Ideashop - Just another WordPress weblog

Okido is a beautifully designed, art and science magazine for children aged 2 to 7 filled with quirky cartoons, games, puzzles and even recipes. Established by scientist Sophie Dauvois and launched in 2007, it is now stocked in The Tate and Waterstones, has received funding from the Wellcome Trust, and has everyone from Timeout to The Telegraph singing its praises and has some of the country’s leading animators on its roster of contributors.

But Okido is a youngster set for even bigger things:

1) The long term objective is to integrate Okido into the curriculum and see it used in schools as a teaching tool.

2) To grow the number of people who subscribe to Okido and

3) Increase the number of outlets that stock it

To help Okido on its way to success we recommended:

Outreach to the Mum blogosphere, education trade press and design community:

Although Okido had seen tremendous coverage in traditional print media and the lifestyle press another important audience to target is the Mom blogosphere. We suggested engaging with some key bloggers perhaps by offering a free year’s subscription or running an art competition online through one of the blogs to drive subscription.

Raising Okido’s profile within the Education and Teaching press and gaining endorsements from these outlets and Teaching Unions would also be an important way to establish it as an educational product and raise its credibility in this sector.

Okido are also keen to receive stories and input from more graphic designers, animators and cartoonists and so we also felt that publications such as Creative Review should feature on their radar as a way of reaching out to other artists and raise its profile with potential buyers and contributors.

Post by Clair Whitefield

Budding photographer Max came to Idea Shop to see how he could better differentiate himself and his work in the extremely competitive market for photography in London. He also wanted to see what opportunities there might be to showcase his work in new and innovative ways.

After reviewing Max’s work (www.MaxColson.CarbonMade.com) along with his Twitter feed (www.twitter.com/ThatPoshBastard) it became apparent that he had a substantial body of work already under his belt and had several key differentiating factors he could build on. His idea of using documentary photography to create fictional dialogues (http://prezi.com/0suqwiqjmhsb/) showed thought that stood him apart from the current crop of endless party snappers. He’s also been sitting on a study of cage fighters – including red tops’ favourite Alex Reid, imagery for which there is likely to be an appetite.

There were many ideas discussed from pop-up exhibitions to provide a physical location to allow him to meet his audience, to how he can better articulate his identity through digital media – using tools such as Flickr & Twitter (albeit perhaps with a new handle) and also how he could grow his following by collaborating with others also seeking to build their portfolio; stylists, fashion students, models etc.

Ultimately two key themes arose – firstly the importance of clearly articulating and maintaining his identity in a highly competitive market, and second the need to build-up and engage with a digital community of relevant stakeholders. Max’s one and a half hour slot went by in a ‘flash’ and he left with a few pages of notes and a promise to return photograph Idea Shop in its final day of  glory – which he duly did.

Post by Kieran Bradshaw

Spike Spondike is a livewire American creative full of ideas but a bit unsure of how to go about getting a job in the creative industry in London.

She came to Idea Shop with a lot of ideas and even more charisma and asked us to go through her CV and portfolio to give her the best possible chance of getting a job.

We were really impressed with the actual work but gave her a few pointers on her CV to make it more applicable to the British market as well as giving her a few contacts and recruitment companies who may be able to point her in the right direction.

Her CV and portfolio were presented in a rather kooky, creative way. We advised Spike to save the quirkiness for elsewhere and let the work speak for itself. She had a portfolio of two halves, half amazing conceptual creative work, half other stuff. After chatting to her for a while it became clear that the conceptual work was what excited her – happily that was also where she really shone. (She really is very talented). We suggested focusing her efforts on that work, rather than selling herself short on something she didn’t really want to do.

We also suggested she use a site like www.carbonmade.com for her online portfolio. This would allow her to focus on the work and not worry about doing, (or being judged on), web design/development.

And then for the quirkiness. We felt that in additional to a more traditional CV and portfolio, she could use her considerable creative talents to create a buzz around her work.  We talked about various ideas for a blog to celebrate her love of creative generalism and design diversity. We talked about the lovely lovely example of Make Something Cool Everyday by Brook Davies

http://www.behance.net/Gallery/Make-Something-Cool-Every-Day-2009/171640

We looked into ideas for a sticker campaign leading people to Spike’s blog or portfolio. We also discussed various guerilla stunts. But I can’t share any of these with you because it would ruin the surprise.

We wish this unique creative talent all the best in her search for work. Check out her blog here http://www.spikethedesigner.blogspot.com/

Posted by Jason Scott

The story was a classic class of Brand Identity. Josh Lever – charismatic, driven, enthusiastic (a Richard Branson in the making) clearly has an ambitious vision of how to manage his company Chemistry. Since the age of 15, Josh has been DJing and planning events. Today his enterprise has skyrocketed to a successful approach in managing high-end birthdays, weddings and celebrations. Marketing collateral was impressive with good visuals of what Chemistry can do in a brochure format and accompanying website. www.chemistry-events.com

The problem? How can Chemistry create a branded identity, and encourage further word of mouth, when it is their events that they should be primarily remembered for. Creating a distinctive identity would ensure future events and revenue in light of established competition. We sat down in a cafe for some tea and an oversized plate of chips and got to it.

We all warmed to Josh quickly, he knew what he wanted from Chemistry and articulated his brand principles clearly. Firstly it clear on talking with Josh that Chemistry provide experiences, not events. This distinction could set Chemistry apart from competition -  birthdays, weddings, anniversaries – these are all experiences. Each could be unique and tailored. Positioning himself as a provider of “experiences” rather than merely an “event planner” would allows Chemistry to be more experimental and risque – something Josh was keen on. And it would present a distinctiveness in the market.

How to create brand resonance though? We explored the idea of branding videos of the party for party-goers to take home with them. These videos would be fully immersive for the viewer – as if you were actually there – first person camera shooting / lots going on. The video would start: ‘Chemistry presents…..’  – in doing this Chemistry instantly creates ownership of the event, which would further encourage positive referral in a market dominated by word of mouth. Josh soon got the idea – by creating ownership, and taking leadership of an industry sector by creating that ownership – his company would become the market leader as matter of course.

Additionally we explored the possibility of Chemistry creating their own quality control organisation – imagine a ‘ Guild of Quality Service for Experience Events’ – Chemistry would set the standard in the industry – others would have to try and catch up! Creating a quality standards campaign could also be a great way to generate PR.

Josh clearly had a lot to drive him to success. With these minor tweaks in positioning and branding Josh will create a set of standards and a market in which Chemistry would be the flagship brand. The events that he’d managed in the past were clearly memorable and successful, by exploring in-event experience – e.g. video interviews – a multi-video wall of people from the party, post-event branding through video tagging software and customer testimonials – Chemistry will have even more successful events and a very successful brand.

Plus Josh mentioned he may be able to plan my next birthday party – so expect invites in the post soon!

Posted by Nick Bennett

Brixton Cycles, is a one-off. A workers co-operative at the heart of SW9 that sells and fixes all kinds of bikes from commuter, to racing to mountain bikes.  If you are part of the biking fraternity its a destination in its own right and celebrated its 25th birthday a few years back.

The Problem:

There were several things BC wanted to do

1. Keep their much loved customers up to date with all they were doing

2. Grow their community, be part of their community and introduce more people to cycling

3. Make sure that they were selling, stocking and buying the right kind of kit and bike gear

What we suggested:

Crowd Sourcing

Brixton Cycles has an irreverent, slightly anarchic take on life which is instantly recognisable in their branded clothing. To grow their community and engage with them better, we recommended a bit of crowd sourcing- asking their customers what designs they would like to see fronting next season’s cycling gear. We also suggested that the Brixton Cycles staff wear the merchandise while working on the shop floor or fixing bikes to help identify them to customers, and make it easier for people to know who to ask for advice and help in store.
Know Your Customer

We also suggested that Brixton Cycles establishing a database of customers and create a facebook page in order to send out email/newsletter bulletins and also post status updates letting people know about promos, events, sales and anything else the Brixton Cycles is getting involved with.

Taking it To The People

We wanted people to register that Brixton Cycles is really part of their community and something that is unique.  So we suggested setting up a chalk A board outside and use it as a megaphone/ means of sharing and writing down the staff’s witty, irreverent and politically flavoured thinking.  This was a way of taking the shop’s attitude out on the street and also creating something of a local talking point for the neighbourhood as well as putting a smile on the face of all those commuters cycling past everyday. We also thought it might be nice to make what ever was on the board that day the shop’s facebook status to keep all the Brixton Cycles community- local and virtual- in the loop.

Keeping Track of Sales

With a secret sale coming up for their valued customers, we recommended that Brixton Cycles pay close attention to every item rung up on the till that day- which brands and labels were the most popular and what price points proved to be the most popular with the shops loyal fan base. Gaining this information would help them stock exactly what people wanted to buy and ensure faster through flow of goods and even happier customers.

www.brixtoncycles.co.uk



Yasmin Butt is writing her first novel, titled Gunshot Glitter, and came to idea shop looking for ideas to publish her book.

An interesting personality with a rich past, Yasmin has worked as a journalist, was involved in marketing various bands and their music, and has written short stories and poems, she often performs readings at music events, but she has never published any of her work.

Gunshot Glitter is quite personal to her and she was finding difficult to think of ways to promote it. She briefed us not being sure if she wanted to target potential readers or publishers.

What we came up with:

We envisaged an integrated strategy aimed at potential readers. Aim of the strategy is to generate interest in the book by using the potential of viral buzz through on and off line means.

The book’s website will be at the centre of the strategy. Potential readers will be able to read / download one chapter for free from the site. All other chapters will also be available for download for a charge (via paypal). This would be the standard edition of the book.

Podcasts of book’s readings would be available for download too.

The book can also be ordered in print format via the site. This would be the premium edition of the book.

Site traffic is generated through posters and use of social media sites.

The posters would hero snippets of the book and the site URL. We told Yasmin to think carefully about the placement of these posters, where they’d get max visibility and impact.

Social media would be used to create a profile for the novel main character (a female professional killer) as if she was a real person.  Facebook and Twitter would be used to create this profile, so friends could be added, potential readers could then follow the character’s exploits periodically.

The Facebook profile could also be used to promote the real life events and book readings at. In turn these events could be used to drive site traffic (which is main aim).

The premium edition (print) version of the book should be carefully crafted, from the artwork to the actual materials used.

We briefly mention distributing press releases through trade press or webzines (flavorpill / boldtype) as well as magazines.

Mad Hatter’s Tea Party arrange and host club nights in South London venues, based around the theme of Alice in Wonderland. They aim to offer something different from run-of-the-mill parties in the area, with fancy dress, games, live bands, djs and most importantly, a good cause. A different charity receives the proceeds from each event.

The challenge:

Previous events have enjoyed small success, selling out in less than 24 hours, but the event is about to get a lot bigger and they’re in need of a small-scale marketing strategy that will reach a wider audience than word of mouth alone. Being a charity event, funding is minimal. The date of the next event just over a month away, so time is short too. With a team of only, any advertising needs to be cheap, effective and quick to do.

The solution:

We suggested that the easiest way of reaching the local target demographic might be to direct advertising towards places where similar nightlife activities are already happening, ie; local pubs and clubs. As a great flyer has already been designed, making postcards which people will pick up, absorb and circulate is a cheap and easy way of spreading the message.  Independent local cinemas such as the Roxy and Picturehouses (Greenwich and Clapham) will soon be screening Tim Burton’s ‘Alice In Wonderland’, which will naturally create interest around the theme. Leaving flyers/postcards in their foyers would target people who already have an interest in the theme.

Whichever charity is to benefit from the event should be encouraged to advertise the event on their website/newsletters. We identified that the current lack of web presence of the organisation needs to be rectified as soon as possible. We strongly recommended that they start utilising social media spaces such as Flickr, MySpace and Facebook to start an online buzz, and provide a forum for club-goers to share their experiences/listen to music, etc. Press (local and music) should also be sent guest passes to the event, so that it receives proper coverage, ensuring a following for future events.

Local charity shops could be tapped to build a dressing-up wardrobe, which could be hired/sold at events to generate yet more money for the charity.  Photos could be taken and sold to customers for a small fee.  Going forwards, a festival presence might also be an avenue they want to explore, as fancy dress is always a hit at these kinds of events. We suggested they get in touch with local festivals to enquire about getting involved.

Lots of small-scale, locally-targeted initiatives applied within the realms of a tiny budget could have a big effect on this fledgling events organisation, and together we helped troubleshoot some of their concerns and come up with some easy ways get the word out on the street without breaking the bank.

Over the three days of Idea Shop we spoke to countless small businesses, charities and social enterprises with teeny marketing budgets and a need to reach more people. Where they had interesting stores or an area of expertise that could turn into an agony column in the local press we recommended they get in touch with Lambeth Life, and other local papers – The South London Press, The Wandesworth Guardian, The Mitcham, Morden, Wimbledon Post etc. As our PR guru Kevin say, journalists have space that needs filling with stories, to get in the paper you just need a good story.

Here’s an updated version of our original write up of our Idea Shop session with Lambeth Life. I’ve changed it a bit from the original post which said they had a ‘perception problem’. As Lambeth Life have pointed out, was a bit of an exaggeration.

Lambeth Life is a free paper, published by Lambeth Council. Their challenge is to get local people involved in producing the content of the paper, so they feel more like it’s their paper.

During our brainstorm we came up with the following editorial ideas.

Feature guest editors from the community.

A parenting column from Loughborough Children’s Centre.

Build on the successful letter page by giving the star letter a prize, donated by an advertiser.

Leave comment cards in the local cinema asking cinema goers to write mini reviews for the film they just saw. The reviews are then collected and published in the paper.

Make it easy for people to write to the paper: Get a mobile number for texting in views and photos: Use stickers in key public places to encourage people to text in views when they are out and about.

Offer key local bloggers columns.

Ask reader to pose the questions for the fortnightly councilor interview page.

Create a schools or young Lambeth page with content created by pupils from local schools.

The star letter tends to be something positive about Lambeth. Introduce a Big Moan letter to give the letters page more bite. Councilors can write in the next week to address the issue raised.

The Herne Hill Society is an amenity group for the Herne Hill area. Now, it might just be me, but I had no idea what an amenity group did.  Apparently they do a whole bunch of things including: organise talks on topics of local interest, write books about Herne Hill history, monitor planning applications, encourage improvements in local amenities, etc.

Their problem was that their membership was skewed towards older, white, middle-class residents – and so wasn’t representative of the local area.  They wanted to broaden their membership base and encourage more active involvement from their members.

We suggested that the first thing they might think about doing if they wanted to broaden their membership base was get rid of the word “amenities”.  You’re not going to find many people who, on a sunny day, suggest “exploring the local amenities”. It seemed an old-fashioned way to talk about what they did.  Which was a shame because what they did – bringing people together to learn about and improve the local community – wasn’t old fashioned at all. It was something very relevant to people’s day-to-day lives in the area.

Currently the Herne Hill Society promotes itself and seeks out new members by distributing leaflets.  They also send out a newsletter 4 times a year. Rather than just passively tell people what they did through leaflets and a newsletter we recommended they enter into conversations with people, so people became involved right from the beginning:

We suggested they:

Foster good relationships with local estate agents – who could then tell prospective Herne Hill residents about all the great things the Society was doing for the neighbourhood.

Donate some of the books they’d written to local cafes as coffee-table pieces – in exchange they might be able to leave membership leaflets in the cafes.

Get the community to talk to them about what they’d like to see happening in the area – this could be through postcards left in cafes.

Get local schools involved: get kids to write short pieces on local history and this publish it in the Herne Hill Society newsletter.  Every parent wants their kid published!

Compile a list of case histories of interesting projects they’d done. Pitch some of the best case histories to local papers like Lambeth Life.

www.hernehillsociety.org.uk

Streets Ahead came in to see us about their brand. The group plan to turn a largely disused street into a green space for the local community. The site is positioned between two primary schools in Lambeth, so transforming it into a green space would provide a safer thoroughfare for the pupils and their families, as well as providing a recreational space.

They have already achieved so much by securing funding and council support. However they still need to involve the local community. And for that they need a brand or identity that local residents can relate to.

As Van Gogh had lived in the area they had considered naming the campaign in his honour in some shape or form. We felt that there was a possibility that local residents may not consider him to be representative of their community. There was also the concern that this direction wouldn’t be descriptive of the campaign’s function or say very much about what the group was trying to achieve. Sunflowers and iconography related to the artist have been used by so many groups and have so many connotations that it wouldn’t be doing the campaign any favours.

After working through the ideas behind the campaign we suggested the name ‘Grass Routes: Streets for People’. We also offered some ideas for a logo, which involved grass growing up through concrete, tarmac or between streets. Both of these suggestions were well received. So much so that at the time of writing, they have already adopted the new brand. How’s that for a speedy turnaround?

We wish ‘Grass Routes’ the very best of luck in their campaign.

Post by Tracy Brown