The most important factor about this trend is not the product – it is the occasion and its validity in our modern lifestyle. Despite this, retailers annually promote the ’spring clean’ event when very few of us will go anywhere near a feather duster.

Some of the best loved occasions have been engineered — from ‘Jif lemon day,’ to the more contrived ‘Doritos and a movie.’ But then there’s the inevitable jump onto the world cup bandwagon which often lacks a little imagination (Read about it in Marketing). Yes, the snacks and drinks market will see the undoubted benefits as it fits with the occasion of watching football, but how much more petrol will Esso sell offering free cardboard ‘medals’ with every £15 spend.

The occasion and product have to fit and create an emotional connection. By identifying the mood and matching it to both a suitable product and event, we have recipe for success. Retailers are constantly looking to create occasions, so what better way to support them, sell some products and raise your game.

Emma Sutcliffe
Golley Slater Retail
Leeds

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

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

Chris Lovell, Group CEO

We visit all the leading retailers on a weekly basis to identify new store and sales innovations. We carry out category audits and competitor analysis for the brand owners who we work with, to initiate creative campaigns that build brands and sales.

At a time when retailers are demanding ever more support from brand owners, by knowing about the most recent developments in each retailer you can ensure you stay ahead of the competition.

The Golley Girls at the PRide Awards

We picked up gold in the Public Sector category with our Healthy Schools Sunderland campaign and this was soon followed by a silver award in the Best Event category for SPAM® Cook of the Year 2009.

Not forgetting, of course, that we were also finalists in the Consumer Relations category for the launch of brasher Lithium XCR!

Our Awards…check out the GOLD!!

Our Awards…check out the GOLD!!

What makes it even sweeter is the fact that this makes it a HAT TRICK of PRide wins in the last three years! Now that is what I call an amazing 100% PRide record!

So please join us in celebrating and give us a shout over at our Twitter page. You can also find a breakdown of all results from the night here.

Now, we’d best get back to work to make sure it’s gold all round next year!

As I looked around both conference halls, I saw hundred of faces. Faces of people representing PR agencies, digital agencies, media agencies, public sector organisations, independent companies … the list goes on and on. And the same look was on all of our faces. We were all waiting for the answer.

People are still looking for answers when it comes to digital. People are looking for the definitive answer for how digital will work for them. And it doesn’t exist. Technology and innovation is moving so fast that just when you think you are getting close, something new arrives on the scene and throws a proverbial spanner in the works. But whilst there are no right answers, the people who are having success are those who have taken a risk and have got involved with digital media so when new innovations happen, they are better placed to incorporate them in their comms strategy. Take my favourite speaker at Hello Digital, Heather Gorringe . She is the creator of Wiggly Wigglers and her story was one laced with success in connecting to her audience via social media and developing customer service by added value services such as podcasts. Her approach was so fresh, so enthusiastic and so refreshing in the current climate and she truly embodied the analogy of Cinderella and Dick Whittington that Jon Grisby, Channel 4 Director of Future Media and Technology, offered earlier in the day. It went something like this; those who wait for their digital fairy godmothers to turn up to change their life will be waiting a long time. Those, however, who practice, try, fail, try again and again and finally succeed, the Dick Whittingtons of the world, like Heather Gorringe, will succeed … and they are!

So with that in mind, I look around these crowded conference halls, with frantic typing and scribbling and I wonder how many people are at the event just in case the fairy godmother turns up as a key note speaker. We all need to take a leap into the unknown. No think tank, no conference, no seminar is going to give the definitive answers we are all waiting for … it has been almost 15 years since digital media took off and if we haven’t got the answers now, we aren’t going to.

So less talking people, and more action please!

One route is a familiar and safe journey: Traditional media channels such as regional newspapers, trade journals and TV/radio. It’s safe, tried and tested and they know what to expect and the rules of the game. The other route however, takes the brand into unfamiliar, unknown territory where the rules of the game are very different, there’s less control over the brand and the landscape is changing almost on a daily basis.

There seems to be great debate about brands engaging with customers online. Why run the risk of negative comments being posted about their products or services? However, there is no escaping that people will talk about your brand and products regardless of whether you are talking directly to them or not. So why not take the plunge and start embracing online? To all the current abstainers, why not bite the bullet, sign up for Twitter, start a blog, join Facebook – start to understand the rules of engagement, the opportunities that it may create for you.

And here lies the bitter pill that many seasoned communicators may not wish to swallow – but how can you expect to advise your companies and brands if you’ve never experienced it! I’m sure PR professionals understand what will make a great story for one of the Red Tops but they may not consider themselves a Sun reader. Digital should therefore be viewed in a similar light – as a PR professional you should immerse yourself in your target media and channels, regardless of your own personal political or cultural persuasion!

So which route should you take? Well you can play safe and keep going down the traditional routes…….but what does that say about your brand and are you really reaching your customers in the best way? There’s much debate about the death of the regional media and the more forward-thinking brands will be looking at new ways/channels to target their customers. To us, this route is a dead end.

I suggest you just put your foot down and embrace this new digital era. Who knows, you might actually enjoy it!

* Why have they stopped buying?
* What are they buying instead?
* Why aren’t they even bothering to go down our aisle?

Focus groups be dammed, when was the last time you simply watched your customers shop!!!

It’s quite a revealing exercise.

When you understand how customers behave when they are within touching distance of your product, you can tell them what they need to know so they will reach out and put it in their trolley. Working from that moment will help any brand owner focus on the right messaging and the most cost effective retail marketing mix.

The role of Golley Slater is to help you understand your customers, produce meaningful deals, communicate compelling offers and develop engaging promotions. That’s it!

In truth there are lots of messaging opportunities with each retailer, shelf POS, 6 sheets, ads, floor media, security shrouds, .com, retailer magazines, store and manager communication plus sampling. We can help you select the most effective media for the budget and the comms requirement.

In terms of pushing the boundaries, retailer guidelines and budgets can restrict the options available, but we find by working in collaboration (client-retailer-agency) you can get things through.

Within our work for P&G we look at technically what can be achieved, this has included scented barker, push pods, health & beauty mini mags and baby DM pieces. We have also seen both moving and illuminated POS but this is normally reserved for corporate activities (such as Halloween and Christmas).

Examples of cross-siting, we have just produced an on-pack promotion for Ariel which includes a discount for George school uniforms. This has helped secure secondary display and POS in the George section of all Asda stores. (Just think of the retailer goodwill in helping sell their products).

Brands in conjunctions with their agencies book slots and present creative in-store ideas. Some of these are accepted, the majority however are rejected.

Through a weekly POS clinic hosted by Asda, we have been able to get a permanent Pampers nappy sizing barker sited in all stores. This does not conform to POS design guidelines but as it builds value in the category it was accepted.

Our approach is to constantly look for creative opportunities in conjunction with you and then presenting onto retailers together.