there are many Scousers and Mancs who rue the day their clubs sold their souls.

***

Twitter does ancient and modern...

I came across the story of Ivy Bean this week - the 104 year old twitterer. Apparently she'd already maxed out her Facebook quota of 5,000 friends. So she's now activiely tweeting with...wait for it...27,000 followers.

http://mashable.com/2009/09/08/ivy-bean/

2009-09-03T11:38:00.000+01:00

BrandSpankin’ barometer?

It’s been very quiet on the blog front! In part, that’s because we’ve been so busy of late. I’m not going to be a hostage to fortune and predict green shoots of recovery, but the number of leads we’re generating at the moment is very encouraging. It’s still taking longer to convert leads, but I suppose it’s like the old football cliché – it’s better to be creating chances and not scoring goals, than not creating chances. So what are the implications of all this for you?

Well, I see BrandSpankin’ as a bit of a barometer business in East Lancashire. We deliver marketing services to clients from all sectors and we work for businesses large and small. If the number of leads we’re generating is increasing (probably tenfold month-on-month comparing August with January), then I suspect that it’s a good sign of improvement in the local economy as a whole.

***

Enterprising Pendle

I’m excited at the prospects that the Community Enterprise Board presents to the area. Enterprising Pendle, as it’s known is relatively nascent, but we took a big step forward recently with the appointment of Remi Thackrey, as Enterprise Facilitator. He’s a very personable guy and he’s committed to the regeneration of the area, so I’m sure he’ll make a success of it.

The board itself is based on the Sirolli Institute methodology (http://www.sirolli.com/). It appeals to me in many ways, not least because it’s not a prescriptive, top down approach to regeneration, but a grass roots, non-bureaucratic approach, that has a real track record of success.

***

Radio Gaga

I’ve done several radio pieces recently – one on BBC Radio 4 and a couple of pieces on BBC Radio Lancashire, which included being co-commentator for the Burnley victory over Manchester United. BBC strictures on impartiality went out of the window when Robbie Blake’s screamer hit the back of the net and I went mental live on the air! It’s a fantastic time to be a Claret at the moment!

The Radio 4 programme I was interviewed for was called ‘Divided Britain’. I think my contribution was there for the purposes of ‘balance’ – at least one person had to be on there who actually loves the area, thinks it’s a good place, full of good people and a worthwhile place to live and work. If the remit of the programme is to focus on problems (and let’s face it there is a clue in the name Divided Britain, which makes it fairly clear they’re not going to trumpet the potential of Nelson as a tourist destination!), then it’s not difficult to find the negatives. My problem with this approach is that it means the tail wags the dog – the lunatic fringe will often get the airtime and we potentially hand the initiative and agenda to Fascists and Fundamentalists.

I’m not suggesting that we ignore the problems that we face, but I do think we are generally hindered by a national media that often characterises the area as full of people who are marginalised, alienated and disenfranchised.

For those of you interested in what Divided Britain had to say, you can hear it again here:-

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00mbm3l

National Three Peaks Challange Update

2009-07-06T15:24:00.001+01:00

I had a great weekend walking the National Three Peaks Challenge. I’m still a bit sore and tired, but it was well worth it. There will be more to follow this week, but for now, if you could make any contribution, we’d be delighted as we want to be able to donate a really decent sum to the Kay Mason Foundation (http://www.kaymasonfoundation.org).

When we got down Ben Nevis yesterday we were all elated, so we had a meal and a couple of drinks, during which Mark announced he’d had an email he wanted to read out – here it is!

“Canon Chivers has told me about your amazing fundraising efforts to help Luvo, one of the many millions of young South Africans whose potential can be unlocked by generous hearts like yours.

I congratulate you on completing the three peaks challenge.

I hesitate to quote my friend, our beloved former President, Nelson Mandela, “never think about how many steps you’ve climbed, until you reach the mountain-top!” – but I hope the view is really worthwhile.

What you’ve done for the Kay Mason Foundation will make such a difference

Thank you.

Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu”

National Three Peaks Walk

2009-07-02T11:26:00.001+01:00

I’m imminently due to do some charity walking – and given everybody’s excellent support last time, I thought I’d take the opportunity to ask you for a small contribution to what I‘m sure you’ll all agree is a really worthy cause.

Last year’s exertions saw me and a bunch of friends do the Yorkshire 3 peaks on the coldest, wettest midsummer’s day in living memory. We covered 26 miles and three mountains in just over 11 hours. With gale force winds and limited visibility we were subjected to rain that was like facing a water cannon. It doesn’t bear repeating the state of my knees and feet for a few days afterwards, but as the aches and pains wore off, the satisfaction of having done something fairly daunting started to sink in. Plus we’d raised £1,500 for BLISS the premature baby charity (something I really care about, given that Jack, my son, was born nearly 3 months early).

So, this year we’ve decided that over the weekend of 3rd-5th July 2009, we are going to attempt to complete the gruelling National 3 Peaks Walk.

The planned itinerary is as follows:

Friday 3rd July – Walk Snowdon (3560ft), the highest point in Wales, taking around 5 hours
Saturday 4th July – Walk Scafell Pike (3209ft), the highest point in England taking around 7 hours
Sunday 5th July– Walk the mighty Ben Nevis (4408ft), the highest point in Scotland & Great Britain taking around 7 hours

This year we’re walking for The Kay Mason Foundation (http://www.kaymasonfoundation.org/), which helps fund the education of children in Africa. The charity has all its operating costs paid for by a private individual, so every single penny raised will go directly to the children who need it. One of the Trustees is also a local man with whom we have contact, so post event, he will be able to show us how the money raised will make a real difference.

Even better, one of my friends who is doing the walk with me works for a bank (boo…hiss…), who have agreed to match £ for £ what he raises. As such, I’m proposing to use money I raise to sponsor him to increase the matched sum from the bank - in order to maximise our final contribution. Anything you can contribute would be gratefully received and of course I’ll report back to you on how we progressed, how much we raise and how it’s going to be used.

C2 Website goes live!

2009-06-18T12:39:00.000+01:00

We're delighted with the C2-UK website that we've built - it's just gone live today. C2-UK is an East Lancashire telecoms company that provides services to business customers. We've recently revamped their corporate identity, giving them a fresh, clean new look - we’ve followed this work up with a variety of marketing materials and have now launched their new website (have a look at the link below). The site extends their fresh look and feel, makes them look credible, professional and approachable - acting as a lead generation and sales channel. It's thoroughly optimised to feature very highly on Google and other search engines, so we expect them to see some traffic - but just as importantly, we think it will be pretty memorable when people get there!

http://www.c2-uk.com/

2009-06-16T10:50:00.000+01:00

This week Connectivity will launch their "Mobile Directory Service" 118 800. The service is set to be a landmark in the evolution of information services since the derugulation of the old 192 service in the UK. The difference between this service and other 118 directory enquiries services is that it will be giving out personal mobile numbers, having acquired 18 million UK mobile numbers from data brokers etc. On one level it's a great idea and long overdue. However, the obvious question that will be raised is about the protection of people's privacy.

At BrandSpankin' (http://www.brandspankin.co.uk/), we have a close relationship with a US business called Wireless Directory Networks (WDN) - they developed a privacy proposition which squares the circle, in that it allows mobile users to be available whilst not actually giving out their numbers. Below is a link to an interview in Information Services Monthly that I did with Jeff Strunk, WDN's CEO.

http://www.ismonthly.com/features/squaringcircle.asp

http://www.wirelessdirectorynetwork.com/

***

Every time we're about to get ahead of ourselves, we check out a bit of Bill Hicks - always a good thing for us Marketeers to be put in our place once in a while...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gDW_Hj2K0wo

2009-06-15T17:26:00.000+01:00

I did an interview for BBC Radio 4 on Saturday that goes out on the 15th September. Ostensibly the interview was about the opening of the new ACE Centre (Arts, Culture and Enterprise) in Nelson. The venue houses a recording studio, dance and drama studio, creative arts room, gallery space, meeting rooms and function rooms.

The thrust of the Radio 4 piece is about community relations and I made the point that Pendle (& Burnley) issues really relate to economic matters - so the ACE centre is an excellent addition to local amenities (especially as the arts can be a springboard for regeneration).

The towns of East Lancashire lost their reason 'to be' after the decline of textiles and mining and we're now looking to find a new way forward. That being the case, many of us in the area share a frustration that national media often depict us in negative terms, despite the fact that many of us are actively engaged in constructive initiatives that are inclusive and should have a positive outcome.

BrandSpankin' (www.brandspankin.co.uk) for example, is engaged with local enterprise trusts, I'm also on the community enterprise board and in September we're going to mentor Business Studies students from Marsden Heights Community College. We're not just blowing our own trumpet here - we're aware of dozens of individuals and businesses who are similarly engaged in a constructive fashion.

So, those in the national media should take note - we're not all racists and most of us loathe everything the BNP stand for. And those who make excuses for the disenfranchised and alienated (who vote for the far-right) - should bear in mind that such people are generally thick and ignorant...and there's no excuse for that. There's no excuse for having a knee-jerk simplistic answer to a set of problems that are in fact very complex. And, given the fact that the area needs to see an injection of inward investment, there can also be no excuse for voting in such a way that is sure to drive it away. It's a definite case of turkeys voting for Christmas...

2009-06-10T13:47:00.000+01:00

We had a stand at last week's BeConnected event at Turf Moor, Burnley and as part of the event we gave away a free £500 marketing mentoring session which was won by Chris Hoy, the Technical Director of Securstor24 (http://www.securestor24.com/). We're looking forward to helping Securestor plan how to build awareness, generate leads and ultimately make more money! If you'd be interesting in a mentoring session, give us a call (01282 878 301).

Securestor have got a really good proposition offering secure data storage for SMEs. It's definitely worth checking their site as it gives a very thorough appraisal of what's available and at what price. Secure data storage is an absolute must - a first step that every business should consider as part of their disaster recovery/business continuity plan.

2009-06-05T10:06:00.000+01:00

I just wanted to thank Kate and the BeConnected team (http://www.be-connected.co.uk/) for an excellent event on Wednesday evening. Besides an inspirational presentation from Helen Colley of Farmhouse Fare, we got loads of interest and several really good leads from our stand. Helen's story and the fact that she's just been bought out by Daniels Food for £10million just go to show what can be done and exemplify the entrepreneurial spirit in East Lancs.

2009-06-02T12:04:00.000+01:00

It's going to be a busy week for BrandSpankin' !! Tomorrow we have a stand at BeConnected - the East Lancs networking event that takes place at Turf Moor. We're giving away a FREE £500 marketing support course, plus we're still in the mood to celebrate Burnley's promotion to the Premiership, so we're giving away a bottle of Bubbly at our stand.

Here's an eshot we issued yesterday to promote our presence at the event:-

http://tiny.cc/G0F5A

On Thursday Jacqueline and Camilla will be attending the Chamber's women in business event, so look out for them there.

And in-between those events there's a meeting of Pendle Enterprise Board - now called Enterprising Pendle.

We've got a number of projects coming to fruition at the moment - and with 2 client websites going live in the coming few days we should have some excellent links to post up here very soon!

2009-05-14T11:06:00.000+01:00

Last night was the launch party at Press Room - the Bar and Restaurant that is situated in Burnley's historic Mechanics Theatre. Press Room is a BrandSpankin' client - we formulated their brand and have produced most of their sales and marketing collateral. Have a look at some of it here.

http://www.brandspankin.co.uk/our-work-client.php?id=2

Anyway, a great night was had by all - so best wishes to Gavin, Neil and Sam on what we think is going to be a really successful venture.

***

On another note, talk in the office, has been dominated by the ongoing media feeding frenzy and public outrage at the Parliamentary expenses row. We're split as to whether we'd want to provide a 'crisis comms' role to help them dig the way out of the hole. We're all pretty disgusted by it - exemption from capital gains tax is one thing, but why should they gain all that equity from second homes that we're paying for as tax payers?

Our suggestion is that there should be no second home allowance, there should be total transparency (ie: publication of all MPs receipts) and that they should all live in either halls of residence when they're in London - or alternatively, if that's a security issue, they should stay in cheap hotels and then claim legitimate expenses like the rest of us have to do when we are working in London!

The morning after the night before

2009-05-13T12:00:00.000+01:00

Following last night's heroics that saw Burnley make the final of the Championship play-offs, I'm a tad hoarse and slightly worse for wear!

Nevertheless, we'll be 'circulating' today as we attend Pendle employers forum at lunch time and this evening there's a meeting of the Pendle Community Enterprise Board.

BrandSpankin' enters the blogmosphere!

2009-05-12T12:02:00.000+01:00

Welcome to the BrandSpankin' Blog for all things connected with Marketing, Graphic Design, Web and Media Relations - all with an East Lancs twang. And just now and then, we might ski 'off-piste' and comment on this, that or the other.

Just a few things for starters:-

- We're keeping our fingers crossed for Burnley who play Reading tonight in the second leg of the Championship play offs. Come on you Clarets.

- Before that we'll be in attendance at the Chamber of Commerce event at Stanley House in Mellor.

In the meantime, I'm just off to try to claim parliamentary expenses on my Prince Albert...

www.brandspankin.co.uk