Business Strategy

Have you seen the new John Lewis advert yet? It’s an utterly moving piece that has reduced me to tears every time I’ve watched it. I have no doubt that John Lewis’ agency, Adam&Eve will be up for an award for it – and if they’re not, then they should be! And whilst it’s very easy to sneer at ads that are made to further the ad agency’s ego, this time I really think they’ve pulled it off.

From innocent child to graduate, mum to be and grandmother, the continuity of the ‘girl in red’ draws you in. On the surface, this is an advert that reminds you of just how short life is. To savour every moment, and the importance of family. To Autumn-led people (confused? I’m talking colour psychology personalities here) it’s going to be exceptionally appealing: family, community, love and sociability. And I challenge all but the most hardened cynic not to be moved by this ad. The beautiful song and the way the film is shot just adds to the emotion of this advert.

Already the ad is a talking point, and it’s been out for what? All of two/ three days? And to be honest, I am drawn in by the endline “Never knowingly undersold: on quality, service and price. Our lifelong commitment to you.”. Why? Because it fits in with my values, and having grown up on John Lewis, it fits with my experience of the company too.

Someone very wise once said to me, a brand is a promise, an experience, and a memory. Well this is one strong promise!

Now whilst I’m not advocating that small business owners sign up top ad agency Adam&Eve and blow £6m on a branding campaign, I think there are some lessons that we can scale back to our own businesses. Firstly, they’re not trying to promise anything they can’t deliver. Never knowingly undersold has been a John Lewis strapline for as long as I can remember, but this is the first time they’ve linked it so emotionally in an ad campaign. Most of us perceive JL as the bastion of the middle classes and so quality – in both the way the film is shot and the images they’re portraying is logical.

What I think we can all learn from is the way that JL have brought emotion to the brand. They’re well known for having a band of incredibly loyal followers (anyone remember the Alice-band wearing kitchen-shoppers from the TV show?) – but in this advert those raving fans are actually acknowledged. Small businesses are often afraid of making their corporate identities too emotional. They worry about getting it wrong. And yet time and again, when we work with a business to bring “heart” to their identity, their only regret is that they didn’t do it sooner.

I also love the fact that they’re not jumping on the “cheap” bandwagon. In fact, they’re saying forget all the pile-it-high-sell-it-cheap stuff you’re overwhelmed with: buy things that will endure, things that will enhance your life.

This advert is reinforcing their brand strategy and position in the marketplace. And whilst you might think “Of course! They’re not working with a top ad agency for nothing”, the small business lesson is to stay true to your brand strategy once you know it works. Not to cling to something that’s not working, but at the same time, not to skip around and confuse your customers memories at every opportunity. And of course, you can’t get all of this across in one 90s advert. But you can if you have brand equity, and a legacy, and the people watching have memories of shopping with you.

Finally I love the fact that everything represented in the advert is so archetypally John Lewis. From the spotty rug in the second scene to the jug in the garden party scene. Again, it sounds so obvious, but it’s so easy to stuff this kind of thing up. I see it happening all the time when businesses lurch from one “look and feel” to another as they swap their design agency more often than they change their underwear. I think it’s about not being afraid to stick with what works. That doesn’t mean being stuck in a rut or refusing to move forwards. But it does mean being consistent in how you present yourself to the world; in what you stand for and how you want your customers to see you.

Hurray for John Lewis and Adam and Eve. I LOVE this advert and I hope it translates into sales for them. Me? I’m off to get a price for that spotty rug…

Tagged as in Branding, Business Strategy

It’s easy to get seduced into advertising your business on the side of a bus or on a roundabout. But what does it really achieve? A neighbour of mine is spending serious money sponsoring a roundabout in Guildford. As he sees it, he only needs to get a couple of jobs to make the exercise worthwhile. But he’s disgruntled that no one has called him yet.

Why? Well because roundabout advertising achieves brand awareness at best. It’s not going to compel people to pick up the phone and order with you. Particularly if you neglect to put your website on there. I’m not a huge fan of advertising for small businesses – it’s easy to outlay thousands over the course of the year for minimal return.

That said, if you’d like to know how it feels to have your name on the side of a bus, try this website out – it’s a bit of fun and you get the confidence boost without the outlay!

Tagged as in Business Strategy, Marketing

It’s tempting to think that a website will solve all your marketing problems. Once that new site’s built the customers will coming flooding in. Or will they?

I speak to far too many business owners who have invested (usually not enough) money in having a website built for them. They’re struggling to make ends meet and genuinely can’t understand why their website isn’t generating the enquiries they need. So they chuck a bit more money (again, usually not enough) at someone else to try and fix the problem.

The thing is that I think the problems are usually much deeper. Take a contact I spoke to at the beginning of the week. He’d just had a site built by a company and was frustrated that his site wasn’t being found in the search engines. A quick look at the site told me the problems were greater than just being able to google him.

The copy was weak. It didn’t show prospective clients how he could help them. Instead he talked first about himself and his business. Secondly there were no “products” that people could easily “buy”. But crucially, his marketing plan started and ended with his website.

Your website is a piece of the marketing jigsaw. But it’s only a part of it. If you haven’t thought through your offering; if you haven’t created a process for managing and converting your enquiries into clients; if you haven’t identified other ways of spreading the word offline as well as online, then I think you’re going to struggle.

So before you invest all your time, energy and hopes into your website, just think for a minute: do I have a robust marketing plan that will help me win the clients I need? If not, then start looking there first and come to your website when you know what you want it to say.

Tagged as in Business Strategy, Marketing, Online Marketing, Websites

I talk to a lot of business owners who are sceptical about the role of blogging in their marketing mix. Just like many social networking tools, they see it as a huge time drain, they wonder what on earth they’ll write about, and they wonder who will read it! I’ve been blogging for 2 1/2 [...]

Tagged as in Blogging, Business Strategy, Marketing

I was at a networking event with a couple of friends some weeks back. They were quite excited to meet someone they’d been tweeting with for several months. He’d inspired with them with some compelling thoughts on his particular area of expertise and they’d built up quite a relationship with him. Excited to finally put [...]

Tagged as in Business Strategy, Marketing, Online Marketing

I’ve always used exhibitions as a core part of my marketing strategy. At my first exhibition I picked up 100 leads and converted 70 of them into paying clients over the course of the year. When I tell this story people are always astounded – they don’t often find they have such a profitable experience! [...]

Tagged as in Business Strategy, Exhibitions, Fiona's Book, Marketing

Imagine if you could create a brand so iconic that it would not only provide an attractive, engaging and compelling identity for your brand; but would also become a design icon it it’s own right. And perhaps seventy, eighty years down the line, you’d be selling products bearing that very design as a revenue stream. [...]

Tagged as in Branding, Business Strategy, Case Studies, Graphic Design, Logo Design

I’ve got to be honest I’m feeling pretty pleased with myself. You see the Horsley Network that three friends (Jonathan, Liz and Claire and I set up launched last night, and we had more than 30 guests on our first night! And having been to plenty of more established groups that have struggled to break [...]

Tagged as in Branding, Business Strategy, Flourish Stuff, From The Studio, Marketing

A close friend and I were chatting about how we plan to make 2010 a great year for our businesses. And she asked me a question that made me stop and think. “What will you do differently this year?” she said? After all, if you do what you’ve always done, you’ll get what you’ve always [...]

Tagged as in Business Strategy, Marketing

Earlier this week I evangelised about the importance of targets. And I know it makes me sound like an accountant and this is meant to be a marketing blog, but surely the whole point of marketing is that it helps you achieve your commercial goals? I had lots of fun getting a bunch of small [...]

Tagged as in Business Strategy