Weve started building a new page on the site – Resources – from which you can find and download some helpful tools for new business development.
If you are a Delicious user, you may want to follow rcaroe as that’s where we upload new tools as we discover them.
Got any favourite sites or tools that you’d like to share? Let me know and I’ll add them to the list.
Go check the Resources Page out.
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Agencies
- Grintsch Communications, PR and web design agency, Germany
- Ocean Design, branding agency, London, UK
- Zolv, clever web designs and applications, West Yorkshire, UK
- Benefitz, print and related solutions for advertising, New Zealand
- Cunningham PR and Advertising, ‘this website is temporary and will update when you least expect it’.
- Conenza, community management services, Seattle, USA
- Sunshine Sachs, the most discrete publicist services, New York, USA
Brands
- World Bank Group, global poverty reduction organization, USA
- Kentucky Department of Education, schools service, USA
- CBS Network, cable television network, USA
- The Whitley Printing Company, printers, Leominster, Herefordshire, UK
- Pfizer, the world’s largest research-based pharmaceutical company, USA
- Bluerealm Solutions, technology and services to the retail and warranty marketplaces, Canada
- Stoneridge Investments, stockbrokers and investment managers, PA, USA
- TSWG Combating Terrorism Working Group – US Defense Department, USA
- DentalEye, software for handling images in dentistry, Sweden
- Friedken Realty Group, property management services, San Francisco, USA
- FranNet, franchise opportunities network, USA
- Build, the number 1 construction directory website, UK
Brands Seeking Agencies
- Sporting community network wants “Behavioral targeting agencies”, UK
- Accountants looking for “Accountant Firm creative advertising” New Zealand
- Newspaper group needs to know “how to write a creative brief to an agency”, Singapore
- Document management business wants “online conversation monitoring tool” USA
- Vehicle manufacturer wants “pitch management bodo”, Sweden
- Managed IT solutions wants “business development agencies”, UK
- IT management services firm, looking for “creative agency Amsterdam” the Netherlands
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Disclosure: This guest article is paid for content
Some of our American friends are getting very bgnt out of shape by Publicis' concealment of the extent of job losses they created across the global empire.
BNET's Jim Edwards posted a shocking article today that announced Publicis CEO Maurice Levy outright lied about the status of layoffs across the French holding company.
Maurice Levy did come clean with a new version of the truth. and he insists that recovery is just round the corner saying "We are leading new business on a worldwide basis," Levy said. "We have not yet benefited from the impact of new business and we will see that happening from now."
I don't know what he means by 'we are leading new business' – maybe we are doing biz dev?
And so I had a bit of fun tracking round the web and found where they have been keeping track of the layoffs – albeit mainly in US firms.
BNET's holding company layoff stats as of July 30:* WPP – up to 7,200 * Omnicom – 3,500 * Interpublic – 3,000 * Publicis – 1,800 * The Nielsen Co. – 1,600 * Aegis – 780
Anyone got stats for UK firms?
I found these articles on Campaign about redundancies.
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I had occasion this week to write the specification for two website redesigns. And that has set me thinking about the new state of affairs within the wide range of marketing communications that includes a website as a communication tool.
When I was taught my trade we had a series of headings in our marketing budget and plan that included the word “Collateral” which used to mean anything-printed-that-promotes-our-brand.
Well, collateral now includes digital stuff as well as print and it is where I’d list a website in this group of communication tools. Now for the hard bit. Is a monologue website appropriate for the 21st century? What do I mean by monologue? Well when Web 2.0 first came along I used
to explain the difference between web 1.0 and 1eb 2.0 as being
monologue versus dialogue.
Answer that for your company and then for other brands and industry sectors. Are they different or do the same rules apply?
What is Web 2.0?
Web 2.0 tools enable consumers to talk back and have conversations with your brand.
A nice example was a tweet made by Amanda Bonnen about mould in her Chicago flat. This led to Horizon Realty Group filing a $50k lawsuit against her for defamation. Bad news travels fast on the social web. So Twitter closed her account… see all the fun tweets on the subject.
But we all love a good moan and some salacious gossip. Trouble with web 2.0 is that it's rather more public than you might choose
When I was working as a brand marketing manager I would regularly get calls from colleagues and ad sales folk trying to sell me ‘last minute’ space in their trade publications. I had a very firm rule to answer all of them “is it in the plan?”
If our plan didn’t include a budget to buy last minute space that was a ‘great deal’ then we didn’t buy it. No matter how wonderful the offer was. Period.
And I feel there’s a parallel here with mobile phone takeup in Africa. Landlines are still hideously expensive to set up and difficult to get to remote rural locations. And so mobile has 'overtaken' the fixed line business and many people have got a mobile handset and use it to run their business. My mate Stef is going to SA this week to be MD of a new sub-saharan Africa telco with just this business plan – leapfrogging.
Brand dialogue
So back to the start, when specifying your website are you going to let customers have dialogue with your brand on a site where you run the show or not? If your site isn’t enabled for web 2.0 yet – why not add ‘signposts’ from it to places where discussions take place so that you can get involved. This is sideways leapfrogging – make it clear that you know conversations are going on elsewhere and participate and track them as a minimum. Know what game's going on and later introduce it into your website – in the new financial year budget!
]]>A project I am involved in requires a website, shop and e-learning component building.
Anyone interested, email me for the full spec.
Bidding closes 18 August.
]]>Do you work for any luxury brands? Frequently these (or aspiring luxury brands) suffer in an economic turn-down.
Here is a fabulous idea that you may want to suggest to your clients as a way of encouraging new revenue streams during a recession…start a business to rent or hire out your luxury goods. PSFK write about it.
]]>Thanks to Jeremiah's post on OpenSocial
Important Concept: Distributed
Web Marketing no longer is limited to your corporate site. Let go of
the concept of ‘driving traffic to your website’ as a sole measurement
of success. The web, it’s message, and your battles are now fought on
the open and distributed web. Trusted decisions between prospects and
customers are made on these social communities and networks, savvy
executives need to go there.
Until I'd visited a few places where the webby types hang out and talk, I didn't really believe that it was possible that we might be moving into a new era where this becomes the dominant force behind marketing communications. But, I really think that this is a possible probable future. For us all.
Here are a wide list of places where you should check out your brand – where it is probably being represented, either by you, your competitors, your customers and your prospects. They will talk without your intermediation, without your 'campaigns', and without your having any influence over it at all.
- MySpace
- Blogs – go to Technorati.com and search for your brand name(s)
- YouTube
- Competitors – go to any search engine and search for your brand
- F***ed company.com or equivalent places where the disgruntled go to complain [I searched for David Clulow Cambridge recently.... try it!]
Some PR firms are now offering online 'evaluation' services. This may be a very nice sideline for you to monitor online opinions about your brand, and you may consider it worthwhile buying. My friend Erwin Cardol at LogicaCMG is getting it set up now.
But my view is that the bottom line on your online PR profile, is the underlying honesty of your organisation and the quality of your product set. Get those two things right and you shouldn't have many problems with bad publicity.
PS Check out GetSatisfaction – customer service provided by the customers for the customers. Neat!
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And more recently….. 
and his partner in crime, Scott Stead trying to upload videos…. 
Over lunch at the lovely PE Chang's Chinese,
Buddy Gill (I never met someone really called Buddy before!)
And just to say I did some 'sleb spotting….. Jeremiah (we did talk) 
and Robert Scoble (we didn't!) 
and the lovely Valleywag lady in the Reputation management session 
Kathy Sierra. …. being really gracious talking to 'fans' in a corridor. She says it's been a year since she blogged and she isn't about to start again… but has some plans do to video online as a producer rather than being in front of the camera.
And Jonny Goldstein of Par-tay just interviewed me for his blog / TV show. Cool Dude works with Scott Stead in DC…
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