For many small business their website is the key element of their marketing strategy. So I am often surprised just how poor some of these are. One of the worst consisted of white text on a bright red website which meant I couldn’t look at it for more than a few seconds without hurting my eyes.
So as well as emphasising the importance of a blog in bringing in visitors, I always encourage people to get a professional looking website that matches their product or service.
Dana Elemara’sArganic website is an excellent example of how to use high quality photos and illustrations along with consistent page design and text fonts.
Which brings me to Sarah Warsop the British Library’s jewellery designer in residence. My colleague Fran Taylor our Marketing Manager for Creative Industries has been helping Sarah to discover inspirational collection items in the library.
My job has been to help Sarah develop the business side of her creative activities.Her previous website was more focussed on her dance practice and her other creative projects. She wanted a site that would be easy to setup and maintain, and to better show her amazing jewellery designs. And of course I suggested she include a blog.
So I was really excited to see this week that she had taken the plunge and moved to a new site using SquareSpace. In my opinion the result is simply stunning. http://sarahwarsop.com/
A whole half-page story in tonight’s Evening Standard about a firm who have been creating poor imitations of Disney blockbuster films.
Brightspark Productions Ltd (not to be confused with Brightspark Studios who have updated their homepage with the message below) have been forced by the courts to destroy their infringing films.
The law of passing off prevents one person from misrepresenting his or her goods or services as being the goods and services of the claimant, and also prevents one person from holding out his or her goods or services as having some association or connection with the plaintiff when this is not true.
In this case parents were buying DVDs such as Tangled Up and Braver below, and finding their children were disappointed with the films inside the cases. They didn’t come close to the Disney level of quality of storyline or animation.
Brightspark’s managing director Jeremy Davis seemed relatively unrepentant when he said: “I really believed no one in their right mind would buy Braver thinking it was Brave. It was on sale for £2-something in Tesco. You’ve never seen a Disney title for anything near that. I obviously wouldn’t want any kids upset, but the feedback we get is our titles are cheap and cheerful.”
Last night on Radio 4 Robin Hunt – Reader 170890 gave his very personal take on his ‘office’ The British Library. It was a lovely little programme which gave a real insight into how our readers, or customers as I prefer to call them, feel about my place of work.
Needless to say the producers of the show couldn’t resist using the oldest and lamest library cliché in the world in their title SSSHHH! (The Best-Read Office in the World).
I was pleased to hear that Robin managed to make it across the (academic) divide from Humanities to Sciences and included an interview with one our earliest Success Stories in the Business & IP Centre. Adam Pritchard spent six months researching his PomeGreat business which first made an appearance on the shelves in 2003, and since then has expanded rapidly.
“Foremost in the minds of its creators was the obsession with creating a great tasting drink, which sounds obvious now, but so many others have made the mistake of assuming people will drink anything if they believe it’s doing them good!
In order to get the taste we wanted, we had to become experts in pomegranates, where to find and harvest them at their best, how to press them to preserve all the goodness in the juice, and how to blend them to create the PomeGreat drinks that so many buy today!
Being able to include PurePlus across our range is just another step in bringing the very finest products to you.”
As always happens in business, success breeds competition, in this case from the supermarket own brands. So Adam has recently re-branded PomeGreat moving it up market and using some creative television advertising.
It has been quite a summer in Britain this year, and I’m not just talking about the weather.
First we had lots of celebrations and events to mark the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee. The biggest was the rain lashed Thames Diamond Jubilee Pageant, with 1,000 boats assembled from across the world. Once again the Telegraph cartoonist Matt (left) summed it up perfectly.
Then we had the London 2012 Olympic games, closely followed by the Paralympic games (not ParaOlympics as some thought).
In keeping with the business nature of this blog, I’ve been keeping an eye out for memorable memorabilia for these three ‘once in a life-time’ events.
I think my favourite has to be the Ma’amite jar adapted from the long-standing Marmite brand. It’s a bit cheeky, but not too disrespectful of the Queen. And it seemed to find favour with supermarket buyers, as it seemed to appear in everywhere during June. In case you bump into her Majesty, you will need to remember it’s pronounced Mam as in Jam, not Ma’am as in arm.
A rather less respectful, but also best selling product was the Diamond Jubilee Sick Bag. This was a natural follow up to graphic artist Lydia Leith’sunusual souvenir to mark the royal wedding between Prince William and Catherine Middleton in 2011. There is a strong tradition of not taking those in power too seriously in the UK, so it was not such a surprise to see this novelty item become something of a best-seller.
I actually prefer the Waving Queen toy, whose solar power handbag meant she would give a proper royal wave whenever the sun came out. I was given one as a present, so took her on holiday to France where she made a great impression on the local gendarmes. We were even given a formal salute, and a french accented ‘God bless her Majesty’, as we drove through a police road block in Normandy.
I think my least favourite item has to be from the Royal Mint in the shape of these specially produced five pound coins. For some strange reason they have chosen a particularly grumpy looking Queen to go on the back (or is it the front). By the way, how do you call heads or tails, when the coin has only heads?
Moving on to the London 2012 Olympics we have a rather motley set of memorabilia.
Anything that is encumbered by the dreaded 2012 logo is damaged goods as far as I am concerned, even if I have not been taken in by the ridiculous Zionist conspiracy theory.
Thanks to the post games sales, I managed to pick up a Wenlock for a knockdown price, so am now in possession of this slightly scary cyclops.
You can read the background to Wenlock and Mandeville on Wikipedia. I tend to agree with the critic claiming that the pair were the product of a “drunken one-night stand between a Teletubby and a Dalek”.
I have to admit I haven’t seen any of these for sale, but the Olympic Condoms story is too good to miss.
Apparently 150,000 free condoms were given to athletes participating at the London Olympics, which is 50% more than at the Beijing Games in 2008. That works out to 15 condoms for each of the 10,500 competitors who stayed in the Olympic Village.
If you fancy an umpire’s chair or other more practical souvenir of the games such as a super-long bed, just visit Remains of the Games website.
I have really struggled to find any specific Paralympic souvenirs, so I think I will have to go with the knitted Adam Hill. Adam was the host of The Last Leg, the surprise hit TV show of the Paralympics.
A fan of the show decided to create a knitted Adam Gamesmaker and to auction it on eBay for charity. Thanks to extensive use of Twitter on the show, the auction went viral and when last heard the bid price had exceeded £30,000.
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Postcript:
It seems as though I wasn’t the only one to be worried by Mandeville and Wenlock. Although on the positive side perhaps my £2 purchase above will be a collectors item in the future. How Mandeville and Wenlock derailed Hornby.
According to Wikipedia Argan oil is a plant oil produced from the kernels of the Argan tree. It is found in Morocco, and is valued for its nutritive, cosmetic and numerous medicinal properties.
Argan oil is one of the healthiest and rarest oils in the world coming from the UNESCO protected argan tree. Often nicknamed ‘liquid gold’ this oil was the Berber people’s secret for centuries
It takes approximately 15 hours and 30kg of fruit to produce just 1 litre of argan oil. This lengthy process involves skilled handwork that has been passed down from generations.
In late summer the argan fruit ripens and falls to the ground where it is gathered. It is then laid out in the sun to dry. To make the oil, the dried outer fruit is first removed, then, using traditional artisanal techniques involving stones, the seeds are extracted from the hard inner shell.
Up to this point everything is done by hand, furthermore it is only women involved and this employment provides not only a good source of income in a poor region but an opportunity for them to gain independence. The process is governed by cooperatives who also give these women access to free education, and use some of the profits of the argan oil trade to benefit the local tribes and communities.
The seeds are then cold pressed to extract the oil. Nothing is wasted in the process, the fruit pulp is fed to cattle and the leftover seed pulp is used as fuel. At Arganic we have strict controls at every stage of production.
Dana had attended a couple of events and courses at the Business & IP Centre, but is still relatively new to the library. But it sounds like we have already been of help.
‘I trademarked my name only after being aware of it through the free IP seminar at the British Library and it was one of the best things I could have done at the start of my business as I have come across and won IP issues since.’
Here is her story:
Dana had heard about argan oil through relatives that were raving about it but found it difficult to get hold of in the UK. It was then that she decided to leave her mathematical and corporate background behind and the idea for Arganic came about. Luckily Dana had friends living in Morocco who put her through to the right people and the more she learned about this oil the more she fell in love with it and the important social impact it plays for women in Morocco.
Update
I’ve just received this exciting update from Dana:
What a lovely post, thank you so much. There have been so many things happen since we last met, details on my last newsletter here, including TV appearances. Also last week my argan oil won a gold award from The Guild of Fine Foods, and today I found out that I won a Shell Livewire Grand Ideas award which gives me £1000 and free PR. They said I achieved the highest points in my category, and am now in the run for Young Entrepreneur of the Year which is announced in November. So I am extremely pleased right now.
I am still visiting the library and recommending the business centre constantly.
Most of the inventors and entrepreneurs we help in the Business & IP Centre realise that it takes hard work and patience (and some luck) to become successful.
I have often seen him working in the Centre, and for the past couple of years he has been giving me regular progress reports on his patented invention. These updates have been an alternating mix of positive and negative news, as hurdles appear and then are overcome. Or amazing opportunities arrive, but then disappear again.
Throughout this roller-coaster of events, Alistair has remained positive, and bounced back from setbacks (an essential ingredient for an entrepreneur). He has also taken a flexible and pragmatic approach to commercialising his invention (another necessary requirement – but sadly rather too rare for inventors).
For the last few months I have been waiting for permission from Alistair to talk about his invention on my blog, and now he has given me the green light. I am excited because Playback Rewards has the potential to be our biggest success story so far, by far.
Alistair started working on his ideas for revolutionising television advertising at the Centre at the beginning of 2009. He filed his first patent later that year, which was granted in February 2011. He then worked for months, almost on a daily basis at the Centre, developing, researching and refining the commercialisation of his invention.
In late 2010 Alistair ran out of money for his patent. But managed to persuade Stephen Fry to put in a little to keep the project on the road. As you can see from the video Stephen recorded ???, he liked Alistairs’ ideas and wanted to help. Then on Christmas Day 2011 his company was mentioned in an article in the Sunday Times.
Five months later Playback Holdings Ltd won a place in the semi-finals of the CISCO BIG awards, where it stands the chance of winning $100,000 for the business. Alistair feels that which everyone should know about this amazing programme.
As part of his entry for the CISCO i-prize competition Alistair has made a video Magic in your pocket which explains how the service would work.
On 6 July Playback Holdings Limited starts its Series A fund-raising via an Financial Services Authority (FSA) approved crowdsourcing platform called Seedrs. This innovative investment method allows ordinary people to invest between £10 to £100,000 in any of the start-ups on its platform.
The full story behind Playback Rewards, and where they are going is on their website www.playbackrewards.com.
I have been lured over to this new venture on numerous occasions, despite the relatively high prices compared to traditional fast food outlets. But the food has always been worth it, with a notable spicy burger which had a real bite to it.
As was pointed out during this weeks Apprentice episode, branding is a key element of any enterprise, and some of the stalls in Eat Street certainly have memorable names. My favourites are Daddy Donkey, Well Kneaded Ltd, Yum Bun, Hardcore Prawn, and Eat my Pies.
However, I think that Tongue ‘n Cheek needs to find a way make its delicious sounding underrated meat cuts and Italian inspired street food treats, such as Ox cheek with caramelized onions and polenta, a bit more accessible given the queue size I observed the other day.
These names certainly compare favourably to the Apprentice team’s choices of Gourmet Scot Pot and Utterly delicious Meatballs.
Update: August 2012: I’m now a regular at Eat Street as their days and stalls expand all the time. I’ve just had probably the best burger I’ve ever tasted from Tongue ‘n Cheek. It was their Heartbreacker Original burger, made from Ox heart and dry aged beef burger, spicy chimichurri sauce, water cress, cheddar and sour cream. And it tasted amazing.
Another fantastic event this evening with a range of inspiring women entrepreneurs and their stories.
The event was chaired with great warmth, energy and humour by Emma Jones who launched her first business at age 27, and successfully sold it two years later. In 2006 she launched Enterprise Nation as a website to help anyone start and grow a business from home. The company has since expanded to offer online services, publications, events and finance to small businesses across the UK. Emma is also co-founder of StartUp Britain, and currently acting as the campaign’s chief executive.
As co-founder of shopping website notonthehighstreet.com, Sophie Cornish has won many prestigious awards including the ECMOD Direct Commerce Award for the last three consecutive years and the Online Retail Award Prix D’or 2010. They now host over 2,500 businesses on notonthehighstreet selling 40,000 different products.
They came to the British Library Business & IP Centre early on to look at trends in Internet retailing. And worked hard on their business plan to the extent that they new their numbers inside out. Sohpie emphasised that creating a brand is the key challenge for any business.
Her tips were:
Own your mistakes
There is no silver bullet
Hard work is your unique selling point
Cash is king
From helping her parents prepare samosas for the English pub they ran, to setting up her own food business The Authentic Food Company in 1985, Kamal Basran indulged her passion for cooking authentic Indian food and opened a small business supplying local catering establishments with hand-made samosas and other Indian snack food.
Today, the company has over 240 employees and has a turnover of over £31 million. The company are supplying many of the UK’s top hotels, pub chains, restaurants and retail outlets with the range of quality international cuisine.
When Kamal started out in business, she was a full-time teacher, settled in a comfortable lifestyle, married with two children. While out shopping she saw some ready made samosas, but once home discovered they tasted horrible and threw them into the dustbin. This was the trigger for starting her own business. She had no idea how to start, but wonders in retrospect if this is perhaps the best way.
She began making 600 samosas a week, and grew the business to over a million meals a week.
Her tips were:
Number one priority was to organise her children.
Then, learn how to do everything yourself (nothing is too menial).
Finally, don’t listen to other people (especially your parents!)
Her reasons for success were:
Target your market
Grow gradually
People – 25 nationalities
Products – are the best quality
Customers – we love our customers
Rosie Wolfenden and Harriet Vine are the founders of Tatty Devine whose distinctive fashion designs have made them brand leaders. In 2011 they had a boom year, with a £1 million turnover and kick started 2012 with opening a Selfridges pop up shop which launched their new silver label. The two London Tatty Devine boutiques are located in Brick Lane and Covent Garden.
They are independently run and design every piece, 99% of the jewellery is made by hand in their workshops (based in London and Kent). Their custom-made jewellery has been worn by everyone from Claudia Schiffer to Jessie J.
They are very proud of producing their own book on How to Make Jewellery.
In the last two years they have started letting others in to their business, such as developing a new website, to enable them to concentrate on the jewellery.
Christina Richardson is founder of The Nurture Network the UK’s first on-demand marketing department for start-ups and entrepreneurial growth businesses. Christina has spent much of her career managing and growing FMCG brands worth in excess of £100 million.
Now she and her blue-chip trained team, work flexibly across multiple businesses – being their marketing expertise, part time or for specific projects – calling in creative specialists from their network as and when they are needed.
Her tips for new businesses:
You need to give yourself the strongest foundations you can. Be distinctly different by playing a different game.
Define your brand by being clear on your ‘onlyness’. Think about who your brand would be if it were a person.
Test your brand out with real people.
Have a vision, but with numbers. Know the future you want to create.
And for existing businesses:
Marketing is everything that touches your consumer.
Always think consumer first. Choose which group will be your most valuable customers. This will inform your marketing chooses.
Plan with the end in mind and be objectives driven.
Use everything you can do to spread your brand
Bootstrap and collaborate
The evening closed with a lively question and answer session followed by some serious networking until closing time.
I have to admit I was a bit worried about the Spring Market as we have had some very mixed weather recently (it is cold and wet as I write this), so we were very fortunate to have a warm sunny day for the market. I popped down to have a look and say hello, and ended up buying some of the wonderful items on display.
The first stall I visited was Cole of London founded by Sarah Cole. Sarah designs colourful mugs that are a contemporary take on age old themes. Featuring figures from history and illustrations. Her mugs feature English monarchs, great writers and the wives of Henry VIII. She has used the Business & IP Centre to learn about copyright and research the ceramics market.
Next was SquidLondon, who I have mentioned before (SquidLondon brighten up a rainy autumn day). Rather than go for one of their best-selling line of colour changing umbrellas, I plumped for a ‘Miss Squidolette’ Shower Curtain which comes to colourful life each time the shower is turned on. It makes a great gift for anyone with young children who might be reluctant to ‘get wet’.
Next came Ruby Red Cosmetics founded by Martine Burford who is passionate about ethical cosmetics, and her skincare range contains no synthetic chemicals, fragrances or dyes, and has not been tested on animals. She makes all her products locally in London and they are beautifully packaged .
The idea for Ruby Red grew and grew during the 18 months sabbatical Mike and Martine took in 2005. We had given up our high flying jobs to travel around South East Asia and spent a lot of that time with the locals, discovering effective natural apothecary remedies for keeping skin looking healthy and glowing.
The happy ‘punters’ at the fair, seemed to be a mix of British Library staff (showing what good taste they have for innovative products), and visitors to the library who got a nice surprise on their way in to do their research.
All the stall holders I spoke to said they were getting a lot of interest, and sales, so I am hoping this might be first of many such events at the Library. Congratulations to Fran Taylor our Marketing Manager for Creative industries, for masterminding the Spring Festival.
We were also lucky to have Buzz Films present during the week and posting several excellent short clips onto Vimeo.
Fran Taylor Marketing Manager for Creative Industries
For many small business their website is the key element of their marketing strategy. So I am often surprised just how poor some of these are. One of the worst consisted of white text on a bright red website which meant I couldn’t look at it for more than a few seconds without hurting my eyes.
