We'd like to say a big congratulations to our sister company brandformula for their recent placement in the 2012 B2B marcomms agencies league table.
Given that these figures are prior to our merger, coming in at an outstanding number 32 demonstrates how we are now able to maximise the combined experience, skills and resources of a larger specialist agency as well as bringing together our own ways of working with our clients.
Here's looking to next year...
Lamb CMC Limited and Brandformula Limited have announced that they have merged. A new company WHJE Limited has been created and acquired the businesses of the specialist insurance and financial services marketing agencies. The current Lamb and Brandformula shareholders own all of the WHJE shares, with no external interests or backing. From the outset both will continue to trade under their respective names but with the probable longer-term plan of merging them into a single identity. Lamb will move to the larger Brandformula offices in East Tenter St, E1 relocating there immediately and it will now become the single location for both businesses.
Both Lamb and Brandformula will now benefit from the combined experience, skills and resources of a larger specialist agency as well as bringing together their own ways of working for their clients.
In a separate move early last week the management of Brandformula had acquired the existing shares of the previous owner FWD Group Limited prior to the merger.
Speaking of the merger, Martin Wiggins, Executive Director of Brandformula said,
Brandformula and Lamb enjoy excellent reputations as specialist brand and marketing agencies, with a particular emphasis upon the insurance and related industries. We share the same passion and enthusiasm for the creation of value and engagement for our respective clients’ brands. It was a natural fit that can only bring benefits to both our businesses and our clients.”
Mark Huxley, one of the founding Directors of Lamb added,
With a deep ability for understanding the complexities of this sector we have both delivered an unrivalled level of skills, experience and business value to our clients. Combining this into a single business will allow us to develop even further, with a much-expanded base of knowledge, experience, infrastructure and broader range of services.”
For more information please contact:
Mark Huxley 07966 019533 mark@lambinthecity.com
Martin Wiggins 07974 348020 mwiggins@brandformula.co.uk
Neil Johnson 07771 538568 neil@lambinthecity.com
Lamb CMC's essential tips to consider when thinking about building a social media presence for your company. Probably the fastest growing area of our business, both in interest and actual work has been communication services involving social media. We have written a number of times here about how Linkedin and Twitter need to be considered as a key element of your external brand positioning, so we won’t preach here, but rather assume that if you are reading this then you have made that leap of faith to give it some serious consideration.
So what should be in your mind when thinking about how it should be delivered within your organisation?
Well the very first thing is to realise is that this is a strategy that will by its nature spread across the whole your organisation. It cannot nor ever will be delivered as a single thread that will not influence all else. It is a public broadcasting medium, therefore you need to appreciate that what is said here could extend many times beyond your direct following or networks. People sharing or retweeting could potentially give it a huge outreach that will overlap all your other communication channels. So think organisation-wide and develop a concerted strategy before pressing send.
Know your goals
Most think that it is the size of your community that is the key aim. Of course that is important, but knowing what you want to achieve with that community is of much greater importance; is it to drive brand awareness, traffic back to your website or is it perhaps sales? Your social communications strategies must accord to these goals and always have them in mind.
What is your ROI?
Whether managed internally or externally there will be a cost and with that you need to have the measurements to know that the campaign is meeting your goals. Whether short, medium or ultimate aims, be clear about how it will be measured.
Should I worry about Follower numbers?
In a word, no! It is more about having influencers – people that are trusted and have engaged followers themselves. Look out for bloggers, acknowledged experts, interesting “celebrities” in your sector and active tweeters; all of whom can help spread and evangelise your messages.
Look out for other communities to be active within
There are some obvious channels to use, Twitter & LinkedIn being two here, plus Facebook, as with its new Timeline platform it finally makes some sense for businesses to profile on it. But there are equally many other communities that have been created to be shared amongst like-minded people. Look them out and get involved as you never know who might be on them.
Understand the data
There are a plethora of tools on the internet that can help you delve into the effectiveness of your social media presence. Everyone has their favourites; here at Lamb we use HootSuite as the dashboard for monitoring the various accounts we have. Aside of the usual timelines, mentions, messages, etc it has a great search tool for looking at Twitter trends as well as being able to tell you when and how many times a tweet posted has been retweeted, thereby showing the outreach of it. We use Klout and its inbuilt scoring matrix to gauge how effective our accounts are. Its algorithms assess amongst other things, your activity, the quality of your followers and the outreach of your tweets to build a number score. Very simply the higher the number the greater your perceived Twitter clout or Klout is considered. It also shows how it goes up and down, which can be a great indicator of any specific messaging done. SocialBro is great for lifting the bonnet of your Twitter account and seeing who’s following you, who they really are, how active they are and how influential they are for you.
Make everything social
Ultimately one of the prime motivations of all this is to raise awareness. A big part of which is to drive traffic to your site and likewise raise its profile in the Google search rankings. This is now almost entirely driven by how active and contemporary your site is, therefore it pays huge attention to the social media content within it. Don’t miss that trick then and make sure your site captures and displays that content where Google will find it.
Following on from the interest in Neil's recent post about the approaching BIBA 2012 conference (google analytics is a wonderful thing) we thought we would continue with a look at exhibition design from a brand perspective and why it should be part of your marketing budget.
An exhibition show is potentially one of the more exciting parts of your marketing calendar – exciting because after developing your identity and brand guidelines you can focus on bringing your company identity off of the printed page or out of the screen. You are going to have to figure out how to bring your brand to life and represent it in a physical environment. Exhibition design is a chance to make that all important first impression of your company to a potential new lead and doing it well can mean the difference between gaining new business or being overlooked.
Why exhibit at all?
It can be a big chunk of your marketing budget, planning it is time consuming and it forces your staff out of their comfort zone and into the paths of the masses. Well that last point is the key isn't it – exposure. Exposure, new leads and relationship building all hopefully leading to increased business.
First things first - know your brand
You need to know what your brand stands for before you can ensure that your exhibition presence is reflecting your company consistently. If you've been through any sort of a branding exercise you should know the key values to communicate in order to represent your brand consistently. Your brand identity will of course include the basics... logo, colours, font, image library specifications, etc., but should also include more abstract concepts that represent your brand such as feeling, tone, emotion, etc.
Know why you are there
Consider and decide what your exhibition goals are before you start thinking about stand design. The most successful and suitable stands are born out of considered briefs detailing clear goals of what a client wants to achieve from exhibiting at a conference show.
Begin with an idea. There is a term in architecture, parti – or parti pris 'to make a decision' – which means the underlying concept. It is similar to the big idea in branding; the single thought which is the foundation on which everything else is built. Let's say that your big idea or focus for the stand is accessibility - this informs any decision along the design process by giving focus to a core thought to come back to. A parti is this focus of satisfying the original idea condensed down into a simple statement or sketch of what the aim of the project is.
Thinking about your stand in its simplest form helps focus the development process by prompting you to consider whether any particular design decision is staying true to or enhancing the original idea behind the stand. This can inform furniture selection, floorspace required, brightness of lighting, materials, finishes, on stand experience, etc.
For example, there will be a big difference in the design approach of the stand depending on whether your focus is a simple brand promotion exercise compared to if it is a new product launch. In the former your message may be 'here we are, this is our company, we're showing our face, a dependable reliable showing year after year', all that can be done with a logo and an engaging structural design. In the latter case the group branding may take more of a secondary backseat with the focus shifting to your new product; the group branding sitting in the background lending gravitas and instant recognition to the product launch.
What can a stand say about your brand?
A stand should reflect your brand - if your company is all about investing time with clients and providing a bespoke service to them then build a stand that allows you to invite those guests on, provide comfortable furniture and take time to speak to them. If you want to show you are a busy dynamic company then make your stand a lot brighter with lots of presentations, less furniture and a shorter stand experience time.
Think of your stand as a shop front for your business; it's an opportunity to reflect all of your brand values in a way that you never can do in the reality of your office layout. Perhaps you are based 100s of miles from your potential clients in which case an exhibition stand allows you to take your world to them.
If you think of billboard advertisements - they work on a 3 second rule. They need to grab the attention of passing motorists and deliver a message to them within those 3 seconds of a car passing by. Exhibition stands are the same albeit with slower moving traffic passing through the aisles but the principle remains. Don't bombard people with an essay of text across 3 walls, they will process and retain less than 5% of the message.
As we've mentioned, this is a chance to create a physical presence of your company brand - try to exploit the senses. You're not tied to the visual sense of a website, you can play with lighting, tactile material, aroma, taste, performance and hotwire straight into potential customers sensory perceptions.
Your message can be sophisticated in what it communicates about your brand but it has to be succinct and easily processed by the audience.
Your people
Often in branding projects we are trying to get inside a company's ethos to understand what makes them unique, especially in financial companies where so much is based on personal relationships and the quality of a company's people. Often in insurance companies this comes down to the characteristics of people within that company and the personal relationships they can develop with clients.
An exhibition stand is a chance to bring them out from behind an email address or phone number and press the flesh with potential clients. A stand needs to make your people comfortable to shine, that means giving them the confidence to sell your business at its best. If they are proud to stand in front of that stand it will come across to the attendees at the conference.
As the old adage goes 'first impressions are everything'. To a completely uninterested visitor a good stand will plant a seed. To a potential customer it could tip the balance. To an existing customer it should reaffirm their positive feeling towards your company.
An example to illustrate
Shameless self-promotion plug warning: take one of our clients MAPFRE, a global insurance provider. MAPFRE came to Lamb CMC recognising that they needed to develop their UK identity which meant a full brand evaluation and development project. Once this was complete it naturally progressed into a marketing campaign including a showing at last year's BIBA conference. This was MAPFRE's first showing at BIBA so it was key that they made a bold statement ensuring people realised that they were there.
The brief: MAPFRE wanted to arrange slots of time with a number of visitors throughout the day, they wanted them to experience something of the company's heritage and they wanted their stand to be remembered.
The informed audience of insurance brokers all knew MAPFRE as a Spanish company so we used that heritage as our hook and focussed our design around Spanish hospitality. We took their bold graphic identity and incorporated it into a stand using a combination of branded panels and traditional wood materials (making it stand out within the usual stand design finishes).
It was a small stand space which was a factor we turned into a strength adding to the tapas bar feel we decided to have no large furniture, encouraging visitors to stand and chat. We took the height of the stand up to add a sense of an enclosed intimate refuge within the large Manchester exhibition hall. Finished the feel with a professional tapas chef offering tapas and freshly sliced jamon. Beer on tap. Who could resist?
No walls full of small text, no long lists of products, no branded biros - it's not what people will remember after the event. One simple concept - Spanish hospitality; a warm welcome, good people, good conversation, plenty of food and drink, all in an informal relaxed space. It certainly stood out amongst the other stands last year, so much so that it won the best small stand award and the organisers were still struggling to get visitors to leave hours after the exhibition had finished.
What does someone take away from it? A sense of who Mapfre are, what they're about, what the people behind the brand are like and what drives them - all with their brand subtly sitting there in the background. That experience remains associated with MAPFRE and is remembered whenever that logo is seen in the future by visitors.
To see some more examples of our exhibition design check out our work section on the site - click here.
Seeing as many of our clients are from the insurance industry which, with Lloyd's being built up around the legend of Edward Lloyd & his coffee house and most of us using the mighty coffee bean as a staple of our working day, we consider ourselves fortunate to be situated in Spitalfields within walking distance of many top-draw establishments. We thought we'd give a run down of our own top 5 places to grab a fine coffee around our office.
5. Carluccio's
Straight in at number 5 with their no nonsense Italian approach of keeping it simple and doing it well – it's got to be Carluccio's. With a choice of 2 blends of coffee bean to choose from it's great for a quick take away en route to the office, even better when the sun is shining and the outside tables suddenly become a lot more appealing.
4. Mr Coffee
Generally you wouldn't think you'd get particularly good coffee from a mobile barista but trust us, Mr Coffee consistently serves up great coffee. Situated on Brushfield Street outside the RBS building this humble looking little coffee van does both a very good espresso and Italian cappuccino. None of the bucket sized portions being sold in the adjacent Starbucks - Mr Coffee keeps its drinks small and intense. Mr Coffee - He's so Frothy.
3. Albion
If there's a better way to start the day than with an Albion coffee and one of their freshly baked cheese and marmite rolls then we can't publish it here. The latest in Terrence Conran's offerings this Quaker/Shaker style minimalist all-day café has a real focus on great British food and drink. There is some great quality produce on offer as you enter along with freshly prepared food to takeaway or, if you have the time, then the sit down restaurant also serves some great British fare.
2. Foxcroft & Ginger
The new kid on the block - Foxcroft & Ginger are at the top of Commercial Street on Shoreditch High Street. They've had a shop on Soho's Berwick Street for a while and recently opened up in one of the containers in the new Shoreditch Boxpark pop-up mall a few months ago. The Boxpark itself is an experience worth visiting – a collection of shipping freight containers converted into retail spaces and offered out to companies on short-term lets. Using the Monmouth coffee blend they serve their coffee in a mismatch of china and glassware all adding to the quirkiness of it all. We're not sure what the deal is with the short-term lets but hopefully they will remain there for a good time to come.
1. Nude Espresso
Lamb's unanimous number one had to go to our old favourite a few doors up from us on Hanbury Street. Nude Espresso serves up delicious coffee made with their own signature blend roasted just around the corner in part of the old Truman Brewery on Brick Lane.
The most important thing is it is close by and it serves excellent coffee. They do great food too especially the biscotti and a particularly cheeky almond croissant incase you're in an indulgent mood. Run by Rich, a Kiwi who is passionate about his coffee. If you get the chance then make sure you try their flat white guaranteed to satisfy even the most pickiest of coffee snobs. In an area with some great coffee on offer Nude Espresso stands out amongst them all as one of London's best.
Honourable mentions
Tea Smith - not a coffee house so we couldn't include it in our top 5 but really worth a visit if you're ever in the area. They take making a brew to a new level at their teabar style shop, great tea, relaxing atmosphere and very informative when they are preparing your drinks. Exceptional teas indeed.
Market Coffee House - an old stable of the area, it hasn't lost any of its old school charm whilst the surrounding area has continuously modernised.
The Daily Grind - situated in Spitalfields market this place is always busy and bustling and has been the same ever since we've been here - great atmosphere.
Are there any coffee shops that we have missed off our list that you recommend we go and investigate? Leave us a comment and we will be sure to check it out.
So you've finally got that design signed off on the new marketing brochure you've been working on for months – now you need to decide how you are going to print the piece? The growth of digital printing technology has brought technical advancements, more options, and exciting new features to today’s commercial printing. It has also brought some confusion. An understanding of the advantages and disadvantages of digital printing and how those compare to traditional offset lithography is critical in making the right choice when placing a print order. What's the Difference?
Offset lithography is the most common high volume commercial printing technology. In offset printing, the desired print image is burned onto a plate and is then transferred (or offset) from the plate to a rubber blanket, and then to the printing surface. The lithographic process is based on the repulsion of oil and water. The image to be printed gets ink from ink rollers, while the non printing area attracts a film of water, keeping the non printing areas ink-free.
Digital printing eliminates many of the mechanical steps required for conventional printing, including making film (film is rapidly becoming a thing of the past with most new presses being CTP – computer to plate) and making plates. Don’t make the mistake of thinking that digital print is the same as running copies from your PC to a laser or inkjet printer, the digital print presses used by printers are much more sophisticated than that!
Advantages of Digital Printing
Advantages of Offset Lithography Printing
Not Sure Which is Right?
Obviously we will help select the right method for you based on the project, but use the following checklist to help you decide which is for you