Recession, recession, recession.

You can’t escape the media’s doom and gloom. The economy’s going to pot so lets all make a rush on the bank before it’s to late etc.

I notice fuel and food’s but not much else. Work’s bringing in business and my bank account’s looking the same. It’s more of a pinch than a crunch but not yet a recession.

Doing reserach around the country, it seems other people and businesses are feeling it to varying degrees depending on where you live and what job you’re doing.

So, this is an (or a?) SOS to ask you for some of your stories.

(Say as much as little as you feel comfortable – your comments are just for this blog and it’s not a ruse for any ’hidden research project!).

Perhaps it’s all just hype or perhaps you are being crunched and ‘recessed’ at home and at work…

I went to the researh 2.0 conference on Tuesday and wanted to find out what online research could do better than offline.

It seems that it’s down to cost and time; however, I am still of the opinion that face-to-face methodologies (for the sake of qual research) will always provide better, sharper and more useful insights than offline.

It has an inherent than online can never have: you are talking to somebody in the flesh. You have a human dialogue, you can see who they are, assess all the non-verbal cues and draw out more of an emotional truth from what you’re being told.

I do think face-to-face has to change though to keep up with the competition. How groups are run need to be rethought because they have become stayed and done because they’ve always been done. I like the more deliberative, workshop styles and any opportunity of spending more time with a respondent even if it means a smaller sample.

Times are a changin’ but I don’t want to jump on the online bandwagon quite yet. I may have been proven wrong in a few years but it’s better to stand for something you believe in than sit on the fence, hey?!

Wrote this post on my company’s blog. I’m posting the link here to raise awareness of what seems to be an exciting new network: http://artofconversation.typepad.com/

I’m off there tomorrow, so I’ll drop a post to let you know how it goes.

R-Net’s last meeting for young reserachers happened last night in the swanky champagne bar of The International on the corner of St. Martin’s Lane.

Good conversations were had by all (I am sure) helped by the free booze and excellent hosting by John and Chris.

I learnt a few things too:

1. What ‘long tail’ marketing/economics was about

2. There is at least one fan of  Orange’s I am everyone campaign

3. Nobody knows how to set up a blog (see next post on Monday)

4. Nantes is nowhere near Lyon.

 I am also smiling a lot today because I won this magnum of champagne which is sitting proudly (stillunopened) by my kitchen sink. No, I didn’t wake up on a park bench this morning clutching an empty champagne bottle as a few of you thought.

Feel free to leave a few comments on how it went or what you thought too or even on the quality of my photography.

Till next time and hoping there’ll still be a few more raffles.

So what’s Halifax’s saver rate again?

In my first few years at Saatchi’s I worked on ‘Destination Branding’ branding accounts. It’s a fascinating area of branding whereby environments can be branded in  exceptionally imaginative ways (rather self-explanatory title isn’t it?!).

Recently, I thought about this area whilst doing fieldwork in Liverpool, our new Capital of Culture. Arriving at Liverpool Lime Street I was hoping the station would give enough impact to match it’s new ‘Culture’ title. 

To be fair, they do a good job with a series of large banners advertising art exhbitions, super lamb bananas , bushes trimmed into golfers, glassed etched panels running as a see-through wall between platforms and a gigantic branded facades/hoardings covering buildings. And that’s just when you arrive (sadly all I have to go on is the station and and the 2 minute walk to a neighborouing hotel so was unable to see the rest of the city!)

To be honest, I don’t know how much research is done into this ‘destination branding’ area. I am aware it is an relatively untapped resource in the communication shope/branding world.

Alain de Botton’s premise in his book the ‘Architecture of Happiness’ was that our built environment influences who we are as people and our state of happiness. That is the more you care for your environment, the happier you will feel. May sounds more architural than marketing focused but that’s not the case. Take Chiswick Park as a prime example where Branding and architecture come together in the corporate world.

Amoungst high-tec building and a water features & grass landscape, Wolf & Olins delivered a branded destination through the idea of ‘enjoy work’  for the big businesses to rent office space there. Examples of how their branding works is having a playground with regular ‘sporty’ events, branded deck chairs on the grass and acoustic guitars with lots of other examples (take a look at the website). Naturally, it’s been a huge success.

This is an area that seems to have many exciting opportunities where industries of branding, marketing and strategic thinking come together with that of architheture. I would be interested to hear from anybody who’s involved in the ‘reserach’ side of things out there to tell me more what it’s all about. Personally, I see a good deal of worth in it with a healthy dashing of self-fulfillment.

1. Ning.

This is great.  You can create your own Social Network. I see there is a Market Research one. Thinking about setting up one for more junior researchers. 

2. Harrod’s Posh Pot Noodle

It sells for 30 quid and not a quid, like it’s non-posh cousin. It’s also a collector’s item, selling 100 only. It comes in ‘Poulet and Champignon’ flavour only - no  ‘Bombay Bad Boys’.

 A one-off but it gets people talking about your brand for a bit and ticks the ‘memorable marketing’ box.

3. Heinz Deli Mayo

No balls. To appease global head quarters in the USA and 200-300 whingers, Heinz have offended the 2-3 million gay and lesbian community in the UK. TV advertising should have stand-out. That meanz being daring, brave and breaking eggs to make an omlette (or Deli Mayo).

4. Uniqlock Won award at Cannes I hear. Take a look at the link. Thanks for pointing out Will. Looks great but still trying to get it to work on my blog. Any ideas anyone?

‘I’d like write more  often’, I tell myself and then I realise I am off on holiday.

I’m sure it’s to do with the credit crunch.

Socks are up when I’m back.