Great news we’ve won a DADI award for our contribution to the Story UK website – best In-House website. Many thanks goes to the very nice people at Story UK as it was a joy to work with such a talented creative marketing agency.
Vist the website here: www.storyuk.com
You can now follow us on twitter!
http://www.twitter.com/rawww
You are officially invited to celebrate Easter by creating your own Egg Head. We’ve put together all the essentials you need to get cracking, such as a range of elegant moustaches and expressive eyebrows (including a fabulous mono-brow).
So go on, create an egg-sized model of your friends, colleagues or family. They’ll love you for it! Dads are particularly successful Egg Heads (and usually find it very flattering).
Then send us a pic of your creation and we’ll put it in our great Eggs-hibition. We’ve already created a few of our own Egg Heads, which we’re very proud of and can be seen here
And if your Egg Head particularly excites us, we’ll send you a box of Creme Eggs. Just because we feel like it. Send your photos to eggheads@rawww.com.
Well 10k actually, but it’s going to feel like one:)
If you’d like to sponsor us visit:
http://www.rawww.com/10k/
With all those redundancies going on out there, thousands of incredibly talented creative types must be just sitting around at home updating their Facebook status and getting RSI playing Wii.
We want to hear from you. We want to hear about your ideas, your goals, all the great things you can do.
We’re interested in graphic designers, copywriters, Flash designers, motion graphics people, web designers and web developers – the whole range of creative professional roles found in a creative agency like Rawww.
And that’s whether you’re a freelancer or full timer. Our model for working is to use a wide network of talented specialists who we can call in when we need to. That way we can use the best people for the job. So go on, pause the Wii and get in touch.
A recession is a pure Darwinian struggle. But the thing to remember about a Darwinian struggle is it improves the fitness of species. The ones that can’t survive the climate go to the wall. The well adapted ones survive. In fact they don’t just survive, they thrive. How?
It’s all down to customers. Customers are people. You may know that. Many of those involved in marketing know it too, it’s just that too much marketing activity treats customers like subhumans with tiny brains.
So how do these people make their choices? Not rationally. Not entirely rationally, anyway. Psychology has shown that without emotion, without a sense of value, people find it impossible to make decisions, because pure rationality can’t effectively assess what’s important and what’s not.
So customers decide which products and services to choose with a part-rational, part-emotional decision. They may not even realise they’re using emotion, using their value judgements, but they are.
If I’m anxious, if I’m keen not to waste money, then my emotions are right there near the surface. In a recession I use emotions more than ever to make decisions.
The emotional value of a product or servicer is encapsulated in its brand. So your brand makes the essential difference between your business thriving and dying.
Opportunity!
As other companies die, there’s more room for you. Not only that, but many companies are cutting back on their marketing, leaving more space for your messages to get through.
‘It is well documented,’ says John Quelch of Harvard Business School, ‘that brands that increase advertising during a recession, when their competitors are cutting back, can improve market share and return on investment at a lower cost than during good economic times.’
So now is an opportunity.
Cool brands or warm brands?
But what kind of brands will people turn to? Well, what are you turning to? Edgy, tricksy, cold-eyed brands that don’t look you in the eye because they’re just too, you know, cool?
Cool can easily turn to cold in times like these.
Brands that flatter you, appeal to your vanity, offer you the world?
Perhaps brands that doggedly go on shouting about ‘great deals’ and ‘unmissable opportunities’? The ones that shout so loud they don’t notice you or what you really need? You know, the brands you automatically distrust, because you know they’re only trying to extract more cash from you?
Or are you, just possibly, turning to brands that do what they say, and don’t say things for the sake of it. Brands you trust.
And how about warmth? And honesty? Maybe they matter too.
I want to trust the companies that are taking my money. I want to feel I’m dealing with an authentic brand with actual values, a brand that looks me in the eye, recognises I’m here, talks to me, and gives me something valuable.
People’s bullshit detectors become much more effective at times like these.
Your brand has to reach out and convey warmth, trust, value, honesty, authenticity. Something to believe in, something with heart. Because we’re in this together –customers and companies.
Remembering customers are people sounds so damn obvious. But it’s absolutely crucial, and so easy to get wrong.
There’s a different spirit out there. Markets are evolving fast. To thrive, your brand needs to adapt.
Well it’s 2009 and no one’s too sure how things will look by the end of it. Everyone seems gripped by fear. The sky’s falling!
But unless an asteroid strikes one thing’s not going to change. There will still be businesses and customers, and the businesses doing well will be the businesses that give their customers what they want.
So how do companies know what their customers want?
One thing about the bubble years was that it wasn’t too hard to make money in business. From now on that’s not going to be the case. So companies can’t assume they know what their customers are thinking and how they’re behaving. There’s no more room for arrogance in business.
So communicating with customers is more important than ever. Getting a feel for how they think and what they want. And telling them what you’re thinking too, and what you’re doing.
The other thing about 2009 is that the internet isn’t going away. If you’re saving money and you’re looking for good deals, how are you going to do it? Getting in your car and cruising around the high street? No, you’ll go online. Search results are crucial. So is email. So are online recommendations.
All this is why we reckon digital marketing is going to be an essential tool for clever businesses in 2009.
We’re talking things like: Twitter. Facebook. Blogging. Podcasting. Good relevant content (relevant to your business and your customers).
The businesses with the good ideas, quick on their feet, using cost effective marketing techniques, communicating cleverly with their customers, will survive.
Unless that asteroid arrives of course. (But until it does, we’re going to have some fun, downturn or no downturn.)
Go on, you know you want to see how you too can make a difference this Christmas, spare a little thought for those turkeys out there.
Visit: www.rawww.com/turkey
We’ve listened to the feedback, spent many hours discussing on overall direction and we’re very happy with the end result. Enjoy.
This is so cool. An archive of what all kinds of websites used to look like. (Maybe you’ve known about it for years but it’s new to me.) It’s incredible how outdated sites from just 10 years ago look. Actually, even just five years ago…
http://www.archive.org/web/web.php
Note: this archive is cool – IF it works. That seems to be a big if quite often
