Agency Agony Uncle

You can do nothing but then again neither can he and he has to live with it as he gets older and greyer and looks even more ridiculous than he probably does now. I think it’s a bit ‘shallow’ of anyone to think that because a person has a tattoo they may be less than professional.

I mean, look at all those football players; they look like walking billboards and they are so professio…. Maybe that’s a bad example!

You say that this tattoo is very similar to one of your creative chaps, so do we know it is a tattoo and not some hideously contagious skin disease spreading through your agency?

But if you are right; then it might seem a little ‘unorthodox’ rather than unprofessional. After all you wouldn’t expect to see Richard Branson or Duncan Bannatyne with an Eagle in full flight on their backs, although I could imagine the Scottish Dragon with ‘love’ and ‘hate’ on his knuckles!

Your account manager obviously has a creative side that needs to be expressed or some alternative lifestyle you are not aware of – it doesn’t make him bad or bad at his job! Why not introduce a tie or cravat policy for all male members of staff?

But where do you stop? The ladies adorn themselves with coloured powder on a daily basis and I have seen staff looking like clowns, cheap ladies of the night or men in drag – now they do look f***ing awful but what can you do about that, introduce a ‘bag over the head’ policy?

Dear Uncle Carl,

We launched our agency at a time when there were a million and one other start-ups happening, so we picked a name that we thought would help us stand out from the crowd – I’ll preserve our anonymity, but while not offensive, you might call it a bit daft. That was fine at first when we were working with some cool, smaller clients; but we want to step it up and work with bigger and more serious companies and I fear our name may hold us back.

Everything and nothing. It’s not the name that’s really important (trust me I have a business called ‘kloog’!) it is the explanation of the name, the positioning, the proposition, the brand that’s important. And to create a brand takes a long time; many years of consistent message and value building through awareness and promotion.

I don’t care if your agency is called Curtain Pole, as long as you and your offering stand for something and you explain that to your prospects and deliver it to your customers.

Your brand is your promise to your audience. It may be unique to you or you may deliver it in a unique way. You have to figure that out and then reinforce that promise at all the relevant touch points of your audience. And if you don’t have anything unique (most agencies don’t, but that’s a secret so don’t tell anyone) then perhaps it’s the style in which you deliver it that pulls you away from the rest of the Vanilla-flavoured throng.

Perhaps you are not the greatest intellectuals, perhaps you are not sombre and earnest, perhaps you are not cutting edge or highly acclaimed creatives; maybe you are ‘daft’. Perhaps that draws new, young, fun businesses to work with you and you all live happily ever after.

I don’t know what ASDA means or IKEA and I don’t care. I do know what their promise is, their service levels, their style, their point of difference, their enhancement to my lifestyle (sort of) and they live by those values and consistently deliver – you have to do the same. You have probably already invested time, money and some level of emotional equity into your ‘daft’ name. So do you throw it all away and start again or do you dare to be different and build on your ‘brand’? Could be an interesting journey.

Dear Uncle Carl,

I, like most of my PR colleagues, have been immersing myself in the world of Twitter, using it to monitor and interact with leading industry commentators. However, as my community grows I’m finding it takes up more and more of my time. I do not want to be left behind (and my boss encourages our use of this medium), but I’m not sure if it yet justifies such a growing place in my busy day (and night)?

Follow me as I am a Twit’r (carlhopkins) but I have to admit to not knowing why? I was told by, guess who, a PR person I just had to be there. It does become a job in itself. But now I am slightly addicted and even fill in my own 140 words of what I am doing. I have to say, other than stalking your fave celebrity, it all seems rather pointless unless you have a vacuous personal life and no real friends.

It’s a very soft guerrilla marketing tool as far as I am concerned. I have one or two ‘celebs’ following me as I want them to be aware of a couple of charity projects I work on (I do have a heart). I follow a couple of authors as I have enjoyed their books. I follow a bunch of business people as I am in business and they are potentially, you guessed it, customers! If you are using it as part of your marketing strategy then by all means allocate time in the day to tweet your latest campaign message. Otherwise ask yourself; does anyone really care that you’re having a bad hair day or that your pet hamster has died or what your mood is – I don’t.

Dear Uncle Carl,

I recently gave up smoking. While I have been feeling proud of myself, I have been finding work hard, in that I still feel I need to break up my day. Instead of two cigarette breaks I started nipping out just twice a day for five minutes to get some fresh air. No one ever raised an eyebrow at me smoking twice a day, but now people are starting to complain that I am wasting time. Should I take up the fags again? Or am I entitled to my fresh air breaks?

Congratulations, having grown up in a house of three smokers I detest the habit. But ‘Fresh Air breaks’? Do you work in a f***ing aquarium? I would sodding complain too if you kept popping out to ‘breathe’ you prat. Perhaps they didn’t complain when you popped out before as you have that stench around you that most smokers have and they welcomed their own ‘fresh air break’ – from you, either that or they were happy in the knowledge you were speeding up your exit from this mortal coil. I did read recently (therefore it must be true) that people only actually work for 4.5 hours a day anyway and that’s without ‘fresh air’ breaks.

Do not start smoking again as it’s expensive, unsociable and ultimately fatal. Get your backside in your seat, do some work and grow some gills or learn to breathe through your arse, as you obviously talk through it.