Victims or Victors

“Companies rarely die from moving too fast, and they frequently die from moving too slowly.” Reed Hastings, the CEO of Netflix

Working in ‘brand space’ has always been fascinating but in the last few years the speed of change in technology and its impact on customer’s expectations has given rise to a preponderance of businesses that are potentially either digital ‘victims’ or digital ‘Victors’.

Clients that come knocking at our door are often either incumbent businesses, striving to grow, retain and protect what they have, or are start-up upstarts looking to reinvent the value proposition in a product or service sector. Often the mindsets in these two businesses are poles apart. One sometimes risk averse and ponderous, the other agile, bright and sometimes shallow in experience. It’s intriguing and I have often wondered why ‘big brands’ with all their smarts and deeper pockets fail to grasp their role as ‘market makers and innovators’.

I think there is still a legacy ‘systemic’ issue of a brand management structure that rewards custodianship rather than creativity but I think it also goes deeper than this. Management also has a short-term ‘denial’ perspective that counters mid-term risk taking, even though disruption is clearly on the horizon. Many successful organisations fail to look for new things their customers want because they’re afraid to hurt their core businesses. This has been called the innovators dilemma (1). An inertia caused by the risk of the unknown and the fear that the distraction of focusing on the horizon will lead to a lack of focus on near term sales and revenue plans.

The interesting model below from McKinsey clearly illustrates the point where an incumbent’s existing business model, for a short-time, out performs the theoretical new model. Adapting to market change has created some stagnation in growth but in the longer-term has ensured the sustainability of the business. Kodak and Blockbuster are good examples of businesses that succumbed to a period of myopia, ignored the inevitable digital disruption and failed to adapt as a result.

Say cheese!

Last night we had our lovely gathering of clients, friends and colleagues. It was a great celebration of another year for The Allotment and was an evening of beer tasting and cheese. So, so much cheese!

Thank you to everyone who came along. A special thanks to our Brian and Tom who organised the event and also to Viv, my wife who organised the cheese (I think we will be eating it until 2016!). Also to Mike Feather who took some great pictures – thanks Mike. And finally to all our creative partners – illustrators, writers, photographers who support and inspire us with brilliant words and pictures all year round.

A very, very Happy Christmas and New Year to you all.

Why is design important?

Why is design important?

I suppose because history is about the past and design is about all of our futures. It’s focused on making things better – breaking down barriers. Its about inspiring transformation and progress rather than dogma and blandness.

Tom Peters, who wrote a brilliant book called Re-Imagine, amongst many others, could see the value of design to business . This is what he captured about design in his book:

“Design is the fundamental soul of a man-made creation.” A quote by Steve Jobs, who knew a thing or two about building a successful business.

“If there was no design there would be nothing to do, and nothing would progress or get better. The world would fall apart.” Anna, aged 11 (Design Council research about the meaning of design).

“Design is not a surface thing or prettying thing.”

“Designers are people who think with their hearts.”

“Design is not about like or dislike. It’s about Passion, Emotion, Attachment.”

“Design is the No.1 DETERMINANT of whether a product-service-experience stands out or not.”

8 Lessons in Story Selling

This week has been a bit different but exciting. In the last few days I have given a presentation, to a group of partners in a professional services company to explain to them about how storytelling can be an effective approach to selling. The aim was to change their emphasis from selling ‘what they do’ to selling ‘why they do it’, using emotive and expressive language. One of the examples of exemplary storytelling I used was the John Lewis Christmas TV commercial of 2011. To view click here. I still think this is the best John Lewis have done so far.

Branding radio for Bauer

The Allotment create a new brand identity system for 43 UK radio stations.

Bauer Media, part of Europe’s largest privately owned publishing Group has today announced a new multi-platform brand identity system for its Bauer Place local radio portfolio across the UK. The new identity system and brand, designed by The Allotment, will be applied to more than 17 regional radio brands and more than 43 individual radio stations.

The new identity system with ‘YOUR’ at the heart of the concept communicates the core ‘Closer To You’ brand proposition of Bauer Place. It will be used to promote and emphasise Bauer’s uniquely engaging approach to the delivery of news and entertainment based on a deep understanding of their local radio audience.

Paul Middlebrook, Managing Partner of The Allotment said: “It’s early days but we are excited by the prospect of this identity system reaching out to millions of radio listeners. We have created a simplified and cohesive brand structure for a radio portfolio that has grown organically and significantly in the last decade. The ‘YOUR’ concept will be applied from January 2015 and will be bought to life with the ‘YOUR’ graphic acting as a window for local content messaging. The gradient colour system has been designed to differentiate the two or three radio channels in each region.”

For further information please contact Paul Middlebrook at The Allotment on 020 7404 6841.

Alternatively, see the full case study for Bauer Media here.

WHAT IF?

Two words to inspire . . .

What and If and are two small, unsuspecting, yet very, very powerful words. Although on the surface they seem, somewhat ordinary, when combined, they form a question that has driven progress and innovation for centuries. What if?

What if we could make things better? What if we looked at things in a different way? What if I could make change happen today?

Cash with humour

The Allotment are proud to have designed first direct’s first high street cash points.

We have produced two designs – the first based on the theme of security uses a Space Invader-theme (‘Look out for people invading your space’) and the second based on the convenience of cash points uses a set of scales (‘Gain some pounds’). All the messages have been developed as part of first direct’s ‘unexpected bank’ positioning.

Turning Lives Around

The London Community Foundation (LCF) were last years lucky winner of The Allotment’s ‘unwrap a designer competition’. The competition is for charities in need of design expertise and the winner receives strategic and design guidance donated by The Allotment.

The first task for The Allotment was to find out where and how they could add the most value to an already successful charity – LCF ‘turn lives around’ by connecting Londoners who need the most help to donors who are willing to give. We found that their biggest challenge was to explain what they do, simply, in a way that does their role justice.

Unwrap a designer 2013

Early in February Kids Company were drawn out of the hat by Charity Comms as the winner of our annual ‘Unwrap a designer’ competition. This is where we donate a few days of our time to support a charity.

We have now completed our initial work with the Kids Company. The project involved looking at different ways to visually bring the Charity’s positive and truly wonderful stories to life.

It’s a gift!

Designing for social impact and good causes is an important part of the Allotment’s work so we were thrilled to be approached by The Big Lottery Fund to help them manage their interaction with the voluntary sector. The Big Lottery Fund is the largest distributor of the good cause funding raised by the National Lottery and it distributes over £700 million a year to incredibly worthy causes.

In order to maintain the awareness of the ‘good’ that the National Lottery and the Big Lottery Fund does it is vital that all grant holders, regardless of size or the nature of their project, publicly acknowledge the grant they receive.

The journey continues . . .

With the focus on the values and ethics of companies so prevalent in the press it seems an apt time to share our most recent work for The Donkey Sanctuary. This client exemplifies the power of a set caring and consistent beliefs to drive the positive impact and growth of an organisation.

The publication below is the outcome of a strategic review by The Donkey Sanctuary which looked at their plans and ambition for the next 5 years. They approached the Allotment to develop the words from this plan into a document which would be used as a support to internal communications and values engagement. Through this notebook their sincere values of Compassion, Collaboration and Creativity have been bought to life in away that connects the past, with today and tomorrow. The timeline that runs throughout the book, starting in 1969 when the late Dr Svendsen (Dr S) purchased her first two donkeys, leads the reader to the future and the big goals the charity has to transform the quality of life for donkeys, mules and people worldwide.

Wonderful People!

On Thursday, last week, we had a fantastic celebration for our third birthday as a business.It included some specially designed vegetable cocktails and sticking with the theme an amazing ploughman’s spread.
Thank you to all those who came. It was a great evening for all our clients and partners who share our passion for doing amazing work.
Mike Feather, one of our photographer friends kindly took some pictures to record the event for prosperity. Hope you like them!

New Talent

We are delighted to announce that Brian Eagle, ex-creative partner of Unreal in London and Biggie Smalls in Sydney, Australia, will be joining The Allotment team at the end of September 2013.

At Unreal, Brian worked for clients such as Coca-Cola, BBC, Penguin, Hodder & Stoughton, Mayor of London and P&G and won numerous international design awards, including a D&AD Yellow Pencil.

Brian (in the middle of the picture) will join as a creative director and will work directly with James Backhurst (left) and Paul Middlebrook (right), the founding partners of The Allotment.

Charity sector branding

The Allotment are delighted to announce that we will be talking at the CharityComms brand development conference on the 24th October 2013. We have been given an hour’s breakout slot to talk about the need to align ‘brand to values’ in the charity sector. The session will illustrate how this princIpal was applied to our award winning work for the The Donkey Sanctuary.

The breakout session will be co-hosted by Paul Middlebrook, The Allotment and Mark Cross from The Donkey Sanctuary.

For further information or to book a place go to http://bit.ly/1dGj5zB

Momentous 3

The last few weeks have been momentous for The Allotment.
Apart from quickly approaching 3 years old (and that’s something to celebrate), we have finally moved in to our very own, special studio at the top of an old print works near Holborn. It will be somewhere that we can grow into as we support all our clients and colleagues to achieve their dreams and ambitions.

A brand at the heart of nations

Since the founding fathers of Cable & Wireless connected Portcurno in Cornwall to Bombay in India in the 1860’s, the business has been at the heart of nations prosperity and telecommunications infrastructure.
In recent year’s Cable & Wireless Communications (CWC) has been through a significant restructure and transformation and now has a strategy which is focused on being the leading Pan-American full service telecoms business. They aim to build on their number 1 position in the 12 of the 15 markets they operate.

Using design to transform lives . . .

The built environment has a huge impact on all our lives. Where we work, live and play affects our well-being, our opportunities and our potential.

No one knows this more than the Cabe (Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment) team at the Design Council. They have played a key role in influencing architecture and the built environment for over 80 years. The Cabe team makes places better for people. They focus on ensuring places and communities are sustainable, adaptable and resilient.

Cabe at the Design Council approached The Allotment to look at how their offer could be integrated into the new Design Council brand proposition of being a ‘design navigator’. They wanted to create a document and a presentation which would convey their authority, insight and ability to inspire social and economic value in the built environment. The tone of voice needed to be ‘Inspiring Simplicity’.

A creative spark . . .

The Allotment has designed the identity for a new US-based design award. The JUST IMAGINE Awards have been launched at GlobalShop, Chicago by Lucite International, owners of the Perspex® and Lucite® global acrylic brands. The annual awards will celebrate US designers’ work with LuciteLux® cast acrylic (known as Perspex® in the UK) in all its guises from interiors, to corporate imaging, lighting and product design.

A supportive brand idea

Global design recruiter Bespoke Careers approached The Allotment after the Design Week Awards last year and asked us the following question, ‘How can we build on our positive brand profile and tell our story in an original and compelling way’? Our answer was to engage with them to find the ‘thing’ that really makes them stand out within their sector. What we found, after extensive research, was that they are not just focused on delivering the best candidates to their architecture and design clients, they also go beyond the call of duty to support individuals, their careers and the design sector, in general. It’s the things they do that can’t always be seen which makes them different in the minds of their clients and candidates. Support. therefore, became the big idea for the rebrand, and this at Bespoke is more than an arm around a shoulder. It’s very much relationships built on intimate knowledge, enthusiasm and trust.