A regular, but not enthusiastic, cyclist, I was keen to try out the new models, and have been using one to get to my meetings around London this week. Apparently, BBH agency is also using the bike scheme and Google staff are apparently on the same pedal powered band wagon. And why not? An antidote to both environmental issues and the credit crunch, the only serious critics to the bike sharing scheme are the city’s cabbies, who could be hit in the pocket.

With 11 offices across the UK, I am often on the road and last week I visited our Cardiff office. Cardiff is such a compact city with the splendid Stadium right in the heart of the city, it occurred to me that Boris’s bikes would go down well with the visitors and the residents of Cardiff. After all, I don’t want to (pedal) push it. As Woody Allen says, “I had two heart attacks before I bought this exercise bicycle. And since then? I’ve had two more.”

Chris Lovell
Golley Slater, Group Chief Executive

The results we have achieved surpassed all expectations driving an increased ROI for Center Parcs’ online campaigns by 54% and managing to reduce the overall budget by just over 4% compared to last year.

The main reason we undertook this project was because we think that last click attribution is inaccurate and dead. Essentially we wanted to see the entire click path across all channels that lead to conversions and use this data for optimisation of the Center Parcs campaign.

The SearchIgnite technology enabled us to track all channels – PPC, SEO, email, display – then process and re-process 60 days worth of data that helped visualise and analyse a number of scenarios. From there were able to formulate the correct attribution and then make optimisation changes to the campaign in real-time.

The key outcome for GS and Center Parcs is that we have moved our planning to an integrated budget.  We now have one pot of money, that we utilise on an annual basis to optimise the campaign to provide the highest ROI possible, regardless of channel.

Learning is ongoing and there will be a number of exciting additions to the technology that will provide even greater insights for our clients in the year ahead.

To order a copy of our attribution Case Study please contact us @ enquiries@golleyslater.com

John Kinder
Golley Slater Digital

ENO continues to receive fantastic feedback about their new website, and are pleased to report zero queries about how to use the site, or how to find things.

“The work we programme at ENO appeals to an increasing number and wide range of audiences. Online we were looking for a market-leading approach which reflects our work on stage and reaches out to new online audiences – and that’s exactly what Golley Slater has delivered as well as increasing the percentage number of bookings online to over 60%”.
Ian McKay, Marketing Director, ENO

John Kinder
Golley Slater Digital

Furthermore this free app has had some really positive reviews, from the likes of The Application Review (28th May 2010). For the full article please click here.

John Kinder
Golley Slater Digital

Brand Republic has ranked the app 3rd in this weeks ‘Top 15 branded apps’ (25th May 2010). For the full article please click here.

Currently the app is being downloaded on a regular basis and is proving very successful.

John Kinder
Golley Slater Digital

Clarityn Apps

While HIPs’ demise had been on the cards for quite a while, the speed and lack of notice on the announcement has come as a bit of a surprise.

But is it a good thing? After all HIPs were supposedly providing house buyers with important information and were originally introduced in December 2007 to reduce risk, delay and uncertainty to the house buying process.

As I lurch towards becoming a grumpy old man my natural inclination is to disagree with the masses, but on this one they’re absolutely right. HIPs definitely had to go and well done the new coalition for dispensing with them.

As RICS Director of communications (and our client) Gillian Charlesworth said: “HIPs have failed to address the significant problems in the home buying process they were originally supposed to tackle…taking a swift decision will have minimised the impact on the market and ensured that estate agents who stick to the rules will not lose out.”

Timing was everything and introducing a significant £500 cost to the house buying process just when the property market was teetering over a big price correction was never sensible.

What was better timing though was introducing Energy Performance Certificates and it’s good news that this element has been retained. Here the onus will remain on the estate agent to ensure an EPC has been ordered prior to marketing and that they have made reasonable efforts to ensure it’s available within 28 days of the property coming to market.

So good news all round? Well, apart from the many people who paid for expensive training to become an inspector. If I was one of them I’d seriously be considering what legal action I could take against either the new government for scrapping them or the old for introducing them. But then again, with the curtailing of legal aid that might be difficult too!

Derek Harris, Account Director, Golley Slater London

There are many benefits to volunteering including expanding contacts, making new friends and gaining new skills and experiences that increase confidence and employability. A 2005 YouGov’s survey showed that 44% of business leaders linked employee volunteering to staff retention, 36% to recruitment of high calibre graduates and 28% to employee training. It also showed that employees actively engaged in community programmes are more satisfied in their work, with 85% saying their perception of their company had improved.

Volunteers tend to feel strongly about the cause they support and employers can harness this passion by integrating employee volunteering into their business strategy. Even in an employers’ market, competition for the best staff is high and employers compete on more than salary. A company’s reputation is important to job seekers and they expect to receive training. While volunteering is not a substitute for formal training, it can be incorporated into staff development plans to build team work and leadership skills. Many volunteering projects involve both team work and leadership roles so volunteers strengthen these skills.

Many companies run their own employee volunteering schemes, but as corporate social responsibility has increased in importance, more companies are turning to organisations like Business in the Community (BITC) because they can provide resources, help and advice on developing a structured programme. This involves championing the concept of employee volunteering within the organisation; selecting projects and promoting them to encourage staff to take part; looking at how volunteering fits with employees’ development plans; tracking volunteer hours and gaining feedback from the community groups being supported. Management can assess how volunteering is benefiting both the community and the organisation in terms of its reputation; staff performance, recruitment, retention and morale.

Each year Business in the Community (BITC) runs a national employee volunteering event – Give & Gain Day – which gives companies the chance to get involved in a community project. This enables companies to try employee volunteering and, if they decide to continue afterwards, to gain support with developing a volunteering programme.

Last year 4,300 employee volunteers from 208 companies in 43 towns and cities across the UK took part in Give & Gain Day. Participants include major corporations, SMEs and public sector organisations. This year’s Give & Gain Day takes place on 9 July and BITC is aiming to have 6,000 volunteers helping on projects as diverse as building reading gardens at schools to companies running open days for students. To learn more about Give & Gain Day visit www.bitc.org.uk.

Althea Taylor-Salmon, MD, Golley Slater Public Relations Cambridge

David Carr of The New York Times wrote recently that Apple’s tablet would be nothing less than “the second coming of the iPhone, a so-called Jesus tablet that can do anything, including saving some embattled print providers from doom.”

The result, after the launch of this new piece of voodoo from the people at the forefront of technology has been a monumental disappointment. It seems to be no more than an electronic book, magazine or newspaper – with internet access and a few nice apps and a screen that will screw your eyes up in about 15 minutes!

What’s interesting is why some of us expected so much more from a new gadget. I suspect this is because for some people, technology has become a kind of religion. We may not believe in a God anymore, but just as 500 years ago the Spanish missionaries put shiny mirrors in churches to dazzle the Incas and draw them in – we still like to see shiny new things that fill us with awe.

We’re living in an age of change and upheaval – yet technology gives us the illusion of control, a sense of order. Pick up a smart phone or turn on your laptop and you have a reliable, dependable device that does whatever you tell it to do. And no wonder a lot of people in the media wanted to believe that a new device from Apple could stop the decline of our industry’s Newspapers and magazines. Both are struggling to adapt to the Internet, and no one has any idea what our business will look like when we get to the other side of this wrenching period. The iPad may very well be the answer …….. eventually. But not from day one – and not until you get one free when you sign up to a year’s subscription of …. whatever.

It says more about us and what we have come to expect from Apple than Apple itself. Yet Apple did not invent the MP3 player, and they where not the first to think of distributing music over the internet. What they did was make it ‘cool’. In a world where Apple only have a 5% share of the mobile market and about the same in home computing – I don’t think the iPad is the savior of the printed word. But its quite cool. Should have called it the iWant.

Weekday meal preparation has changed, with 4 out of 5 of us now favouring so-called ‘combination cooking’ (mixing both raw and ready prepared, store bought ingredients). The research also shows shoppers don’t plan meals and lack confidence in the kitchen. They want more information about how to cook healthy meals for their family when they are short of time and what to buy when they are at the supermarket.

An opportunity exists for brand owners to provide meal suggestions when shoppers need them most, in-store. Providing shopping lists and recipe ideas will direct shoppers to your branded product and may even tempt them into new categories.

Our specialist retail team works together with brand owners helping them connect with shoppers, analyse the latest trends and create campaigns to increase sales which meet with the changes in shopper behaviour.

Emma Sutcliffe
Golley Slater Retail
Leeds

*Ref Institute of Grocery Distribution, shopper research report, Meal Occasions

Brands have always been able to play quality as the differentiator over retailers own label, but the gap is closing and in some categories is now negligible in the minds of shoppers. Therefore quality must now encompass a wider range of factors including perception, taste, performance, usage, convenience or meaningful association.

The question remains ‘Will the activity win over price conscious customers?’ If the promotion builds additional recognition and value for some well loved brands then it has a good chance of success.

Click here for the full article.

Emma Sutcliffe
Golley Slater Retail
Leeds