Back in 1995 I saw a film that simply blew my mind. The film was pretty good, but the thing that blew me away about it was the opening and closing credits. The film was the thriller Se7en, and everyone I knew who was into design at the time was instantly inspired by it. It was from this point I began to take more notice of title sequences in films, which soon introduced me to the work of Saul Bass and Stephen Frankfurt… who created the superb title sequence to ‘To kill a mockingbird’.

Fast forward to today and I have to confess I still love a good title sequence, in fact sometimes it feels that the actual title sequence is better than the film (as was the case with this title sequence from the movie Sahara). So it’s probably no surprise then that one of my favourite places to visit on the web is the fabulous site www.artofthetitle.com.

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After undertaking the successful  rebrand of High and Mighty we were tasked with producing a weekly e-newsletter that would be sent to the High and Mighty database.  The newsletter needed to reflect the new look and feel for the brand, as well as promoting the range of products and services available both instore and online.

Red C created a template that incorporated the key elements of the brand which included informative style tips, quirky quotes and added value pieces such as comical Youtube clips. These, combined with a range of products that linked directly to the website created a hardworking yet visually appealing e-newsletter.

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Facebook, Twitter and YouTube… not what first springs to mind when you think about politics. But over the last few years, more and more politicians have started using the internet as a tool to drum up political support.

When the Presidential elections in the US got under way in 2008, Democratic candidate Barack Obama used the internet to great effect to raise funds and gain supporters in his race to be President. His success has seen UK politicians follow suit and with the current general election, UK political parties have been pushing their online activities more than ever. Below are some examples of what they’ve been up to:

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Here’s a scary fact for you.  20% of legitimate email never actually reaches its intended destination; the inbox.  Can you imagine if the Royal Mail only delivered 80% of its mail?   Mmmm actually, let’s not go there!  Anyway, you understand the point I’m attempting to make.  Deliverability is a big issue.

The culprits for this statistic have to be the ISPs, right?  Wrong!  Well, they are partly to blame as they are certainly making things harder for legitimate email marketers like you and I.  However, when 90% of all email is spam then they really do have quite a job on their hands if they want to keep one step ahead of the spammers. I’m afraid if there is any doubt as to the legitimacy of your email messages then you are going to be spammed.  You can’t blame them can you?  When 9 out of 10 emails are spam then they’re bound to lean on the side of caution.

But the real culprit for this frightening statistic is you and I.  We are to blame.   It’s our sending practices that determine whether our email message reaches their intended destinations.  However, with blame comes responsibility and with responsibility comes the ability to change and improve.  We have the power to control our deliverability rates.

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As fellow marketers it can’t have escaped your attention that the marketing landscape in which we work is changing at an amazing rate.  The way we communicate with our customers isn’t the same as it once was and it is certainly going to continue changing over the forthcoming years.

Traditionally, we have spoken to our customers via direct mail, email, tv, radio and the telephone.  However, due to the boom of social media this one-way communication flow is changing into a more dynamic two-way conversation.

In my view, the major change that has occurred is social media is giving our customers a voice; it’s giving our customer’s power.  So whereas the customer was only able to affect our business through their purchasing behaviour they can now have the power to influence our future by what they say about our brand, product and service offering.  However, although these are undoubtedly exciting times they are times that should be treated with caution as we have very little control as to what our customers say about us and we have even less control over who they speak to.

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We were approached by the VIP team over at Freemans Grattan Holdings to help improve the financial performance of their email programme, which in their view was massively underperforming. At the briefing, we instantly recognised some quick wins that we could implement to make some initial improvements so we accepted the challenge.

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Bloody Students

On the 7^th June 2007 I got the phone call to say…..I had secured the position as Junior Marketing Coordinator at Red C in their London Office. I was absolutely ecstatic as this was a bit of a double whammy for me seeing as it was also my birthday! I will never forget how happy I was to hear such good news.

In August 2007 I began my placement year with Red C. Moving down to a new city, was exciting but also made me very nervous at the same time; however the nervous feelings soon diluted as I began my placement journey. During the start of my placement, the routine of getting up early everyday and concentrating for the whole day was daunting and I did struggle to get into a regular pattern in the first few weeks.

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I really like reading. My problem is I buy books faster than I can read them. The drawers on my bedside cabinet are buckling under the weight of unread hardbacks, paperbacks, novels and non-fiction. I’ll be honest it’s starting to get me down a bit. Too much to read, too little time. Your customers have the same problem…

They’re bombarded with things to read every day. So if you’re planning on adding to their pile, you’ve got to make sure it’s easy to read. And there is one very simple way of doing just that.

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Last year, like many brands and organisations, London Fashion Week flirted with Social Media by having event details, links to stories and comments posted on Twitter and Facebook… so far so very 2009!

This year, though, sees London Fashion Week take a great leap forward by embracing even more Social Media technologies and making London Fashion Week open to the masses rather than the privileged few… and they’ve done it in some predictable and also some surprising ways.

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I know… I agree… it does seem strange having the words ‘fun’ and ‘insurance’ in one headline but have you noticed nearly all the leading insurance brands are attempting it? I know that Meerkat has just popped straight into your head but it’s not the only insurance brand to be using a ‘character’ to try and instil more fun (and consequently more brand recognition of course) into the fight for your insurance quote.

We all hate getting them… whether its quotes for home, car, pet, buildings, contents (the list goes on) and all we really want is the lowest price with of course the most comprehensive cover, so is this approach working for insurance brands and how are they achieving it?

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