February Fitness Fundraiser

February 23, 2021February 23, 2021

We have started our last week in February Fitness to raise money for MIND.

Nearing a whole year of living with COVID-19, with various lockdowns, it is more important than ever that we take care of both our mental and physical wellbeing. So, earlier this month we launched our February Fitness Fundraiser.

Walking, running, cycling, yoga, pilates, HIIT workouts – anything goes (within reason!). We are tracking all our efforts and have collectively done over 2,500KM already.

Please click this link, donate and support MIND, and the amazing work they do for people that are experiencing any kind of mental health issues.

https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/wmhfitnessfeb

The Role Of Creativity In A World After Covid

February 23, 2021February 23, 2021

As governments across Europe announce their post-lockdown plans, people are slowly starting to dream of a sunnier life. This hazy optimism may well keep us going through isolation but how might we prepare for what’s coming. For every CEO who is banking on a potential economic boom, there is an economist with a grim outlook. Many of us in the creative industry who struggled through 2020, will be wondering how much need for our skills there will be, or will creativity have become a nice-to-have luxury.

The good news is that business needs us, be it hospitality, retail or any other sector that has been radically altered by the pandemic and business-as-usual-thinking does not apply anymore.

Whenever pubs do reopen, drinkers will be lining up three rounds at a time to minimise visits to the bar, which will make for pretty long queues of (hopefully vaccinated) people. What is the innovative service solution to getting the new customer service right?

The thought of shopping might be anxiety inducing right now, is it possible that shoppers might soon expect a radically different approach to product display? Something that limits their exposure to the next contagious devil’s spawn.

Governments might find it even more difficult to maintain discretionary services and balance the books. Where a pre-pandemic response may have been to slash and burn, what is the solution in a society that is now far more aware of its neighbours? Who will be the creative thinker that will encourage central or local governments, who are inherently uninventive, to change the way they service their communities?

The world has changed, the creative industry can be certain that opportunities won’t come in the same shapes or sizes. It is only the agile creative who is able to spot new openings and trends, in order to adapt what they offer. You can already see this happening with branding agencies starting to provide social media content for their clients. And with moving image producers growing their creative teams to go direct to end-clients, cutting out traditional (and less agile) advertising agencies in the process.

As lockdown is lifted, we are going to get busy. Afterall, it is creative thinking that clients continue to come to agencies for. From redefining customer journeys to advising local authorities, from creating new products and reinventing existing ones, creativity will play a key role to economic survival.

There is much to do.

Author: Wybe Magermans, as originally published in MarComms News

Letting go in lockdown

May 20, 2020May 20, 2020

When lockdown happened, I imagined that everything was going to hell in a handcart and I’d cling on to things I knew and trusted. A metaphorical reaching out for the banister rail.

In fact, I’ve done the opposite. BBC Radio has been the first casualty. I never want to hear a politician ever again, so bang, out goes the Today programme. You and Yours and Woman’s Hour make me glum, so no thanks. I have discovered Scala Radio as I wake with the sunrise and it’s as though I’m in the park. Lockdown bliss.

Roaming the supermarket aisles, as I have always done since I started out as a designer, is now strictly verboten. Packaging design was, and remains, my first love and the supermarket has been both my art gallery and social anthropology laboratory. Watching people scan the shelves and pick up something we’ve been involved in has always had a frisson about it. How did we capture their attention and what tipped them over the line into putting the product into their basket? Online grocery shopping offers none of this. It is like the difference between Spotify and vinyl. Super convenient, but utterly soulless. Nothing beats picking up a product, turning it over in the hand, feeling its weight and, of course, looking at the label. Call me sad, but it is one of life’s simple pleasures.

Back to my first supermarket love

An unexpected change is the enforced switch of supermarkets. After years of loyal shopping, Waitrose doesn’t seem to want me and Ocado is too unpredictable, so I’m back where I started. Sainsbury’s is ‘my supermarket’ again. They were dead easy to sign up with and their delivery people are delightful, but what has happened to the brand that Peter Dixon and, on occasions, Williams Murray Hamm laboured so hard to make classy, intelligent and joyful? As one unloads the bags, where’s the story? I just can’t make out what the brand stands for. What is all this ‘by Sainsbury’s’ branding and what in heaven’s name is ‘Stamford Street Food Company’? Has anyone walked down Stamford Street lately? Let’s just say it’s not Tenterden High Street. If ever there were a right time to reshape Sainsbury’s, to make us fall back in love with it, it is now.

I didn’t expect to drop the BBC and I thought that Waitrose and I were pals for life. We will see if those relationships are revived if lockdown ever ends. One other quite unexpected change of behaviour is the joy to be found in anticipation. I am not gifted with patience. It is not a virtue and generally gets in the way of doing stuff, but my lockdown has seen a subtle change in this.

I am to be found, for the odd hour or two, wielding power tools and timber as I attempt to rebuild some rotten decking. With the closure of DIY stores, I have to rely on various businesses all around the country to deliver the multitude of fixings that Builder Bodge needs.

The excitement of home deliveries

‘My 6-inch Hex bolts have arrived!’ won last week’s loudest whoop. The big tease was that they couldn’t be touched until the next day in case there was Covid all over them. They took on the same lure as the Hornby Trains Royal Mail Van I lusted over in a Boxing Day shop window in 1960. Learning to wait has been rather wonderful.

There are, of course, vital items that one misses in lockdown. Marmite went AWOL from Sainsbury’s online. If you were desperate it could be found on eBay for £6.99 for a jar, plus £4 postage. Apparently, they’ve sold 48 of them so far. It makes one think about brand value. What brands would you pay extortionate prices for if they went missing? A quick scan of eBay shows a can of Ambrosia custard selling for £7 (inc postage) and a 1.5kg pack of Allinson’s Strong White Bread flour for £12 (admittedly the postage is a whopping £8). But then eBay is a mad place. Who in their right minds would buy Andrex ‘Natural Pebble’ lavatory rolls? A snip at £33.78 for 45 rolls by the way – it seems they are in ‘New Condition’ which is, no pun intended, a relief.

Author: Richard Williams