Procurement: A new age of austerity?

I have written previously on the importance of marketing agencies engaging with brand procurement teams.

Promotional Marketing (November 2010) has written this month about how agencies are being tested in these current times. It writes of the knock on effect of the current spending cuts at governmental level – and that anecdotal evidence suggests there is already a huge impact on the market research sector with some agencies already having closed their social research units. (…)

Client and agency relationships: do clients get the agencies they deserve?

Clients, in the opinion of David Ogilvy as this presentation by Graham Robertson of Beloved Brands points out, get the advertising they deserve. (…)

Should brands be expected to build the Big Society for free?

“Brands are part of the Big Society – because consumers make them so.

Those consumers expect to pay for good brands. Government should too”. These were the words of David Reed, Founder of the Data Governance Forum, proposing the motion “Brands should not be expected to build the Big Society for Free”, at the Debating Group debate on 21 March 2011 at the House of Commons.

The debate was sponsored by the Institute of Promotional Marketing and chaired by Nadhim Zahawi, MP for Stratford-upon-Avon.
(…)

Social media tools for new business: Twylah and Rebel Mouse

There are two micro-blogging social media aggregation tools I use for new business – Twylah and Rebel Mouse.

Why I like these are that they can demonstrate, visually, the themes that have been talked about on Twitter. (…)

IPA and ISBA launch The Good Pitch Guide

The IPA The Good Pitch Guide in association with ISBA takes the lead in promoting how brands and agencies interact during the pitch process. (…)

Nine ways to get a yes from procurement

I have written about, advised and trained marketing agency personnel (account management and the business leaders), extensively, in how they approach and manage agency interaction with client procurement. (…)

Do marketing directors make good chief executives?

Press article: Directory-enquiries firm 118 118 has just handed its top job to former Superdrug marketing director Gerry Murphy, while several bosses with marketing backgrounds were listed in Marketing’s Power 100.

(…)

Guidelines for Digital Promotions

I have been working with the IPM to produce a set of guidelines to help promotional marketing agencies, brands and service providers execute promotional activity using digital. (…)

Using SlideShare effectively for new business

SlideShare has its’ place as a (key) channel for agency new business development. 

Used to its’ fullest extent, it is a relevant and engaging channel. SlideShare is not PowerPoint and it’s not a presentation (…)

Achieving buy-in from procurement

The word “procurement” may strike fear into the hearts of agencies, but Rod Geoghegan shows how, with understanding and an inclusive approach, you can make procurement work for you

Procurement departments have had a bad press, it has to be said. Regarded by many as evil bean counters whose only talent is to buy goods and services by the metre at the cheapest price, the very mention of them tends to send agency folk diving for their calculators and a stiff drink. (…)