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BK Enterprises is a local convenience store that provides phone and Oyster top ups as well as Newspapers, snacks and food and drink. The shop is owned and has been run by a lovely dude called Kenny for 20 years. He also sells Jamaican patties (which in his opinion are the best you can buy), has recently set up an internet area in the back and is in the process of obtaining an alcoholic beverages licence. Over the last few years he has found his store footfall dwindling due to the appearance of a Tesco, Lidl and Costcutter nearby as well as other newsagents opening up over the road.

Our challenge was to get more customers through the door.

We suggested a number of things.

The first thing we noticed was that Kenny was a lovely guy with a deep knowledge of the local area and that actually he is a really strong selling point. So why not look at changing the name to reflect that. Nobody says ‘I’m nipping down to B K Enterprises for some milk’. They would however say that they’re ‘popping over to Kenny’s’.

One of the things we pointed out was that when people move into an area the first shop they go to tends to become their local. So we suggested going to the local lettings agents and giving them a welcome pack with local information and a welcome voucher for new tenants to the area. This would be redeemable in the shop for something like bread, milk and tea, or a free paper etc.

We also told them to put an A-board outside the shop to advertise the patties as no-one know about them until they are already inside the shop.

We suggested that for the internet users he offers a cup of tea or coffee.

They sell stationary and used to get customers coming in from the post office over the road. We discovered that his traffic had begun to decrease when it closed down. We thought that he could apply for a Post Office franchise as there are none in the local vicinity and there is already a post box outside the shop. And because Kenny was one of the people who campaigned to keep the original one open, this could make a great local news story and get his shop in the local press for some free publicity.

Post by Jamie Romain, Art Director, Ogilvy One

Macmillan Cancer Support visited the Idea Shop with a campaign brief outlining the need to raise awareness that people with rarer cancers should get fairer access to the drugs they need to prolong their lives. It’s a really important issue that the Idea Shop team were only too happy to help with.

The challenge:

The benefits of drugs to treat rarer cancers, while often hugely valued by patients, frequently prove non cost-effective under the NICE Technology Appraisal processes and aren’t widely available on the NHS as a result.

The campaign brief detailed a range of audiences that Macmillan Cancer Support intend to target including MPs, Health Thought Leaders, NICE, health correspondents, influential bloggers and the general public. The aim of the campaign is to generate national and regional coverage to raise awareness of the issue amongst the target audiences and encourage the public to get involved and write to their local MP / newspaper.

The solution:

We talked Macmillan through the need to pull together a detailed communications strategy setting clear guidelines on timing.  We recommended stretching the initial deadline to beyond May as the campaign would still be equally as effective working as a sustained campaign, rather than an immediate push before the general election when the media will be incredibly crowded with competing messages.

The Ogilvy team recommended splitting the target audiences into three distinct groups that each require different messaging and tailored approaches.

Ogilvy stressed the need for a case study in order to help people to engage with the story in a personal manner. An individual’s story would greatly assist the campaign in terms of the strength of the argument created for enabling fairer access to drugs.
We batted around a few ideas for ‘lines’ to promote the campaign, which we’ll keep under wraps for now.

Macmillan is currently very strong in terms of generating media headlines. Therefore we recommended focusing on amplifying current online activity – such as utilising the Facebook page and creating a Twitter stream purely for the campaign to raise awareness of the issues these people are facing. By utilising digital streams Macmillan can create a value exchange, enabling supporters to actively engage in the campaign and share their views in addition to spreading the word about the need for fairer access to drugs that treat rare cancers.
To that end we talked about initiating a “retweet campaign” to support the call to action to write to MPs or sign a petition.

Ogilvy talked about the importance of listening to what is currently being talked about online and then engaging in that conversation. Engaging influential bloggers is key to spreading online chatter and we recommended a listening exercise in order to help Macmillan identify relevant individuals.

We also talked about right and wrong ways to approach bloggers and active twitter users – think of it as a conversation you are joining, be respectful, earn your right to be there, then add your two cents, just as if you were joining a conversation down the pub or over the garden fence.

The chatter online will drive traffic to a dedicated part of the Macmillan Communities site where the call to action will be clearly stated, either in the form of a petition or a template letter.

Macmillan is keeping Idea Shop updated on their progress and we are fully behind the campaign.

Keep your eyes peeled for the latest coverage:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/7189796/Terminally-ill-patients-being-penalised-by-Nice-for-having-rare-conditions.html

Get involved: http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#!/macmillancancer http://community.macmillan.org.uk/whatsnew/default.aspx

Post by Sophie Gray, Ogilvy PR

The Brixton Pound is a local currency. It’s money that sticks to Brixton. Brixton Pound’s creators hope that it will encourage use of local businesses and produce as well as ensuring money that is spend in Brixton, stays in Brixton.

The challenges Brixton Pound faces are 1) Get more businesses to take B£ 2) Get consumers to “ask for their change in Brixton pounds”.

Before the brainstorm descended into a very interesting debate on economics, these are the ideas we had

1. B£ Bling jewelry design competition. (Think big blingy rings and pendants with the B£ sign, instead of a dollar sign)

2. A poster campaign with the line “A Brixton Pound is worth more than a pound” and this month’s offers – lots of the businesses who accept B£ have money off deals if you use the local currency. These posters would work best in on community noticeboards and the like.

3. Get community leaders involved – ask local vicars and religious leaders to ask for next week’s collection in Brixton Pounds, then distribute leaflets as people are leaving the service.

4. Get children involved in a “Ask for your pocket money in B£” campaign.

5. Make more of the brilliant B£ logo by improving the “B£ accepted here” window sticker – something round (pound shaped) with the dots and grooves of a pound around the outside would be more instantly recognisable and would stand out from other window stickers.

6. Make “I asked for my change in B£” stickers available at the cash register – if people can see that others have supported Brixton Pounds, they are more likely to do so as well.

7. Capitalise on the existing community support for B£ by creating t-shirts for people to wear – this allows you to use your supporters to spread the word. The B£ imagery and logo are really appealing and would create very desirable clothing.

8. Look at ideas for stalls you could set up at community events so you can have a presence there; the Windrush Square opening party later in Feb; Lambeth Country Show and Streatham Festival. This would be a great place to start the B£ Bling competition. Or to give away “Ask for your pocket money in B£” money boxes.

9. B£’s first birthday is coming up – there should be a party to celebrate. We discussed a few money related themes for this. Brixton Pound Bankers Ball, The B£ Stock Exchange and so on.

10. There’s an existing leaflet aimed at businesses and consumers. We recommended having one leaflet for businesses and one for consumers because they both need different information and will respond better to different kinds of communication. The exisiting leaflet lists all the places that except B£ by area. We suggested creating genre specific flyers – B£ Dinning, B£ Pubs, B£ Style and so on. These flyers can be leaf in restaurants, pub, fashion store etc, respectively.

11. Change dishes, bills, till stickers and menus are an ideal place to remind people to ask for their change in B£. We suggested creating materials for these points, including round pound shaped “Ask for your pocket money in B£” stickers to go in the bottom of change dishes in pubs, bars and restaurants.

Find out more about the Brixton Pound and where to get/spend yours here http://brixtonpound.org

Art School Royalty is a fledgling brand still trying to work out how to announce itself to the world.

Brainchild of Christos (who had travelled all the way from Manchester!), Art School Royalty presents a unique concept by fusing the world of student art and commercial retail together through a talent led initiative.

Basically, Christos wants to offer hungry young design students a public outlet by printing their work on unique, high-end t-shirts. The business model is not unlike the social graphics tees co www.threadless.com but with the alluring twist of only featuring designs from art school students/alumni. Tee by the future Tracy Emin anyone?

However, Christos was caught at a ‘chicken-or-egg’ moment.  He needed work from designers to produce the t-shirts, but he had no examples to convince them it was a great project.

We recommended he organise talks at Manchester’s best design schools (by getting to know the professors and college heads) to pitch his idea to the students directly. As a club promoter, he also had access to a ready made brand building tool – Art School Royalty could sponsor the best nights in Manchester, thus aligning itself with the right cultural hotspots (and potential customers)! Also, with access to many of the latest bands, he should try and rope in lead singers and musicians as brand ambassadors to wear his t-shirts and effortlessly (and cheaply) communicate his brand values to his customers.

He already had a good idea to initially create an online forum to display his products with minimum expense but the long term goal is to get them into boutiques across the UK.

Ultimately, we stressed that it would be down to him to engage with the students effectively as they really hold the keys to ASR’s success.

Good Luck Christos, we look forward to wearing your merchandise soon!

Post by Hugo Bennett

Youth Worker and Consultation and Participation Officer Le N Ho had become frustrated with the negative perception of young people in contemporary society – particularly in her local borough of Newham; just next door to Idea Shop’s mother ship in Canary Wharf. After a submitting a winning application for a £3,500 grant to develop a community campaign, Le came to Idea Shop to see how to make the money work hardest.

Knowing that at the source of the misconception is a lack of understanding and awareness, Le had planned to run a series of workshops and develop a magazine to highlight the achievements of hard working young people. After discussing the benefits of intergenerational activities it became clear that in order for these to work the negative perceptions of young people must first be challenged. Rather than investing in the production of a single magazine, using newly affordable and flexible production services such as Newspaper Club would allow newspapers to be produced and distributed to a dispersed audience, especially one with varying access to the internet. Also collaborating with successful young people such as designers, photographers and writers would allow for co-creation and provide role models to draw other young people engaged with the project. By capitalising on the popularity of basic digital tools such as camera phones the idea of co-creation could be extended to the wider audience.

Successfully accessing and communicating to young people is a challenge major brands with multi-million pound budgets are struggling with, let alone individuals with money & time pressures. Involving young people themselves in the creation of the communications and activities will help draw in others and help further elevate success stories from local area – such its track record in providing successful sports professionals and cultural icons such as Jermaine Defoe and the late Alexander McQueen – eventually providing a reason for the wider community to reconsider their views.

Post by Keiran Bradshaw

Background:

Siobhan McIntosh is a Mother, Businesswoman and homemaker. She gave up her corporate job a few years ago to pursue a dream to become a designer which would also allow her to work from home and be closer to her six year old son. Siobhan started with a premium range of cushions, lamp-shades, picture frames, tea towels and eco-shopping bags aimed at middle-aged professional women, usually with kids. The brief at the Idea Shop however was to help Siobhan launch the signature range of her products.

Solution:

The Ogilvy team set about taking the new products back to the core of where they came from. Siobhan’s story as an ambitious young mother and entrepreneur gives her brand a unique positioning in a market cluttered with Ikeas and Habitats. The fact that all her products were designed by her and handmade give them a personal identity that the big brands simply cannot replicate. This would be her differentiator when it came to pitching her products. We devised a communications pack that Siobhan should put together including a business card that would use materials from her designs to stand out from any other, a folding display she could take to boutiques to showcase her work, and a leave behind that would tell her story.

We then worked with Siobhan to devise a launch and contact strategy.  One of the key things missing for the new range was a good set of photographs displaying the new designs, and a premium looking website for those products to live.  One of the solutions was to take her business plan back to her University lecturers to try and get the students there to work on the project as a live brief.  Siobhan had a good relationship with the professors on her course and creative courses are always looking for real-life briefs to work from so we felt this would be a good place to start to minimise any upfront capital. Once this was in place Siobhan could set about identifying the stores/boutiques she thought would fit her products.  It will be important for her to set some clear objectives against a defined time frame to ensure that she has an efficient attack plan to get her product on the shelf.

We left Siobhan with some clear action points and direction to help take her signature range forward. Siobhan left us inspired by a young lady who was determined to make a success of herself as a businesswoman whilst continuing to be a good mother. We wish her all the best in taking the interior design world by storm!

www.siobhanmcintosh.com

Post by Oli Goulden

Account Director, Ogilvy Advertising

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