Resolutions Round Up

Welcome to our first blog post of 2013. We hope that you’ve recovered from the excesses of the festive season and are looking forward to the challenges of the year ahead. Regardless of whether you make them or not, resolutions tend to be big news at the start of each year. Read on to find out more about their origins, popular resolutions for 2013 and how to counteract that dip in resolve that tends to occur – hem – about now…

The roots of resolutions
New Year’s resolutions are steeped in religious origins. The Romans began each year by making promises to the god Janus (for whom January is named) and for many years Christians have prepared for the year ahead by making resolutions at watchnight services. Regardless of creed or religious beliefs, the concept is to reflect upon self-improvement annually.

2013 top ten resolutions
A poll of 2000 people conducted by LA Fitness produced the following resolutions results:
1. Read more books
2. Save more money
3. Lose weight
4. Redecorate
5. Take better photos
6. Go travelling
7. Sell unwanted items on eBay
8. Buy a tablet
9. Organise photos
10. Do something for charity.
You can read the full top 40 list of New Year’s resolutions by clicking here.

Strengthening your resolve
Struggling to maintain motivation? Ways to ensure you keep your New Year’s resolutions include making your goals specific, sharing your decisions with friends and family and tracking your progress.

Show you mean business
It’s not just in our personal lives that resolutions are made, but also in our working lives.  The companies we all work for set targets for the year ahead, which in a way are resolutions.  Maybe it’s to grow the size of the customer base, increase turnover, revisit the marketing strategy or generate some media coverage for the company each month.
Raising the profile of your company often results in a corresponding increase in your customer base and business turnover. If you want to achieve your communication goals this year, Innes Associates can help you research and plan a co-ordinated communications campaign – and we’ll also help you stick to it!  Contact one of the team to find out more.

Mark of a great TV advert?

As it is the 12^th day of the 12^th month of the 12^th year of the 21^st century, we thought we’d mark the occasion with another blog post.  Just in case the Mayan calendar is correct and the world ends on the Friday, 21 December and we don’t have time before then to pen another post.

We wrote an article last month that looked at Christmas TV ads and one of 2012’s festive offerings has been hitting the headlines over the past week.  John Lewis pulled off another great piece of storytelling this year with its Snowman setting off to buy the perfect present to keep his Snow-lady warm.  And six weeks after first airing it is still filling column inches and sparking debate.  So does it deserve a place alongside Guinness’ Horses and Surfers, Smash’s Martians, BT’s ‘Ology’ and The Yellow Page’s JR Hartley in the UK TV advert hall of fame?

Top of the hit parade

It is not often that the sound track from a TV advert reaches the number one spot in the UK singles chart solely as a result of being used in a campaign.  That however is what has happened to the soundtrack of John Lewis’ Christmas advert.  The retailer very cleverly spotted the potential of Gabrielle Aplin’s cover of the 1984 Frankie Goes To Hollywood hit ‘The Power of Love’ and released it as a single and on Sunday (9^th December) it reached to the top of the charts.

The haunting reworking of the classic is the 20-year-old Indie-folk singer’s first number one and also the first number one music hit for the high street chain.  It has previously released the soundtracks to its festive campaigns as singles, but they’ve not had the success that this year’s one has.  ‘The Power of Love’ is being tipped as a Christmas number one, but it will have to do battle with this year’s X-Factor winner, James Arthur.  His single, ‘Impossible’, is on track to be the fastest-selling debut single of any X-Factor winner and sold 187,000 copies by midnight on Monday – just over 24 hours after he won the show.  The fight for the festive top spot then could be a close run thing.

Called The Journey, the John Lewis advert has been viewed on YouTube more than 2.6million times, while Gabrielle Aplin’s single has clocked up more than 3million views on the video sharing site.

Defying gender stereotyping

The yuletide campaigns from Asda and Morrison’s were both criticised for being sexist and saw complaints lodged with the Advertising Standards Authority by disgruntled viewers.  Some people, though, have been irked by the John Lewis advert, saying it doesn’t truly reflect Christmas shopping patterns because it is the females who do all the shopping.  If it was to truly reflect men’s mad Christmas Eve dash round the stores then the Snowman wouldn’t make it back in time for Christmas Day and his Snow-wife would be left to brave the elements on her tod, watched by some unhappy children.

Amusing follow-up

If the gender stereotyping is to be believed, and followed, then on Christmas Day the Snow-wife would smile and say thank you to the Snowman, before asking if he’d kept the receipt so she could return.  And it is this idea that has sparked some chatter online.  It is being claimed that John Lewis will follow up on its pre-Christmas blockbuster with an inspired Boxing Day sequel that promotes the store’s returns policy.  The advert will of course be vying for our attention alongside the plethora of TV adverts that appear on Christmas Day and Boxing Day from furniture stores and Next promoting the huge discounts to be had in their sales.

Sources claim that the Snow-lady will set off on her own journey across the fields to ‘Two Tribes’ – another Frankie Goes To Hollywood hit – in order to exchange the hat, scarf and gloves for a Kenwood ice cream maker, which she really wanted.  Are the rumours true?  We’ll have to wait until Boxing Day to find out!  You can read more about the rumours here.

Sincerest form of flattery

Perhaps the strongest acknowledgement that an advert is a success is when it is imitated by another brand.  Aldi has jumped on the John Lewis Snowman bandwagon with a parody of The Journey in its latest Christmas advert.  Featuring a cake decoration Snowman and Snow-lady sitting atop a Christmas cake extolling the virtues of an own brand bottle of champagne compared to a premium version, it pokes fun at the high street retailer’s 90-second campaign.  In addition, Aldi’s 20-second advert injects some humour by suggesting that the Snow-wife wasn’t very impressed by her husband’s choice of present, adding further fuel to the Boxing Day campaign rumours.

Is it a great ad then?

Well, six weeks on from its first airing the advert is still being talked about; the sound track has reached number one; it has sparked plenty of debate about the shopping patterns of different sexes; created plenty of online chatter, including rumours of a follow-up; and is being mimicked by others.  So if it has achieved all that, in addition to being beautifully and creatively shot, then here at Innes Associates we think it deserves a place in the TV advertising hall of fame.  After all, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.

Finally, just to confirm and put you at ease, governments around the globe have issued statements verifying the world won’t cease to exist on Saturday, 22 December.  Further reassurance comes from Mayan expert Leonzo Barreno of Saskatchewan, Canada, who in a Daily Mail article stated that it just marks the start of a new Mayan calendar and not the end of life was we know it.  So we can all sleep well on the winter solstice in the knowledge that our surroundings won’t look any different when we wake from our slumber on the 22^nd.

Sending Christmas Cards

The tree may not yet be up, but the next stage of Christmas is well under way here at Innes Associates – the task of sending out Christmas cards.  As writer’s cramp has set in, we thought we’d rest the pen for a moment and give our fingers a workout on the keyboard by investigating the tradition of festive card giving.

History

The tradition of sending good wishes goes back many centuries.  There is evidence of printed cards being produced in Germany in the 14^th century, where images were carved onto wooden blocks that were then covered in ink and used to print on paper.

Sir Henry Cole is credited with devising the concept of sending a greetings card at Christmas.  The first Christmas card was illustrated in May 1843 by John Callcott Horsley.  The picture, a family with a small child drinking wine together, proved controversial.  Two batches of 2,050 cards were printed and sold that year for a shilling each, which in Victorian times wasn’t cheap.

However, the idea caught on and children – including Queen Victoria’s – were encouraged, Blue Peter style, to make their own Christmas cards.  The early Victorian era also saw industrial colour printing technology becoming more advanced, meaning the cost of producing cards dropped significantly.  Together with the introduction of the halfpenny postage rate, the Christmas card industry took off.  By the end of the 1880s sending cards had become very popular, creating an industry that in 1880 produced 11.5million cards.

The advent of postcards spelt the end of elaborate Victorian-style cards, but by the 1920s, the popularity of cards with envelopes was on the rise.  Modern technology has also had a go at killing off the Christmas card.  The internet and e-mail has led to the introduction of e-cards and many companies, and individuals, now plump for this option at Christmas.

E-cards versus real cards

Over the next few weeks your inbox will be pinging to the sound of many e-cards arriving and then entertaining you with static content or an all singing all dancing festive production featuring Santa Claus and Rudolf.  But once you’ve enjoyed it, you’ll probably hit delete and consign the sender’s yuletide wishes to the digital recycling bin.

Instead why not let the festive cheer that you send out remain around the recipient’s office for more than a few minutes?  Over the years at Innes Associates we have posted charity cards and sent e-cards, but this year we’ve gone for the custom-designed card that follows the style of our brochure.  They’ll be hitting the bottom of a post box in the next few days, before starting their journey to the offices of our clients, suppliers and contacts.  Instead of the ping of the incoming e-card, our recipients will enjoy the thud of a real card landing on their doormat or desk that will, hopefully, take pride of place for many weeks.  They might even think about us when they take their cards down in the New Year.

With more e-mails being sent by companies – some legitimate and informative, others just downright annoying – our inboxes are becoming clogged up.  Whereas if something arrives through the post personally addressed to us, we will usually take time to open it and read it – as long as it’s not a bill and doesn’t look like junk mail.

Christmas card recycling

Although some people have concerns that printing, mailing and delivering cards is detrimental to the environment, many cards are now printed on recycled paper and several large retailers have card recycling points in their stores each January.  Another green option is to use your old cards as shopping lists.  We’ve designed our cards to have lots of white space on the back so they can be used for this purpose!

Posting cards also supports the economy and creates thousands of jobs.  Royal Mail recruits 18,000 additional staff at Christmas time to handle more than 130million items of festive mail each day, which is nearly double the amount it usually handles.

The era of the Christmas card is certainly not over, 2011 saw a 3% rise in card sales compared with 2009.  And although the cost of postage has increased, consider sending cards as an investment in maintaining relationships with clients, suppliers and other contacts.

So why not send a card, put a smile on someone’s face and support the Great British economy in the process.  After all, Christmas is about giving.

Some facts about Christmas cards

• The tradition of sending and displaying cards is stronger in Britain than any other country.  The sending and receiving of cards is an important part of our culture.
• The world’s most expensive Christmas card cost £22,250.  It wasn’t diamond encrusted, but an original card from 1843 sold at auction in 2001.
• It is estimated that £50million is raised each year for good causes through the sales of charity Christmas cards.
• If you were to purchase an 1843 one shilling Christmas card, it would cost around £3.52 in today’s money according to the Measuring Worth website.
• According to the Guinness Book of Records, the world’s smallest Christmas card was created in Glasgow in 2010.  You would need a high power microscope to view the card as it measures just 200 x 290 microcentimetres, and 8,276 cards would fit on one postage stamp.
• In the 12 years that the Woodland Trust has run its Christmas card recycling scheme, more than 600million cards have been recycled.

Let them eat cake

It’s been a delicious week at Innes Associates. Two of the team celebrated their birthdays and, given that there are some keen (and very competent) bakers among our number, home-made cake was the order of the day – not just once but twice!

And it’s not only in-house that Innes Associates recommends celebrating special occasions with tasty treats.  Having blown out the candles and loosened our waistbands, we thought we’d take a moment to recollect some of the occasions when we’ve helped our clients to mark an anniversary or promotion with a celebratory bake or two…

Thanks to Sarah Jessica Parker et al, there has been a big rise in the popularity of cupcakes.  Innes Associates enjoyed commissioning several hundred specially iced cupcakes for a freight forwarding client’s 10th birthday.  These were delivered to individually named contacts who regarded them as a pleasant change to the business correspondence that passes across their desks on a daily basis.

More recently, Innes Associates staff were involved in hand-delivering some personalised copies of an industry supplement to some of a client’s key contacts.  Knowing how much we all enjoy reading the newspaper with a hot cuppa and a biscuit, we included a tempting piece of Scottish shortbread in the package.  According to feedback, the promotional effort struck a sweet note with the recipients.

If your organisation has a special celebration or milestone coming up, we’d be happy to provide some food for thought – and all in the best possible taste of course!

It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas

Everywhere you go, it is beginning to look a lot like Christmas.  Christmas lights are already adorning the shopping streets of London and here in Aberdeen the Christmas lights have marched their way down Union Street thanks to the efforts of the council staff.  Let’s just hope that they aren’t subjected to the strong winds that battered them last December, which meant they didn’t shine as brightly or for as long as usual.

Christmas is always a busy time for the retail sector with every brand fighting for our custom.  Each year the big names roll out festive advertising campaigns in order to capture our attention to ensure we visit their stores or buy their products.  This year is no exception, with brands rolling out all manner of festive-themed campaigns.

2012 adverts

Asda launched an amusing advert for its 2012 festive campaign that depicted a mother preparing for Christmas.  However, the minute-long advert has angered some people who claim it is sexist and its strapline of ‘Behind every great Christmas there’s mum’ could reinforce negative gender stereotypes.  Others say it accurately reflects the division of labour in a household.  Perhaps we should just view it in the way it is intended; an amusing look at all the work that goes into making Christmas a memorable family day.  Watch it below and make up your own mind.

Asda hasn’t been alone in irking TV viewers with its advert, Boots and Morrisons have both received objections to their yuletide adverts.  It seems not everyone is enjoying the light-hearted theme that is running through this year’s Christmas ads.

In the Boots advert, dog lovers have objected about a girl blow drying her dog’s hair in order to make it look like a unicorn – claiming it could harm the dog.  Others have raised concerns about children using electrical appliances.  While Morrisons’ advert follows a similar theme to Asda’s and has also been criticised for being sexist, it is arguably more comic than its larger rival.  Perhaps all these complaints are being generated just because as a nation we like to complain!

Last year’s soar away Christmas advert success came from John Lewis.  It was an inspired piece of storytelling that left much of the nation reaching for their hankies to wipe away tears when they realised that the wee boy didn’t want Christmas to hurry up and arrive so he could get his presents from Santa, but instead it was so he could give his gifts to others.

So how would John Lewis follow it up this year?  With a budget of £6million it would turn out to be another great piece of storytelling that conveys the message of it being better to give than to receive.  The journey is the 90-second story of a snowman walking across the countryside, wading through rivers, crossing motorways and dodging snowball fights in pursuit of getting the perfect gift for his snow-lady.  Going by the online response it would seem John Lewis has another winner on its hands and is again helping sales of Kleenex!

 

Christmas crackers

What of yuletides past, what adverts have stuck in our minds?  Marketing Week has had a look back at some of the most memorable of recent years and there are a few classics.  Who can forget that magical place with toys in their millions that was Toy R Us’ 1990s advert.  It was so popular that the toy store remade it for Christmas 2009.  Irn Bru’s fun parody of the 1980’s film The Snowman was a winner with viewers and critics alike when it launched in 2007.

Another that makes it onto the Marketing Week list is Coca Cola’s holidays are coming campaign.  The main theme of the advert hasn’t changed over the years; it always proves popular and is now a Christmas mainstay.  Perhaps it works so well because it has run for so long and taps into our nostalgic memories, taking us back to a time in our lives that seemed so much better.  But, in 1993 Coca Cola dispensed with tradition and went with polar bears settling down to watch the Northern Lights with a bottle of ‘the real thing’.

Christmas wouldn’t be Christmas without chocolates and Quality Street makes it onto the Marketing Week list with its 30-second magic moments lollipop lady advert.  It’s heart warming and amusing, not least because of the way the wee lad nonchalantly shrugs his shoulders and says: “It’s OK”.  At what other time of the year apart from Christmas would you eat Ferrero Rocher?  Whether it is at a diplomat’s party or just round at your friends, Ferrero Rocher’s adverts always at least raise a smile.  Back in 1985 Cadbury’s said thank you very much very simply with this 10-second Roses advert.  A short and simple advert with a memorable jingle!

One brand whose Christmas adverts didn’t rely on a memorable jingle, but instead used a cracking Christmas hit, was Andrex.  The toilet roll manufacturer used Slade’s ‘So here it is merry Christmas’ as the backing track to its festive campaign while a Labrador puppy darted about in the snow chasing toilet paper and a duck skidded on ice.  Cuddly and amusing, but it also reinforced the age old message that a puppy is for life and not just for Christmas.

Staying on a canine theme; whatever you do don’t forget a present for your four-legged friend.  Pedigree ran a very clever campaign about a dog getting revenge on its owner when they forgot about it at Christmas.  So be warned, don’t miss your pooch off the Christmas list or this could happen!

Just as we publish this story news is reaching us of HMV’s 2012 campaign.  Nipper the dog is coming to life alongside his best friend Gramophone in a series of 11 animated spots.  The humorous Christmas Tales campaign is a departure from HMV’s previously product and price focussed advertising.  From those we’ve seen online the short ads have made us chuckle.

An extra stocking filler

Still in need of more Christmas adverts?  There are more on the Thinkbox website and if you search for UK Christmas adverts on YouTube, this selection box appears.  And, if you’re now singing ‘It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas’ to yourself, here’s Bing Crosby’s version.

Happy shopping and remember, just like John Lewis’ snowman, it is always better to give than to receive!

Innes Associates shows support for Cash for Kids

Innes Associates is pleased to provide north-east charity Cash for Kids with public relations support in connection with the launch of its Mission Christmas Appeal 2012.

Cash for Kids’ Mission Christmas Appeal encourages people to donate toys or make cash donations towards gifts for children throughout the north-east who otherwise would not receive any presents on Christmas day.  This year’s campaign has been kick-started with a donation of over 100 soft toys from Aberdeen’s Disney Store.  Cash for Kids distributed 2,444 gifts to youngsters in the area last year and anticipates that demand will be even greater in 2012.

“We have already received over 1,500 applications on behalf of children who are unlikely to be visited by Santa this year,” says Michelle Herd, charity manager, Cash for Kids.  “Most of these applications were received prior to the official launch of our appeal, so we are urging as many people as possible to get behind it.

“All gifts and donations will be gratefully received, no matter how large or small.  We have set up 24 drop-off points for gifts throughout Aberdeen city and shire to help make it easier for people to make a contribution.”

Previously known as the Christmas Toy Appeal, Cash for Kids’ Mission Christmas Appeal has been running since the charity’s launch in 1996 and has grown in scale each year.  Further information on the appeal, including details of gift drop-off points, is available at www.northsound1.com/missionchristmas.

Starting out in advertising, marketing and public relations: A guiding hand

Many of the people who approach Innes Associates for support have ‘inherited’ responsibility for their company’s promotional or communications activity and may not have any experience in this area.  Innes Associates also receives a lot of approaches from young people who are looking for more information about public relations and marketing as career options; one of our team members, Ian, is called upon on an annual basis as a guest marketing lecturer for Tourism & Hospitality Management students at the Robert Gordon University (click here for the blog entry on his latest lecture).

Since it is our day to day business, the team at Innes Associates has put together a series of guides to public relations (PR), marketing and advertising.  We realise that most people are time-poor, so each guide is reasonably short and easy to read. The guides describe the basis of each subject and – we hope – help to clarify the differences between our three core activities.  Happy reading!

Innes Associates Guide to Advertising

Innes Associates Guide to Marketing

Innes Associates Guide to Public Relations

TECH TALK: Phones get smarter

In our Jubilee newsletter we focused on smart TV, this time around it is the turn of smartphones. Although smartphones are firmly embedded in our day-to-day lives (while smart TV is an emerging technology), innovation continues in this area with the major brands scrambling to capture market share. A recent article from Business Insider about Apple’s new iPhone 5 provoked a lively debate, with many focusing on the size difference between the iPhone and the latest offering from rival Samsung, the Galaxy S3. So does size matter? And, as touched on during the debate, does Apple’s ‘ecosystem’ – its support network of stores, apps and related products – mean that many customers will remain loyal to the brand? The debate raises many interesting marketing issues in terms of new product development, branding and those intangible benefits that are often at the heart of a purchase decision.
At Innes Associates, we enjoy working with clients to ensure that their businesses make the most of all the exciting technology we now have at our fingertips. When we develop a new website, for example, we can ensure that it is ‘responsive’ – meaning it will adapt to being viewed on different platforms such as mobile ‘phones and tablets. Although the channels through which we communicate are becoming ever more sophisticated, our goal remains the same: To get our clients’ messages across in an accessible and appropriate manner.
Read the full Business Insider article here.

Interesting Aberdeen: City with a Ghostly Past

Did you know that Aberdeen is, according to some sources, one of the most haunted places in Scotland? There has been reported paranormal activity throughout the city, including at well-known venues such as Central Library, His Majesty’s Theatre, Ardoe House Hotel and Aberdeen Arts Centre. There have also been many reports of an entity grabbing peoples’ arms or legs on Union Street and holding on for several seconds before letting go. If you want to learn more about the darker and spookier side of the granite city, Hidden Aberdeen operate themed walking tours round Aberdeen. Visit www.hiddenaberdeen.co.uk for more information.

Chasing away all those evil spirits!

Just before All Hallows’ Day arrives tomorrow, we’ve just issued the latest instalment of the Innes Associates newsletter. With it being All-Hallows’-Even we thought we’d get into the spirit with a turnip lantern (no American pumpkins here!) and treacle scones. We did think about dooking for apples but feared certain people might get their hair too wet.

If you’re heading out guising tonight, good luck in chasing away all those evil spirits!

You can view the newsletter here and if you want to be added to our distribution list for future issues please get in touch.