Untangling The Web Part One

This is a longer version of a feature that appeared in Encore magazine.

I have three seconds to convince you to read this article. That’s the… Oh, you’ve gone. I was going to say, that’s the average time someone spends on a website before deciding whether to stay or leave.

Your website is probably the most important marketing tool you have, so it’s too important to be left to a web designer or consultant. It’s up to you to make sure people can get around your site easily and find all the information they need and you want them to know. There’s no excuse. So much research is available about what works and more importantly what doesn’t.

As with all good marketing, the key is to look at it from the customer’s point of view. ‘To see ourselves as others see us’ as Robbie Burns said. The problem is, we’re so involved in our business, it’s difficult to step back. Yet it’s crucially important because, unlike other media, the customer is in charge of the web.

I’ve recently been involved in constructing a website for our shop. There is a lot of research available from sites like Useit.com and thesitewizard.com about how people use websites. Of course, some people are more internet savvy than others but many of us are still trying to work out why we have to click ‘Start’ to turn off their PC. Some have quicker brains for working out how to navigate a site but you can’t expect most of your users to be like that any more than you can expect them all to be able to solve the Rubik’s Cube.

The playwright Bertolt Brecht kept a toy donkey on his desk and when he wrote something he would turn to it and say, ‘Would you understand this?’ (in Gerrman of course.) This is not to do with how intelligent we are but how knowledgeable. Let’s face it, when it comes to websites, a large number of us and our customers are donkeys.

I’ve found there are a number of ‘rules’ your website must obey if you want your visitors to stay and use it.

First, research why people are visiting your website then make sure the content of your website answers their needs. They may want to know you sell, prices, how to find you, what your business is about, how to buy an item or simply who you are. The Home Page should let people know they’ve come to the right place (‘Welcome to Anytown’s largest theatre where you can find out information about forthcoming shows, about the venue and buy tickets online’) and offer a few samples of the site’s content. The links that provide answers to key questions must be prominent and easy to find.

Appearance matters. People judge your professionalism and reliability by the quality of the design.

Appearance doesn’t matter. Don’t let design, however good, get in the way of ease-of-use. Google is hardly the prettiest website but it makes it easy for people to find what they’re looking for.

The key to usability is Don’t Be Different. I know we all love originality but we’ve all visited thousands of sites, so if your site doesn’t have the same layout as the vast majority of other sites, we get confused. For example, if we find the Contents list isn’t in a line along the top or down the left side, we may miss what they’re looking for. We also expect to click back to the home page with a link on the logo and they’ll be looking for a ‘previous page’ or ‘back’ button. Link titles that pop up when the mouse goes over a link help people understand where they’re likely to be heading. People expect Search. Make sure it’s there in a recognisable box at the top of the page and make sure it works.

The same basic format for each page helps users know where they are. All of this makes your site easy to navigate.

And no pop ups. We all hate pop ups because they - Visit my website thelewisexperience.co.uk -make us lose track. Many of us block them.

Part Two tomorrow.

Website Lets Down Mary Queen Of Shops

I was looking at the website of Yellowdoor, the retail consultancy run by Mary Portas, Queen Of Shops. I know she could transform the fortunes of the little shop my wife and I own; I know this agency is far more successful at PR than I could ever hope to be. So in a way, I feel who am I to criticise? However I have to say, their website is not very good.

See for yourself. Firstly, you have to click to get anywhere, which is always a frustration. So, click on the Retail Strategy page, though it could be any of them. The first thing you have to tackle is the tiny difficult-to-read type, made even worse because white out of brown is always going to be less easy to read that black out of white. Then there’s the counter-intuitive scrolling- the arrow at the bottom pointing down makes the page scroll to the top and the upward pointing arrow at the top takes you down. When you try to read, there are distracting photos constantly scrolling up the left hand side.

Finally perhaps the worst sin because it’s the easiest to have got right- series of typographical errors- Shopping is another scence (presumably ‘science’)… We will apply out (our) expertise. There’s no excuse for not proofing properly.

Sticking with copy but turning to the About Us page, it seems Mary Portas’ newspaper column ‘will be a launch pad for a National Shop Awards in 2006”- ‘was’ surely. You must keep your website up-to-date or your company looks inefficient and unreliable.

As happens so often, clever design has triumphed over usability. I am pretty sure that this would not be true of Yellowdoor’s retail consultancy work but a website like this just creates that little doubt.

How New Labour Lost Its Market

When the government party comes fifth in an election behind the Greens and the BNP, you know they’ve got problems. If they were a business, they’d be heading for bankruptcy.

Heres my admittedly simple-minded take on the history of British politics in the last hundred years. Things started so well for Labour at the beginning of the 20th century. They spotted a new market of newly enfranchised working class voters, added a targeting of liberal intellectuals who’d previously supported the Liberals, and the consequence was, the Labour Party formed its first government. Their second and greatest success came after the second world war, when they had a massive majority of voters hungry for change. They delivered on their promises with the National Health Service and much more welfare state and government control of industry and the economy.

This didn’t last because of the poor state of the economy in war-ravaged Britain but they were now an electable party and, better still, the Conservatives adapted their product to the new climate and embraced the welfare state. After further periods in government in the sixties and seventies, the Labour product became discredited as the welfare state became more expensive to manage and the government-control of industries was discredited by strikes instigated by powerful left-wing Unions. A good time then for the Conservatives to come up with a new improved product that promised to tame the unions and use market forces to sort out industry and the economy. The delivery of low income taxes and prosperity was crucial.

Poor handling of the economy led to the downfall of the Conservatives after a long period of success. However, after three defeats, the Labour leadership’s analysis was (rightly) that they had allowed themselves to become controlled by the hard left and their outdated policies. They could only get themselves elected if they appealed to the middle ground. So, just as a generation earlier the Conservatives had embraced the welfare state, now Labour now took on the Conservatives’ clothes- yes to market forces, no to union power, yes to low taxes, no to government intervention.

This would have been a good idea if they had retained a bedrock of solid left-of-centre policies. However New Labour abandoned their original market. They have let poor working class get poorer and have outraged liberal intellectuals because of the Iraq war, 42 day detentions and other reasons too numerous to list. If the new market was more reliable this wouldn’t necessarily matter but the ‘middle ground’ is fickle, caring only about how prosperous they feel. While the economy was ‘safe in their hands’, Labour was safe. Now, the party may be beginning to realise that New Labour was built on sand and it no longer has any rock on which to rely or rebuild.

It’s a shame really because things could have been so different. The collapse of the world economy has exposed the failures of a purely market economy. It should have been the opportunity for Labour to show that their traditional Keynesian approach to economics, where the state intervenes to control and stimulate the market, is a better model. No chance of that with the Conservatives.

Every lasting business knows that following the market is a short term solution with temporary results. Long term success relies on an authentic product with which at a profitable section of the market can identify. Governments will always come and go depending on how they are perceived to be protecting us, primarily by managing the economy well but also against ill health, terrorism and so on. But parties, like businesses, can only continue if they have core values that voters/customers connect with. The problem is, no-one knows what either of the main parties’ values are anymore.

Faking It

Does authenticity matter, asks Seth Godin. If the fake Rembrandt has fooled the experts, if Shakespeare didn’t write parts of his plays, if Churchill put his historic speeches on record after the event, if some of The Beatles’ songs weren’t recorded by all four of the Fabs, does it matter?

If the effect of the fake on you is the same as the ‘authentic’ version, it probably doesn’t. It is, if you like, all in the mind, and we should all trust our own feelings not what we’re told to feel. In business, it does matter though, because, if someone deliberately sells a fake Rolex, no matter how authentic looking, as the real thing, and they therefore charge a much higher price than justified- that’s fraud. And if you tell a customer something that isn’t true, you’ll be found out eventually, seriously damage your reputation- and may even be prosecuted.

Turn 20% into 80%

Thanks to Gary Bencivenga for reminding us about The Pareto Principle, which states that 20% of your customers give you 80% of your business. He tells us that it also applies to other aspects of your life. For example, you probably wear 20% of the clothes in your wardrobe 80% of the time. Most people find that they only spend 20% of their working week doing that which gives them 80% of their satisfaction. When I was a manager, I spent most of my time doing tedious admin. Now, as a freelance marketer, I spend nearly all my time on writing and PR, make a bit more money and- most importantly- am much happier.

Humane Resources

Human Resources have a deservedly bad image. In my experience the term exactly sums up the attitude of too many people doing that particular job. They don’t regard employees as people, simply ‘resources’ that happen to be ‘human’ as opposed to technical or whatever. The main point of their jobs seems to be to find clever ways to exploit employees or get rid of them.

What a joy, then, to hear about the human resources people at Zappos- the hugely successful American catalogue shoe retailer. They want the best, most committed people to work in their phone sales department. So, they train them for four weeks on full salary and, at the end of that period, they offer them a $1000 to leave! The theory being that if the employee would rather have a few dollars than work for them, they’re not the kind of committed people they want.

This is brilliant because one of the biggest problems most of us have as employers is the time it takes to find out that someone isn’t right for the company. This way you have a good chance of weeding them out early.

Then when these people work for Zappos, they’re given free rein to do whatever it takes to make a customer happy. There are no scripts, standard responses, jobsworth attitudes or time targets. Every aspect of the way they treat their employees is an anathema to most Human Resources people and their patrons- Accountants.

For more about the radical customer-first approach of Zappos, read this article by Bill Taylor.

Page Turner or Turn Off? Part Two

I was surprised to go into a Bose shop recently and be told that they don't publish a cataloguie because people can go to the website. This is very shortsighted. Brochures drive large numbers of people to websites as well as generating sales in their own right.

Now where was I? Oh yes. Let’s turn to the inside pages. Most people automatically look at a point slightly above the centre and to the right, so if you want them to look at the rest of the page, you must lead them round it. A good layout uses a face looking inward or a curving body to move the eye in a circular motion around the whole page and to focus it on the key information. Painters have been using this and other rules of composition to control eye movement for hundreds of years - check out Botticelli’s The Birth Of Venus.

As for the words, the best brochures sell benefits not features. Since this is a basic rule of marketing, I’m surprised how often it’s broken. For example, just because the show won Best Musical Award, it doesn’t follow that your customer will enjoy it; there’s a world of difference between Les Mis and Hairspray. The best copy talks to the reader about what they want: “When you leave the theatre dancing down the street, you’ll know why this show won Best Musical Award.”

When it comes to design, the marketer stays in control of the best brochures. Designers may love pink type coming out of a red background but we know our customers won’t be able to read it. They may use 8 point type to make more room for images but we know it must be at least 12 point. A good designer will make the brochure look lovely but the good marketer keeps the artist’s feet on the ground and insists that important messages are communicated clearly.

Finally, the best brochure will have been checked by independent readers, who will have included older customers if they make up a significant proportion of the audience.

There are many more techniques that a brochure specialist can suggest to boost sales but simply incorporate the above and you’ll ensure that your brochure is a page turner instead of a turn-off.

Fowl Play in The Apprentice

I know The Apprentice is set up and edited to make great TV, but I'm still astonished at the basic failings it reveals each show of these young business people.

Every week they are given a task and spend next to no time planning and researching. Last night they were trying to find sundry items in Marrakesh and spent a lot of time running around like headless chickens (and there was a halal butcher just waiting to make a few more chickens headless for them.) At least Lee's team had researched where to get kosher chicken- Jennifer's team didn't even research what 'kosher' meant. None of them seemed to have a clear plan as to how their day's shopping was going to pan out or any contingencies for things going wrong.

Once again there was poor teamwork. They should know by now the strengths and weaknesses of their colleagues and yet Jennifer let Claire twice sabotage Alex's bartering with shop owners. Despite or perhaps because success depends on teamwork, it seems many of the candidiates have been deliberately chosen because they are poor team players who believe the way to personal victory is to undermine their rivals.

Worse of all last night was Jenny's decision to try to bribe a shopkeeper into not providing tennis rackets to the rival team. There is some debate about whether this might be a legitimate business practice but this argument takes the view that business is a dog-eat-dog world. To some extent, business is about survival of the fittest but a successful market economy is supposed to deliver value and that depends on following rules and behaving fairly in order to provide best value. For example, it's legitimate to win a contract through making the best bid but if you win it through bribery (or by operating a cartel) the end user does not get the best value. Jenny could have helped her team to victory by her unfair tactic but the winning team was supposed to be the one who found the right products at the best price.

It is perhaps not surprising that Jenny thought she might get brownie points for her underhand behaviour since many big firms have indulged in unfair practices. Microsoft have been fined by the EU for anti-competitive practices; BA indulged in dirty tricks against Virgin Atlantic. Before we give up trying to do business honestly, it's worth considering that if the shop manager had accepted a bribe, the shop owner would have been out-of-pocket. Translated to a bigger scale, if she had accepted a bribe from a competitor to sabotage sales, the shop owner might have been out-of-business, and ultimately customers would end up paying higher prices because of the lack of competition.

Copy That

Copywriting is the marketing activity I love best. So I was fascinated to find the great e-marketing guru Seth Godin complaining bitterly in his daily blog about a copy editor who had taken all the life out of his writing.

This was surprising because Seth writes meticulous prose. Reading his blog, you’ll be hard pressed to find grammatical errors or spelling mistakes. The words and sentences hang together and make sense. When he states a fact, he gives a reference. He doesn’t exaggerate. He doesn’t repeat. He avoids clichés like the plague (thanks to William Safire for that one).

Those are the basics. However complying with the ‘rules’ only makes sure your reader isn’t put off from respecting or even reading your work. What separates the good from the average is the evidence of a mind at work. It must be clear that it was written by a real person with their own voice, someone who has an opinion robustly argued or who makes an emotional connection with the reader.

I can only assume that Seth’s copy editor tried to take out of his copy that which makes him so readable- his individual way of speaking and his highly informed view of the world.

Is Your Brochure a Page-Turner or a Turn-Off?

What makes the perfect season brochure? A winning formula involves more than making it look pretty. If the brochure you’re involved with isn’t using the following techniques and quite a few others, then you’re losing sales.

Let’s begin at the end. If the brochure has been displayed back to front or thrown casually on a table, its back cover may be the first sight the customer has of a brochure, so a good one will have the venue’s name clearly displayed for people who know your business and will actually pick up a brochure for it.

When you put something on the back cover, it’s like shining a Super Trouper on it. Along with the inside covers and the centre spread, it’s one of the ‘hot spots’ that get noticed. A well planned brochure won’t waste these positions with boring information like How To Find Us or Terms & Conditions, because these are the best pages to sell the most valuable products.

Flipping the brochure over, the front cover will be shouting ‘PICK ME UP!’ It will use more tricks than Paris Hilton to grab attention, apart from forgetting to put knickers on. Look at magazine covers- you’ll nearly always see one big image (probably an attractive face (probably an attractive famous face)). An unusual picture can also make an impression. What they won’t have is a lot of tiny images, because trying to please everybody pleases nobody.

The brochure cover will use strong colours, especially red since that’s a colour more likely to appeal to women who form the majority of shoppers.

Notice how the most important reasons for picking it up are at the top. A designer sees the whole cover on a screen but we know that our piece of print may be stuck behind something on a tiered rack, so we need the venue name and the key products to be featured on the visible area.

Next time, we'll look at the inside pages.

No News Is Bad PR

It’s great to get publicity for a stunt- even better when you don’t actually do the stunt. Well, unless you’re found out.

The Southampton Daily Echo reported that the city’s major shopping centre West Quay would be turning its lights off for Earth Hour. This was excellent publicity for a centre that’s closed on a Saturday night. Even better, the Echo ranked it alongside Sydney Harbour Bridge as a world landmark!

All well and good, except unfortunately their lights didn’t actually go off. Which turned a good story into bad publicity. The lesson is, when you try to get publicity on the back of an external event, make sure you’ve told the people on the ground.

I want to tell you a story

Seth Godin's latest blog is about how whatever you do in the course of your work tells your customers a story about your business. It reminded me that I didn't post my recent article from Encore magazine about the story your marketing tells. Here it is-

“I want to tell you a story.” Like many comedians, Max Bygraves understood from the start of his career the power of the story to attract and keep an audience’s attention. I discovered recently, having been involved in marketing a new shop, that the best window dressers too aim to tell a ‘story’ in their displays.

This doesn’t mean the literal kind of narrative you might see in Selfridges windows at Christmas. Put simply, it’s that the colours, the props and the products themselves should work together to say something. This ‘something’ might be suggesting certain garments and accessories that will go well together on a night out or it might be ‘Don’t forget to buy a present for Mother’s Day’.

When marketing entertainment, we need to tell a story if we want to sell tickets. The flier or brochure cover says instantly in the colours, the style and the words what the show or venue is about. Bright colours will put across fun and excitement- check out Really Useful Group’s Joseph poster. Black and white for a drama or pop star will suggest something moody and sophisticated. Think of the marvellous image David Pugh produced for Rebecca or the consistent effectiveness of Chicago’s marketing even after ten years.

An image can make the story or end it. As the old Chinese proverb says, ‘one picture is worth a thousand words’. (Actually the saying was coined in the 1920s by Fred Barnard, an American PR man, who said it was an ancient proverb to give it more cachet. Marketing people, eh?)

We work in show business so we know how much appearance helps. Think of when TV producer Jack Good came across this weedy bloke with a very good record and put him in sexy leathers- Gene Vincent never looked back. At the other end of the scale, Brian Epstein took The Beatles out of their jeans and leather jackets and put them in suits and ties to say to people- we may be revolutionary but we’re loveable and family-friendly too.


The picture or pictures must tell the story of the show- I’m involved in publicising a show called Tango! Tango! at the moment and the main photo is a sensuous shot of an entwined couple, not on the dance floor, but isolated in a cavernous space with one shaft of light picking them out. It says everything about the all consuming passion of the dance.

How pictures are arranged makes a big difference. This is sometimes known as design— a word that is clearly unknown to many promoters and venues! Throwing a lot of images into the advertisement or brochure page is a bit like saying ‘People like country music, rock’n’roll and hiphop so if I put them on the same bill I’ll get three times the audience.’ The images must work together to tell the story and should literally move the eye around the page in a journey that will keep the attention and reveal the story of the show or venue. In this case, the story is about the content of the show and must create a desire to see it and it’s also the information about where and when it can be seen.

The most obvious way of telling a story is through words- whether in a press release (we even talk of newspaper ‘stories’), in brochure copy, in a mailing or even in an advertising slogan. ‘Lie, Cheat, Steal… all in a day’s work’ says the poster for Glengarry Glen Ross at the Apollo.

‘Feel The Magic’ was a phrase I used. It didn’t merit serious analysis for meaning but the two words (I mean the first and third!) instantly conveyed the appeal of going to the theatre. Whether it’s two or two hundred words, every one should say something about the product and lead the reader on a journey. Like Max’s stories, you must grab the attention, keep them interested and lead to a punch-line- in our case, get them to buy a ticket.

Alarming Nipple- How Not To React To Bad Publicity

Jeanne Bliss on the website Marketing Profs Daily Fix brings our attention to a great example of how not to react to bad publicity. In Lubbock Texas recently, a woman’s nipple ring was detected by the security system. She was forced to go through a humiliating procedure during which she had to remove the ring in front of officers. Naturally this made the Transportation Security Administration look very bad.

The situation could have been saved at this point. They could have accepted they did wrong, but no, “It appears that the Transportation Security Officers involved properly followed procedures.” They could have explained what they had done to ensure this sort of thing never happens. Instead they offered a woolly “we are changing the procedures”.

Most important of all, they could have said ‘sorry’. Instead, when you wade through all the flummery, here’s their ‘apology’: “TSA acknowledges that our procedures caused difficulty for the passenger involved and regrets the situation in which she found herself.” In other words, sorry but you’ve only yourself to blame.

A commentator invents a new motto for the TSA, “You fly… we pry.”

Innocent Until Proven Guilty?

The son of a family friend was recently accused of a crime. There was no proof, simply one person’s word. The police arrested him in the middle of the night, seized his clothing then released him on bail. Despite him being a minor and despite guidelines that state such people should be dealt with quickly, it took five months before they finally decided they had no evidence on which to charge him. (I could add that the ‘witness’ turned out to be totally unreliable.) Then, when he went to collect his clothes, they handed them over in large brown bags marked ‘Police Evidence’ and ‘Prisoner Property’ to carry through the streets. All in all, it was a highly traumatic experience for a young person who has always been law abiding.

The police should ask themselves whether treating an innocent young person like a criminal, especially after there is no doubt of his innocence, is likely to encourage him to regard the police as worthy of support in the future. A commercial company offering this kind of customer service would be damaging its brand and risk going out of business.

Joss Stone Makes The Flake Ad

I love the new Cadbury's Flake TV ad featuring Joss Stone. It perfectly recreates the style of a fly-on-the-wall documentary about making a record. As the recording progresses, there's a slight problem necessitating a pause. During the break, Ms Stone idly picks up a Flake and casually sings, as any of us might, the well-known jingle in her inimitable voice. Instead of putting the bar straight into her mouth as you would expect from the previous ads, thus rather obviously suggesting fellatio, she breaks off a small piece and eats it. The coup de grace is when she looks down and casually flicks off some crumbs from her front, which anyone who's eaten a Flake can relate to.
Perfect in every way- beautifully structured; referring to the universally known Flake ads tradition while at the same time undermining it for a modern audience; and the self deprecating humour at the end that makes a real connection. See it and lots more TV ads at Guardian Media's Creative Lounge

What's your real voice?

I was watching a documentary on Al Bowlly, a great crooner from the 1930s, who briefly rivalled Bing Crosby in popularity. I think it was Carrie Grant who commented that at a certain stage he found his own voice- that unique personal quality, she said, that makes a singer seem 'real' to his or her audience. The same is true of writers, painters and any other kind artist. It struck me that this is very like finding the Unique Selling Proposition for your business product. Of course, in the case of business, it's easily squandered if you disrespect it by, for example, using the name to sell other inferior or barely related products.

Wish You Were Here

Just back from Ireland and once again had a great time with the friendly laid-back locals. This time we were in the Galway area and a lovely village called Ballyvaughan. One of the charms of the Irish is their way of talking, such as this response to being asked the quickest way to a particular place: "Are you driving or walking?" "Driving" "That'll be the quickest way then."

On this visit, we enjoyed some wonderfully 'Irish' conversations. Like the newsagent who explained the morning papers "could be here in 2 minutes, they could be here in 2o minutes, all I can tell you is- they will be here." One wonderful example of the Irish thought process was in an advertising slogan outside a newly built estate on the outskirts of Dublin: "If you lived here, you'd be home by now." So true. Like any great slogan, I can't get it out of my head. Brilliant.

Sex Sells Theatre Tickets

An article in the Daily Telegraph explains in fascinating detail how David Pugh and his partner Daffyd Rogers financed Equus and their many other theatrical successes and occasional failures. However it says little about the part David’s marketing skill has played in his achievements. I have met no other producer who combines theatrical knowledge with marketing flair in quite the way David does.


David’s decision to change the cast of Art every twelve weeks was a clever way of keeping the show in the news, as was the special celebrity guest each night in The Play What I Wrote. When he brought Rebecca starring Nigel Havers to my then theatre, he marketed it with a brilliant black and white photo (by Lord Lichfield) of Havers looking wistful on a beach. David gave me a framed version of the poster when we broke the British box office record for a play. It’s the only theatre poster I have in my office.



The image used for Equus was just as striking, featuring a bare chested Daniel Radcliffe whose lower body morphed into a horse’s head. The announcement of the West End run was accompanied by studio photos of a nearly naked Daniel. They were entirely in keeping with the sexual themes in the play but the image of a sexy Harry Potter gained coverage in virtually every national paper.

Comment Is Free

Much relief in the world of theatre critics that the Appeal Court has not allowed the composer of the opera Manifest Destiny to sue critic Veronica Lee for her comments in the Evening Standard. Her review had suggested that the work was anti-American and made terrorists seem heroic. The court decided this was 'fair comment'.

It is always a worry for the media that a review might step over the line into libel. I had the same concern myself when publishing audience reviews on a website . A successful libel suit would have severely restricted all of us from giving our opinions in public.

It is right that people should not be free to make damaging remarks about a product or person out of malice or by implying an opinion to be a fact. However giving an opinion reasonably formed from an experience is fundamental to our freedom of speech.

See Veronica's response to the verdict on the Observer website.

Harry Triumphs- in PR at least

I guess like half the world's population, I've spent the last few days reading Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows. I know it's ultimately just another PR event- just like the book is just another adventure story but the plot is clever and the action gripping and so was the PR.
It's sometimes hard to believe anyone was paid to market the book since there was already such global interest but the way the build-up was handled with little leaks and PR events was brilliant. It was great to get to the final battle and to find out the fate of all our favourite characters (and whether the publishers could prevent the outcome being revealed).
There's a bit too much exposition (a bit like when Poirot explains whodunit) and occasionally I got fed up with the 'with a bound they were free' solutions to the fixes our heroes were in (in the manner of the old Saturday morning kids' films) but these are minor quibbles.
Well done, JK and your PR people, you brought everything to a very satisfactory conclusion. Not sure whether the epilogue (19 years later) was really in keeping- but perhaps this was the bit that she famously wrote all those years ago, so she couldn't really abandon it now. Time to get on with the rest of our lives.

Business Is About Profits Not Ethics

We're just in the middle of buying shop premises at the moment, which is why the entries are few and far between.

It's been a reminder to me, if I needed it, of how dog-eat-dog the business world is. When you work in a business where everyone knows one another and has to deal with same people again in the future, reputation is important. It's vital that you're seen as reliable and trustworthy.

Not so when you're buying property (commercial or residential). The property owners- and I guess the buyers as well- know they're not likely to be dealing with you again so notions of honour and ethics are somewhat different.

We started negotiations with a landlord to rent one of his properties. In the theatre world, a manager would be called dishonourable and unethical if he or she began negotiations with another promoter if they had even a pencil (provisional) booking.

Not so in the property world, it seems. This landlord had no scruples about beginning negotiations with another prospective tenant after negotiations were already under way with us. As our 'rivals' were a more established business, they got the shop and we were out-of-pocket for £1000 in solicitor's fees. And, no, our man wasn't interested in compensating us. Fortunately we hadn't had the survey done or we would have been a further £1500 down.

This is not to say this fellow is dishonourable or unethical, just that different rules apply in the property world. I am under no illusions, having been a business person most of my life, that the world of business is about profit not sentiment- companies may present themselves as ethical, compassionate, caring, loyal to their customers or whatever- but this is a response to what they feel they need to do to keep selling their products at a profit, nothing deeper. Tesco are generous to schools but they trample on suppliers and rivals.

From my own experience as an employee, I found that you can be loyal, help your boss turn a company around, protect him from mistakes and coups, and still be shafted when his interests don't coincide with yours.

When business people complain about red tape what they really mean is that they resent laws and regulations that make them behave better than they otherwise would. Still we're now negotiating for another property and look forward to the challenge of running an ethical business at a profit.

Cricket Ticket Sales Score A Duck

I went to my first cricket match in 40 years last week. Well, not a proper cricket match- a Twenty20 game which has none of the cat-and-mouse excitement (for which, read 'boredom', unless you're very keen) of first class cricket but is an edge-of-your-seat hit-and-run event.

So the game was fun. But. What was disappointing was the Hampshire Rosebowl's sales set-up. Although we wanted to book well in advance and the date was known well ahead, it was only a month before that it finally went on sale Even a week before, the ticket office were uncertain about exactly when we would be allowed to buy tickets. This is not the way to sell tickets. Always have the Action available when you stimulate the Desire.

Then there's the website. Try to buy tickets by clicking on a specific game and you are still sent to a general online booking page which you then have to click to book tickets for your chosen game. Did whoever designed it actually try to use it?

Perhaps you'd prefer to book by phone. So you call the (premium rate) number given on the website, which I did four times during their opening hours, and only ever got a pre-recorded message directing me to, you guessed it, the website.

Do these people want to sell tickets?

Race For Life

I’m proud to say that my wife Julia and daughter Becky recently completed a Race For Life. They ran/walked the three mile course in Winchester in support of Cancer Research and in memory of our brother-in-law Richard Knott who died from cancer at the end of last year. Between them, they raised nearly £300 and had an enjoyable day, albeit tinged with sadness. It was moving to see so many people with signs on their backs naming the person they were running for. Cancer touches so many lives. Julia is still welcoming donations at justgiving.co.uk/julialewis Also running were my mother-in-law, sisters-in-law and Richard’s daughters.

Say No To 0870

If I phone you up to buy something from you, is it good customer service to make me listen to an advertisement and to charge me at a premium rate for the privilege? Obviously not, yet that’s exactly what Airmiles did when I phoned their 0870 number to book some Eurostar tickets (which you can’t do online). If they want to sell me a credit card, that’s fine but they should do it on a freefone number. After holding for a couple of minutes, I decided to go to saynoto0870.com to get the lower cost number local exchange number which incidentally is 01925 866000.

I started getting my Tesco Clubcard points converted to Airmiles because they seemed like better value and so it has proved. I booked flights to Paris because Eurostar was too expensive. For just over 2500 miles, I saved £150 on flights. This values the Airmiles at 6p each. For every £2.50 in Clubcard vouchers, you get 60 miles or £3.60 at the rate I got, so that is good value unless you use up all your extra value in 0870 charges.

When is June?

I always look forward to receiving the Southampton Harbour Lights Picture House brochure each month. When the June issue arrived, I was excited to see they are screening Top Hat on 10 June, so I phoned the box office to book tickets, only to be told it doesn’t go on sale until 5 June. Golden rule: don’t advertise something you can’t sell.

My wife found the opposite problem. She bought the June issue of Good Housekeeping on 27th May only to find that a readers’ offer from M&S ran out on 23rd May. She phoned GH to complain but the person she spoke to couldn’t care less, arguing that the issue had appeared in early May.

Two good examples of how to piss off your customers.

Hiya

Is it what is said or the thought behind it that counts when it somes to customer service? I find an increasing number of the young people at checkouts now say 'Hiya' and 'Seeya' rather than 'Hello' and 'Goodbye'. I would normally argue that someone serving should tailor their language to the customer but since this is their natural form of language so they're not being impolite, I think it would be unreaosnable to expect them to second guess how I would like to be greeted. It's much better and offers a more genuine service than them parroting 'Have a nice day' because that's what you've been trained to say.

It's not just a catchphrase...

An article in The Guardian last week heralded the death of catchphrases in the age of advertisements that sell stories, feelings and images. I think there'll always be room for a memorable phrase that encapsulates a brand. 'It's not just food, it's M&S food', 'I bet he didn't go to Specsavers' are just two recent successes that show the catchphrase is alive and well.

Keep Your Eyes On The Horizon

That means make sure your marketing is line with the company’s objectives. It’s wasteful and bad for your employment prospects if you trying to position the product as cheap and cheerful when the company wants it to be seen as top quality and exclusive.

It means making sure your marketing doesn’t sacrifice long term aims for short term gains. Don’t cut prices to gain sales now if it’s going to compromise your product’s image.

It doesn’t mean taking your eye of the detail of what you’re doing now. However, don't let your marketing meander all over the place. Everything little thing you do should be informed by the long term strategy.

How To Write

While I was preparing some advice for a client on writing press releases, I came across these words from the nineteenth century writer John Ruskin. The points he makes apply to any kind of writing- press releases, blogs, direct mail, novels:

"Say all you have to say in the fewest words possible, or your reader will be sure to skip them; and in the plainest possible words or he will be sure to misunderstand them."

Shocking News

I was discussing with one of my clients ways in which they could get more media coverage. At one time sex, nudity and swearing were surefire ways of whipping up some media controversy. Nowadays these things pass without notice.

I remember being disappointed when the appearance of The Vagina Monologues at my theatre a few years ago failed to raise even an eyebrow, let alone a green ink letter. A few days ago Wedding Belles on Channel 4 offered us necrophilia, hard drug taking, gory murder and foul language and still didn’t make the headlines. Disappointing for us publicists, but at least artists can now get on with exploring human sexual activity without their efforts being viewed through the filter of shock.

On the other hand, religion is definitely worth a try if you want to get some media attention. You don’t even have to go out of your way to offend some Christians or Muslims- it seems they’re going out of their way to be offended. The latest is the banning of an exhibition of a naked Jesus made of chocolate that was due to be displayed in a New York gallery. The Catholic League For Religious And Civil Rights did the deed in this case. I’d never heard of Cosimo Cavallero before but now I’ve seen his website and think some of his work looks quite impressive.

Let’s be thankful there are still people around who can guarantee the arts a bit of publicity.

Customer Satisfaction Guaranteed? Not at the Theatre

Lyn Gardner’s blog at Guardian Unlimited made me think about refunds for theatre shows. “Guarantee” is one of the strongest selling words there is. So why are the arts so reluctant to offer one? Do we have such a lack of confidence in our product?

It’s partly because when you're talking about theatre satisfaction is a matter of opinion, partly because arts finances are so tight. I also know there’s a fear that some unscrupulous people would take advantage and ask for a refund even if they enjoyed the show, in effect having their cake and eating it, which is different from someone returning goods to a shop.

Experience from other industries suggests that the vast majority of people don’t try it on and we would make a lot more money in extra ticket sales than we would lose in refunds.

But if we really don’t trust our audience, why not give them a refund if they leave before the end? That’s what I used to do when I was involved in running a theatre. Then again, we’re talking about an industry that generally won’t even give refunds the day after the ticket is purchased!

Lyn Gardner also discusses the apparent problem of cheap tickets intended to encourage new attenders being snapped up by old hands. I'm amazed this is a such an issue these days. Every theatre and ticket agency has a database of customers. Surely you simply say that if you're an existing customer, you don't qualify for an introductory offer. Of course there will be some who go to a different agency or buy through another party just to get the discount but this simple measure would eliminate most of the 'problem'. Have they not heard of database marketing?

Customer Service Goes Bananas

I’ve said before that a company is only as good as its frontline staff. Here are two good examples, both from Marks & Spencer.

I’m looking for bananas. The banana shelves are empty so I ask a nearby shelf stacker. She says they’ve had a busy day and sold out. Feeling sad, I go to the check-out, then just as I’m leaving the shop, the assistant rushes up to me with her arms full of bunches of the curvy yellow fruit. She says “I was just out the back and I found some more bananas!” That’s what I call service.

By contrast, the very next day, I’m trying to select a yoghurt (I know you’re impressed by my healthy diet) but I can’t get to the shelf because an assistant is on his knees in front of me- not worshipping the chilled section but stacking shelves. This is clearly what he sees as his job, and he won't let customers get in the way of it. That’s what I call a banana skin.

If you're going to do it, do it properly

Last Monday saw the launch of Celebratio, an event management and ticketing system from SecureTicket for which The Lewis Experience has been providing PR and marketing support. What I like about the people at SecureTicket (apart from the fact that they're very nice) is that they realise the danger of the false economy.

So they chose the Cafe Royal for the launch- a top class, sophisticated venue right in the heart of London, not some anonymous hotel on the fringes. They got a well known celebrity (Maggie Philbin, the BBC's Face Of Technology, pictured with Rashid Qajar, chief executive of SecureTicket) to host it instead of relying on their excellent but unknown selves. They served champagne not cheap sparkling wine. They commissioned a short comedy film and hired a live band, rather than simply offering a power point presentation.

The result was a well-attended evening and potential clients going away with an image of a company that doesn't just promise great things but actually delivers.

If you want to know more about Celebratio, which by the way is Latin for 'audience', visit the website secureticket.biz.

Love Marketing

The marketing of Valentine’s Day relies on the two great motivators- fear and greed: the fear of the wrath of your significant other if you don't give a large card or gift; the greed at the prospect of a little romance (oh all right, sex) if you do.

No Checking Spells Disaster

I know there are many worse things in the world but it really irritates me when I see spelling and grammatical errors.

I was in a petrol station last week where a sign said that they were going to be closing for ‘maintenence’. The same day I found a shop that was looking for someone who could work ‘flexable’ hours. These were produced on a PC so what’s the excuse for not doing a spell check? Worse still, I saw an ad for one of BT’s business services on a website which promised they would ‘moniter’ activities.

There is a renowned Press Officer at a Midlands concert venue who has made an art form out of sloppiness. He/she recently referred to Foden's Richardson Band as Foden Richardsons Brass Band and The Foden’s Richardson Brass Band, both in the same press release, but never by the correct name. It’s a Council-owned venue so I assume their Equal Opportunities Policy extends to not discriminating against people who can’t copy the words in front of them.

This may all seem a little anally retentive in our 'let everyone do their own thing' world but there is a serious point. A lot of us do care about spelling and grammar, therefore when a business gets it wrong, it undermines our confidence that the company will get other more important things right.

iTunes Pricing Makes No Marketing Sense

You have to respect Apple- they clearly know a thing or two about marketing- but I really don’t understand their iTunes pricing policy. It makes no sense to me to price everything the same- every song 79p, every album (with rare exceptions) £7.90.

I can only think the strange kind of monopoly they have means they feel they can ignore basic principles of pricing as a marketing tool. Or maybe it’s because they operate in cyberspace where, with no physical stock, they don’t have the problem of being stuck with piles of unsold CDs.

Normally you would expect to offer a special low price on a new popular product so that you shift higher volumes at a lower profit. You might charge a higher price for something less popular because you are only moving small numbers and therefore cost per unit is relatively high. And of course you always want to knock out dead stock at bargain prices. None of this applies if everything takes up the same space on the server and costs the same to sell. On the other hand, wouldn’t a bit of price cutting help increase turnover?

That’s just looking at iTunes from a marketing perspective. CDs are often cheaper or more expensive because of the level of royalties payable or the promotional costs- hence some incredibly cheap re-issues of old recordings. How does this affect the business model of the record companies if every itunes sale yields the same return?

From a consumer’s point of view, how can Apple justify charging the same for a song which is out of copyright as one which is paying massive royalties to the recording artist? And, since cyberspace is so cheap, how do they have the nerve to charge £7.90 for an album which you could have in your hands and with a nice booklet for perhaps £8.99, when they incur none of the production, storage, distribution and sales staff costs associated with discs? We British may feel particularly aggrieved when you consider that in the US you pay 99 cents a track whereas in the UK you pay the equivalent of $1.50.

To a marketing person like me, this is adding injury to insult.

Open The Envelope

I nearly threw away the mailing that arrived covered in information about the Royal National Lifeboat Institution. I’m in favour of charitable giving but I already give to many other worthy causes. It was only my amusement at their fundraising event's title- Save Our Soles (say it out loud) that made me open the envelope. Imagine my surprise to find it was actually a mailing from the Chartered Institute of Marketing.

I expect it was a charitable gesture that encouraged the CIM to let the RNLI provide the envelopes but (and I'm finding it quite exciting to be critcising the CIM for poor marketing) it was a mistake. Effective mailings start with the envelope.

If you want to support Save Our Soles day, go to rnlisos.org.uk

Who Wins The Big Brother PR Battle- You Decide!

What japes in the Big Brother house!

From a marketing point of view, who are the winners and losers?

Channel 4, worried that BB is losing its lustre, brought in Jade Goody, BB’s most famous housemate, and family to liven up the programme. It began to backfire when she so alienated Ken Russell that he walked out. Then there was a predictable argument over food (we regular BB viewers know food is always a flash point). Faced with declining viewing figures, C4 exploited the row for all it’s worth. However they probably didn’t expect the slanging match and bullying that have been a regular feature on BB through the years to turn into a global controversy on racism. As a result, BB is back on the front pages and they have gained viewing figures. These are probably short term gains. On the other hand, they've lost their £3 million sponsor and they've been condemned by politicians and other more sincere people. Storm in a teacup perhaps. Still, they have lived on the edge with this programme for some time, using controversy as their main PR weapon. This time they got their comeuppance.

Jade has exploited her persona for all it’s worth. She’s become a tabloid favourite, featured in minor TV programmes and sold a successful perfume. She might have thought that re-entering the house would put her back on the front pages and mainstream TV, and set the seal on her celebrity. Unfortunately for her, the ignorance and naivety that made her so appealing showed their dark side in the charged atmosphere of the BB house, when she was seen bullying Shilpa. (Though not a racist, I think. Given her uncontrolled language generally, I am sure that, if she was, racist pejoratives would have slipped out of her mouth.) She's been evicted with 82% of the vote, her scent is off the shelves at Debenhams, her apology appears forced and she is a hate figure.

Shilpa Shetty, unheard of outside of India and the Bollywood fanbase, decided to gain exposure in the UK by appearing on BB. She was calm and dignified in the face of bullying from Jade. She got sympathy from a British public that is fair-minded and likes underdogs and she has become a household name in the UK. Western film contracts will no doubt follow. Mission accomplished beyond her wildest dreams.

The winner is Shilpa Shetty.

I Don't Want To Be A Producer

I was sorry to see that The Producers has closed in London after two years. 920 performances is respectable but nothing like the run of its Broadway cousin, now in its seventh year. I’ve seen both versions and found them equally slick and funny.

Lyn Gardner was backstage on the last night and wrote an informative piece in The Guardian. She blames the size of the venue (Theatre Royal Drury Lane has 2200 seats) for its relatively early demise. I agree that filling all the seats in a large theatre can be a problem. I always felt Disney’s Beauty And The Beast deserved a much longer London run but the huge Dominion did for it. Well established productions like Phantom or Les Mis often move to smaller venues- and the producers of The Producers did consider this- but early in a run production costs need to be paid back quickly and, when you’re talking about a multi-million pound musical spectacular, you can only hope to do this if you’re occupying a large theatre.

On the other hand, maybe a spoof on putting on a Broadway show doesn’t have the same appeal to British audiences as to Americans. We’ll have to see how well sales go for the superb Spamalot which covers similar ground.

Still, there’s always the tour. Those provincials who didn’t make the perilous trip to the capital now have the chance to enjoy The Producers nearer to home.

Why Market To People Who Aren't Interested?

You know all those Arts Council inspired initiatives to bring classical music, opera and ballet to a wider audience? Like doing more contemporary work or offering cheap tickets or putting on educational evenings. Do you think they work? A report from America suggests many audience development initiatives may be a waste of public funds.

The James S and John L Knight Foundation spent $13 million in ten years funding schemes to attract new audiences to 15 US Symphony Orchestras. What they found was that free concerts in more ‘accessible’ venues, putting the musicians in jeans or doing educational work, all failed to increase the number of tickets sold.

It’s not that people don’t like classical music. 60% of adults claimed they did, but fewer than 5% went to live concerts. These days classical music lovers prefer to listen to recordings or the radio. Free concerts attracted an audience but didn’t convert them into ticket buyers. It seems the vast majority don’t want to pay big money for a long concert in a large concert hall.

Is this so bad? Times do change and maybe we should accept change. Theatre and Popular Music has coped with the rise of cinema, television and recordings by providing audiences with large-scale spectaculars with a unique ‘wow’ factor and at the other end of the scale small-scale performances of unique intimacy.

Ballet, Opera and Classical Music have an audience and can appeal to newcomers who appreciate their qualities, but all the great ballets, operas and symphonies were written over a hundred years ago and, at least in live versions, they’re limited in their appeal to a 21st audience.

When I worked more with arts companies, it was frustrating to see them spend money on audience development projects that were clearly ‘hoops’ they were being put through to justify their funding, when I wanted to spend it on more marketing to the known audience. Get them to come more often and to spread the word.

I enjoy many pre-20th century works performed live and I’m grateful to the Arts Council for subsidising my pleasure. But I accept I’m in a small minority. Audience development projects are just guilt money because so much public funding is being used to provide entertainment for a well-heeled middle class elite.

How The Grinch Stole Broadway

Interesting article by Robert Simonson in the US publication Playbill about the success of the seasonal Broadway production How The Grinch Stole Christmas. In the two weeks of mid-December, its sales beat the current market leader Wicked, filling 96% of capacity.

How did they do it? The target audience was families and in this case that means Mum, who usually makes the decisions on family theatre choices. Thom Miller, the producers’ vice president of marketing, who is a mother herself, explains, "In my opinion, moms are the busiest people on the planet but, also, moms are the hardest people to reach. For Broadway shows, and especially family shows, they're the ones who make the decisions.

“We try to reach Moms throughout their daily life by traditional and non-traditional means. Of course, we do radio and print advertising. We strategically buy in newspapers that we think moms will read. We also partner with a lot of media and transit partners—the Long Island Railroad, New Jersey Transit, the MTA."

Taking their lead from the hugley successful Radio City Christmas Spectacular, they also run eight shows at the weekend, starting with 11a.m. and finishing with an 8p.m. for the older kids. Prices are lower than the typical Broadway musical to attract families rather than couples.

How To Market Yourself Out Of Existence

Around Christmas, I seemed to be getting an email from HMV every other day- on one occasion there were three emails in my inbox. It's probably not a coincidence that the other day I read that their shops' seasonal sales are disappointing. I sympathise with them but bombarding their customers with sales emails is not the answer. It's an abuse of the permission I gave them to email and, like others before them, they'll probably find it backfires.
The maximum I want to hear from even my favourite businesses is once a week and then only if they have something interesting to say. i-tunes tell me weekly what's new and I'm grateful. Play.com (my favourite online CD/DVD site) mail me every couple of weeks or so and that's even better. Email me too often and I'll do what I've done to HMV- unsubscribe!

Yours for a tenner

As I was saying yesterday, pricing is an important marketing tool. Price-cutting, if not handled carefully, can seriously affect our customers’ concept of the value of our products.

Take theatre tickets. A £50 price tag tells our audience that this is a large scale West End musical. £20 says it’s a mid-scale play in a local venue. The price doesn’t guarantee that you’ll like the show but it indicates the production values. There is no point in selling a top West End musical at less than £50 because customers will think it must have cheap sets and three people in the chorus.

So, when the National Theatre sells seats for £10 that would normally cost £35 or more, potentially this undermines theatre audiences’ expectations. Not about the NT of course, because their audience know their reputation and that they have a subsidy, both of which guarantee something more substantial than the typical small-scale arts centre product normally available at that price. The problem is that people who have heard about the £10 tickets may no longer be sure whether they are being ripped off by the usual price at other theatres or whether other low priced tickets might also actually be high value productions.

The NT have a sponsorship deal which can be used to explain the low price without undermining the value of the tickets but they made too little of this and too much of the way £10 tickets would fill empty seats, implying those seats were currently overpriced.

The Price of Marketing

What was that DVD you were given for Christmas worth? Did your relative love you enough to pay £15 for it or did they shop around because they only wanted to spend a fiver on you? Zoe Williams said in The Guardian that pre-Christmas sales and the internet were destroying our sense of what gifts are worth. In a similar vein, the editor of Music Week recently bemoaned the way Tesco had been selling Lily Allen’s CD for a fiver earlier in the autumn, saying it undermined the value of CDs.

Now you may feel that it’s all to the good that the cost of over-priced products is forced down. The problem is, price has always been an important part of marketing and if our customers cannot get an indication of the quality from the price, we have lost a useful marketing tool.

Discount offers are useful but they work best when they can be judged against a standard price and when there is a clear reason for them. That’s why an end-of-season clearance works so well.

My experience is that price-cutting may boost sales short-term but customers soon adjust their expectation to the lower price and then further discounts are needed to gain sales. Compare the way jars of instant coffee keep dropping in price and sales keep falling too, while the cost of a latte at your favourite coffee house, despite the competition, goes up and up.

Unique, or at least specialist, products will continue to command a premium price. The victims of price wars are the products in the middle that are neither top sellers nor in a niche market. These will suffer most if they are made to seem overpriced by continuous Sales and pile-them-high-sell-them-cheap supermarkets.

Customer Service or Bribe?

If you get poor customer service and the business gives you a voucher or some other monetary compensation, does it then become good customer service or just a bribe?
I say 'bribe' unless the business makes clear that they understand what made the service poor, gives you a genuine apology and tells you how they’re going to improve in future.

Farewell Ricky

Sorry about the gap in my blogging. Someone very close to us died recently of cancer at the ridiculously young age of 49 and it has left us all in a state of shock.

Ricky Knott was a remarkable man for what should be unremarkable qualities but aren’t. He was the sort of person interested in others first and himself a long second. Someone who asked after your health, even when he was the one dying. A person with a ready smile for all he met. Someone always fascinated by life and always positive in his approach to it. He was the sort who walks in to a room and says ‘There you are’ rather than ‘Here I am’. As I say, qualities that should be commonplace but are so rare that he was the most popular person I knew, and every one of the 30 odd people who have so far left memories on his memorial website http://richardknott.info has commented on them. He wasn't a marketing man but we can all learn a lot from him.

Ricky leaves a widow and three lovely daughters who are a tribute to him. The gap in the lives of those who knew him cannot be filled.

Getting Text Marketing Right

Karen Fricker asks in To Text Or Not To Text on the Guardian’s website
whether using text messages to market theatre performances is a good idea.

I think it's an excellent idea, with the following provisos. The recipients must give their permission (which is a legal requirement), the marketers must make it easy for them to stop receiving the texts and thecommunications must be of genuine use to them. The last point is probably the most important. As with mail, it is only junk or spam if you’re not interested. If the texts are targeted to people according to their previously declared interests (new productions going on sale, late offers, particular genres, etc), then there should not be a problem.

Well, there might be one problem- the marketer must not abuse the fact of being given permission to text by bombarding the recipient. An online CD retailer fell foul of this a little while ago. At first, they found that the more frequently they emailed their list of people who had asked to receive news, the more CDs they sold, until they were emailing once a week and doing very nicely. But they carried on increasing the frequency, eventually sending a daily email, and suddenly their business collapsed. Their customers simply got annoyed and voted with their feet.

The optimum number of emails seems to be no more than once a week and I suspect that the same applies to texts. I propose that, when someone subscribes to receive texts, they are not only asked what they are interested in but also the maximum number of texts they want to receive in a month.

Velasquez and Spamalot- Time Well Spent

I celebrated my birthday with a visit to London to see the Velasquez exhibition at the National Gallery and Monty Python's Spamalot at the Palace Theatre.

It was a most astonishing experience to see faces dead for hundreds of years staring at you as if they were alive. Velasquez had extraordinary skill at capturing expressions and painting them with just enough but not too much detail, so that you engage with the painting and fill in the rest. Whether it's the mesmerising portrait of Pope Benedict as frightening as a cornered rat or the immense sadness in the eyes of Kingh Philip IV, it was hard to break off one's gaze.

Spamalot on the other hand was a laugh from start to finish- a very funny spoof on stage musicals combined with the familiar Python comedy about class. Tim Curry is superb as King Arthur, darting between naive enthusiasm and lugubrious resignation.

On my deathbed I may look back and think of all the time I have wasted, but I could never include the time spent in art galleries or theatres.

A Change Of Image For Panto

I'm quietly pleased to see the extensive positive coverage of this year's pantomimes. Stars from the US- Patrick Duffy and Henry Winkler- are welcomed and Mark (Shopping And Fucking) Ravenhill is writing a family panto.

In my early days at The Mayflower, the great panto producer Paul Elliott managed to sign up Dudley Moore to star in our panto. The day it was announced, the nationals reacted with a unanimous conclusion that Dudley's career had reached rock bottom. Even The Guardian, with its regional origins, rdiculed him for being reduced to appearing in the 'seaside town' of Southampton. (Whereas in fact, Southampton is a prospering city with one of the most successful pantos in the country- and no beach.)

How times have changed. Now that top theatrical names like Ian McKellen, Simon Callow and Nigel Havers have chosen to appear in panto, suddenly the media are finding new respect for this great British tradition. It's taken a long time but the hard work Paul Elliott put into his vision of a kind of pantomime that took itself seriously as theatre has finally paid off.

It's Not Just Marketing, It's M&S Marketing

Marks and Spencer’s recent financial success is a result of classic good marketing. First point to make though is, no matter how good the marketing, you won’t get very far unless you can deliver a good product. M&S, already excellent at food, have done a great job at improving the quality of their clothing.

Their advertising campaign exploited this very well. On the food side, the slogan ‘it’s not just food, it’s M&S food’ hits the button, and the advertisements make the food look positively sexy. On the clothing front, the use of Twiggy, Erin O’Connor and other top models in stylish advertisements makes M&S instantly fashionable- and appealing to a wide age range. The campaign is said to have driven an extra 18 million people to the stores.

Then there’s the Offer. Let’s not underestimate the power of the ‘3 for the Price of 2’, ‘Buy one get one half price’ offers and the introduction of many good quality products at low prices.

Finally there’s the spend. We love the idea of the underdog triumphing but the truth is, the biggest army nearly always wins the war. With the second biggest advertising spend of any retailer- over £60 million and a third up on the previous year- M&S were bound to make an impact.

Who Should The Customer Trust: Jaded Hacks or Ordinary Punters?

People who market theatre shows are too worried about the professional critics. They fret about bad reviews and pounce on good ones for often meaningless quotes. I think they give far more weight to the critics than a typical theatre-goer does.

Many factors affect someone's decision to buy a ticket. A bad review could put them off but, in my experience, if they like the subject, the star or the author, this will be much more influential. Then there's word-of-mouth. Whose reviews would you rely on more when making your decision to go to see a show- professional theatre critics or members of the paying audience? I disagree with Ian Shuttleworth who writes in Theatre Record in favour of the critics.

A paid reviewer himself, he defends his peers against what he imagines are the key criticisms of critics, namely “reviewers offer a distorted view of the plays they write about: we get in free, so we're not beholden to the show, and we're paid to write about what we think rather than how everybody else in the audience seemed to respond.” His response is basically “damned right”.

Actually my concern about professional critics is that, because they get in free, they lose the sense of what going to the theatre is like for “ordinary punters”, as Mr Shuttleworth describes us. For us, the experience starts with choosing a show maybe once a month, based on what we like (genre, actors, writers and so on) and on recommendations. We then go through a sometimes difficult process of buying tickets and journeying and then buying a programme and maybe a meal. All of this is a big investment. Consequently we are predisposed to enjoy the show and if we don’t we will feel the disappointment more acutely.

Mr Shuttleworth says this is why the audience is not to be trusted as much as the professionals. To me, it’s symptomatic that his experience is that “far more often you'll see stuff that's not especially distinguished one way or the other.” On the contrary, I find that the shows I see are generally be good to excellent, which I don’t find surprising given the process they and I go through before reaching the theatre. I’ve lost count of the number of times I have thoroughly enjoyed shows about which I have read lukewarm reviews.

Compared with a regular ticket-buying theatre-goer, the professional critic is a hack who sits through whatever he or she is paid to see, a frothy musical for example even if they would never dream of paying to see such as show. And they see numerous shows each week. “Jaded” may not be a fair word to describe a group of people who clearly love theatre but they are bound to develop a more critical standard than the rest of us and condemn many fine shows to being “average” in their terms.

Professional critics are important. Their experience and knowledge give us insights that are helpful in understanding a play and, when they are enthusiastic, their command of language makes them very persuasive. But I do give more weight to what members of the audience think because their reaction is likely to be closer to my own and therefore more helpful to me. My advice to theatre marketers: Ignore the jaded hacks and encourage audience power.

Poor Customer Service From Theatres

Why don’t theatres offer refunds? I took a chair back to Staples six months after I bought it. They refunded without question. Even the traders on Southampton’s Friday street market (one of my clients) give refunds.

Theatres are unique in my experience at taking your money months in advance and refusing to offer the basic customer service of a refund if you change your mind. I worked in theatre for many years and still provide marketing consultancy to the industry, so I understand that there are reasons why it is difficult. On the other hand, since I have been working with other kinds of businesses, I realise that everyone has difficulties in giving refunds.

Theatres argue that someone may ask for a refund because the price has gone down. Yet when Marks and Spencer refund you the full price on a jumper six months after purchase, there’s every chance they will only be able to sell it at the sale price. And, just as you probably won’t be able to get your size at the lower price, so you won’t be able to get as good a seat. As a compromise, theatres could offer to refund at the current rather than the original price.

Theatres say their finances are such that they can’t risk being left with a lot of unsold tickets. I wonder how many tickets they imagine will be returned. Have they so little confidence in their shows that they worry the word-of-mouth will be so bad that tickets will be returned in droves? Shops are often stuck with returned items that are unsaleable. But shops offer refunds because it encourages people to buy if they know the item can be brought back. I believe theatres would find their extra sales gained far outnumber the loss from refunds.

What it comes down to is customer service. It seems every field of business has learned to treat the customer as King except the live entertainment industry. Put aside the rare occasion when someone might want a refund on a whim, most people need a refund because they were expected to buy their tickets months in advance and then something unanticipated crops up nearer the time- illness, a family crisis, an unavoidable meeting, whatever. Can it possibly be sensible business practice to punish your customer for something that’s not their fault?

The industry does have a nerve complaining about people selling tickets at a profit on ebay or via touts when they provide no means to sell them back to the venue.

As a halfway house, perhaps theatres could at least offer a sliding scale of refunds as the date of the event approaches, similar to holiday companies. Or maybe a significant charge to offset the anticipated losses. Many local theatres do at least offer exchanges and, slowly but surely, ticket agents are bringing in exchange websites.

Of course, theatre ticketing is complicated by the fact that to offer refunds may require the agreement of a visiting promoter. Theatres that produce their own shows don’t have this problem and now's the time for receiving venues to start negotiating.

Ravello- Tranquil Village or Global Brand?

 
Ravello is a village in the mountains of the Amalfi coast. They don't seem to do a lot to market themselves, even the signage is poor, but Ravello has a clear brand- "a tranquil place for relaxation". It shows that you end up with an image even if you do nothing. And there's no questioning Ravello's popularity, which makes it wise to venture up the steep, winding roads in Spring or Autumn.
It's a wonderful place to chill out, sipping a glass of wine or coffee in the Piazza or strolling round the numerous gardens. Ravello's main cultural activity is provided by the Concert Society who promote twice weekly events in the gorgeous Villa Rufolo. Did a clever marketeer advise them that classical music would be the perfect choice to enhance its brand image? I somehow doubt it.
Best of all on our recent visit was the view from our balcony at the Hotel Parsifal, a lovely family-run establishment with an excellent restaurant. 

Refunds are a Good Customer Service

I also write a blog about the arts. In the unlikely event that you'd like to see my views on Ticket Refunds, Professional Critics and Tom Stoppard's Rock'N'Roll, go to Paul's Arts Blog.

Taste The Weasel

"At Sainsbury's, we only ever use butter in our fresh Taste The Difference pies. We are the only supermarket that can say that." (Advertisement)
Not as impressive as it sounds when you work out that only Sainsbury's make Taste the Difference products! It's a classic example of a 'weasel', so called because weasels suck the inside out of an egg but leave the shell intact. In other words, it looks good but actually it's hollow.

Copywriters shouldn't copy, they should be original

Do you look at advertisements for theatre shows? Here are some questions about the copy.

Is every production really a ‘smash hit’? Perhaps lazy writers could stop reaching for the nearest cliché and actually come up with a description that makes an emotional connection with the reader.

What law says every noun has to be preceded by an adjective? The fact is, if you put a superlative before every noun, the law of diminishing returns kicks in pretty quickly.

And what’s with all those quotes? Your potential audience are not stupid- they know you could have selected the lavish praise out of context- even if you haven’t! In any case, the review was by someone they’ve never heard of in a paper they’ve no respect for, or else they would probably have read it already. Don’t waste the space.

Speaking of which, who cares who designed the lighting, apart from the lighting designer’s mother?

The Big Question: do they actually want you to go see the show?

What will the customer think?

One of our leading regional theatres has just brought out its latest season brochure. The cover makes it look like a flier for its Christmas show with no mention of other attractions in the top half. News flash- not everybody will put your brochure at the front. Anything lower down is liable to be obscured by other print in the display rack. The back cover commits the cardinal sin of not having the venue name at the top. Do they think print never gets displayed back to front?

The brochure’s layout consists of boxes with no fluidity. The print is too wordy and too small for the older reader that comprises a significant proportion of the theatre audience. The ‘hot spot’ of the inside back cover is wasted on customer information rather than selling a show.

I’m not talking about some seventh level of marketing enlightenment here. Everything I’ve highlighted fails at the first step towards good marketing, namely: ‘Look at it from the customer’s point of view’.

One Price Tells All

Saw a Kenwood electric tin opener in John Lewis for £12.99. Saw the same item in a mail order catalogue for £27.99. Result: whole catalogue in the bin. Lesson: in these days of easy price comparison, you can’t afford to let one price be uncompetitive or it destroys customers’ confidence in the rest.

Redundancy Reveals Heart of Business

We all know job security is a thing of the past. When costs need to be cut, getting rid of people is now a relatively easy option, nevertheless how a company handles redundancy, even when it’s unavoidable, goes to the heart of how they conduct their business.

Ex-Daily Telegraph man Kim Fletcher wrote recently about being made redundant, “Having sacked and been sacked, I know it is the sacked who question their competence, lose their self esteem and wonder what they will do when the pay-off runs out.” At the very least, these people deserve to be treated with compassion by their former employers but sadly this isn’t always the case.

Not even the world’s most powerful businesswoman was protected from being unceremoniously discarded earlier this year. Ex-Chief Executive of Hewlett-Packard Carly Fiorina describes how “the board did not have the courage to face me. They did not thank me and they did not say goodbye.”

It’s a very similar experience to that of a Southampton woman I met recently who was the victim of cost-cutting. She was assured she was good at the senior management job she had been trusted to do for over fifteen years but nevertheless, on “legal advice”, her company mobile was seized, she was marched out of the office, offered no expression of sorrow or thanks, and given a neutral reference. Legal no doubt, but civilised? I don’t think so.

Fortunately some companies do manage to operate both legally and with humanity. Early in my working life, my employer had to make cuts because business had slowed down. The manager was in tears. He was reassuring. He wrote a great reference. I was still out of a job but I felt a lot better about it. It’s good business practice because remaining employees are more likely to be loyal to a compassionate company. Lack of respect for people by a company’s management breeds a cynical ethos, a dispirited workforce and ultimately lost customers.

Having talked to a number of people who have been made redundant, I have some advice. Don’t think you are safe because you are a key employee: you can’t get more essential than Carly Fiorina. Don’t regard your colleagues or boss as friends: when the chips are down, they will think of number one. Never keep anything personal at work: you may be rushed out so quickly you will never get access to emails on your PC or numbers on your mobile.

And always remember: if you do find you are treated like a commodity rather than a human being, the shame is on the company, not on you.

Turning Bad News Into Good PR

A hotel was recently exposed by the local newspaper because their contract cleaners were paying below the minimum wage.

They reacted with classic examples of the wrong and right way to handle bad news. The first reaction by a ‘spokesman’ was, “It is standard practice that all outsourcing suppliers are required to sign … a requirement to honour all required statutory obligations to staff.” That gave every appearance of squirming on the hook, when what people wanted to know was: are you an ethical company or not? Are you sorry? What are you going to do about it?

The right way to limit the damage came two whole weeks later, by which time one sensed the hand of a good Public Relations company in the response. The hotel had “taken the decision to terminate all contract agreements” with this particular cleaning company. They went on to reassure us that they took their staff responsibilities seriously and that their policy was that “all employees be paid a minimum wage”.

The lesson is, when there’s bad news, it needn’t be a disaster provided you admit straightaway that you were wrong and let people know you’re putting things right. The hotel in the end strengthened its reputation. On the other hand, if you try to cover up, blame someone else or simply prevaricate, you can do untold damage to your company.

Ethics are Good for Business

These days more than ever we expect ethical behaviour from the people to whom we give our custom. Woe betide the company that’s found out getting its £70 trainers made in a far eastern sweatshop for 40p or including GM ingredients in its organic produce.

This even applies to marketing, a profession often thought to lack scruples. You may be surprised that the American Marketing Association commands “Marketers must do no harm.” (And, no, I don’t know if people who advertise cigarettes are allowed to be members!) “Honest, truthful and decent” are the watchwords of British advertising. Even my small consultancy finds it sensible and proper to vet clients and try to avoid those who appear to act unethically.

Bigger companies need built-in controls. I was surprised earlier this year to encounter a Board of Directors who let their Chief Executive do whatever he wanted, including on employment issues, without questioning the moral basis for his decisions. Boards should be concerned about more than the bottom line. They should set ethical standards for their management and enforce them.

Behaving ethically may be good Public Relations but behaving unethically is bad for business.

Booking Fees: Irish Good, English Bad Marketing

Back from a short trip to Ireland. I could go on about the friendly people, the beautiful country and the superb food at Man Friday in Kinsale, but this is supposed to be a blog about marketing and PR. So, instead let me tell you that advertisements for Riverdance show the full price the customer pays for the ticket including booking fee. I don’t know if this is a legal requirement or simply an ethical promoter but it is absolutely how prices should be displayed. The customer has no interest in what part of the ticket is the cost of the seat and what is the fee taken by the ticket seller. We just want to know how much we will be paying.

UK legislation requires that the original price or ‘face value’ of the ticket be given as well as the fee applying. I know this is an attempt to clamp down on excessive fees by agents but where the primary seller is charging a fee, then frankly the distinction between ‘face value’ on the ticket and extras is meaningless.

A more distressing distinction between ticket price and booking fee occurred recently in our area when a G4 concert was cancelled. The Manchester-based agency Ticketline gave a refund on the ticket price but not the booking fee! What a way to treat a customer. It’s like John Lewis saying we’ll refund you the cost to us of the faulty furniture but not our mark-up. The Office of Fair Trading have said that refusal to give back additional fees in the event of cancellation constitutes unfair terms. Any self-respecting promoter should not deal with Ticketline- and ticket buyers should avoid them whenever possible.

Is It Art? Marketing Modern Art

Southampton City Council’s Art Gallery has just bought a painting by Bridget Riley, one of our greatest artists. It will fill a gap in what is the finest collection of 20th century British art outside London. From an art lover’s point of view, it would have been nice if the reaction from the local paper hadn’t been ‘Is this really worth £¼m of your cash?’

It’s not that questions like Is It Art? and Is It A Waste of Money? aren’t worth asking- they may even sell newspapers- but, after 50 years, I wish they’d change the record!

Of course there’s no such thing as bad publicity in the sense that at least the purchase got high profile coverage. If nothing else, it shows the Gallery is important and it will lead to more visits. But good publicity is better. This story could have been about the benefits of modern art to the community (Tate Modern has shown the way). We could have read about the extra visitors to what is already a major attraction, the added appeal to investors of a city of culture, oh and the art itself- the opportunity for we locals to see a major work of modern art and get emotional and intellectual stimulation from engaging with it.

As an art-loving PR person, my advice to any regional Public Art Gallery which buys a new work of modern art is- get in first with a sympathetic journalist who will write a positive story before the local government reporter gets hold of it and makes it a story about the crazy spending Council.

What People Want is special marketing

I can buy the same books as millions of others at Amazon but I feel special because the computer recommends books to me according to what it believes I like. A well marketed theatre tells me about shows as soon as they go on sale because I am a valued customer, knows the seat I like to sit in, and offers me a special price or access to a ‘sold-out’ event because I have joined a loyalty scheme.

So often Seth Godin notices what others don’t or puts into words the thoughts you have but haven’t articulated. His blog entry What People Want is a great example. How true that most people want to be the same as everyone else but just a little bit better.

The need to be different but without drawing too much attention to oneself is something we have to be aware of in marketing. Now we are able to know so much about our customers, we can offer each of them the same products and services their peers are buying but in a customised form that will make them feel special.

Christmas in August- Great PR

When Harrods announced its Christmas department was open for business, the season of goodwill Christmas didn’t just come early for its customers, the shop itself received a massive Christmas present in the form of media coverage. Whoever does Harrods’ PR must have written a very persuasive letter to Santa Claus (presumably c/o St Tropez rather than Lapland).

I don’t doubt there are some people who want to buy Christmas fairies in August but it was still a brilliant publicity stunt to launch the department in the middle of a heatwave. They couldn’t have got much more media coverage if Harrods’ owner Mr Al-Fayed had sat naked on top of a Norwegian fir! It’s a lot better than a press release saying ‘There are less than 150 shopping days to Christmas.’

The best publicity stunts work because they are grounded in reality but are at the same time bizarre. In this case, we are already familiar with shops beginning Christmas sales in September. It seems early but unremarkable. Yet the idea that people might buy Christmas decorations in the summer was one step beyond and it couldn’t be ignored.

The other factor which made this so clever is timing. August is traditionally the media’s ‘silly season’ when there is less news than usual and they are crying out for stories. No matter if no-one goes into Harrods for Christmas decs as a result of the publicity- they'll remember the name of the store.

You don’t have to write to Santa Claus to get good media coverage. When I was running PR for The Mayflower Theatre, my best publicity stunt was the hunt for the perfect bum. Again it started from a genuine story- we had to test all the seats to decide which needed to be refurbished. Instead of simply getting someone to do the job, I decided to announce that we were looking for a seat tester. The qualification of course was the sensitivity of their bottom.

Out went the press release (in the summer) that we would be auditioning bottoms. Widespread coverage resulted, including a photo (of my bottom) on the front page of your favourite evening newspaper and a TV news story of me opening the applications (I made sure applicants included photos) as well as the audition itself. The headline wrote itself- Bum Job!- and everyone knew that The Mayflower cared about customer comfort.

See my Top Ten Tips on Writing Press Releases