Vision+Media 'pulls' Resign London campaign

‘Resign London’was launched at the beginning of this month and met with widespread criticism by the North West creative sector, including a video of a ‘Missing Persons’ press conference and a pre written resignation letter for London creative sector employees.

Following the criticism, Carey was forced to defend the campaign and explained its origins and the reasoning behind it.

“I personally feel this is a shame, particularly given the importance which the Steering Group placed upon this issue,” commented Carey in his email.

Come Home from Resign London on Vimeo.

As well as this, Carey revealed that no new training programmes will be launched by the organisation as a result of a lack of funding, while the work being undertaken by a group into growing the client base within the region will also cease.

Carey went onto to ask the group whether a full Steering Group should be convened to review the status of sector support and review potential solutions.

A spokesperson for Vision and Media denied that the ‘Resign London’ campaign had been scrapped completely, saying that the web page would remain live, but they also admitted that elements of it were under review and that sections would be ‘tweaked’ based on feedback.

They added that despite the mainly negative feedback, there had been positive elements to the campaign, claiming to have seen an increase in traffic driven to agency websites from London IP addresses, as well as a rise in job applications and enquiries since the campaign began.

As for future training, it was explained that funding for training came from the NWDA and that current ‘strands’ were being ‘wound down’, with ‘more discussions’ still to be had on the subject in future.

The NWDA was hit with a budget cut of 18% (£52 million) last year as part of the spending review implemented by the coalition Government.

Vision+Media will become a founding partner of new development organisation Creative England later this year.

THE VISION AND MEDIA EMAIL TO THE CREATIVE SERVICE STEERING GROUP IN FULL:

Hi All,

I wanted to update the Creative Services Steering Group on the status of the various strands of support activity which you have helped direct us to undertake over the past twelve months on behalf of the sector.

As most of you will be aware, this activity was funded by the NWDA, and as a result of its impending abolition no further funding will now be available for these programmes beyond this financial year. This means bringing them to a close at the end of March.

You will recall that following on from the piece of research which we commissioned, ‘Creative Currency’, we decided to pursue specific areas of support to the sector to address identified problem areas or barriers to growth;

Business

This strand was aimed at supporting business development with the sector and helping companies identify and develop in to new markets. We have run a number of programmes which help increase opportunities and routes to new markets including Get in the Game, hooking up agencies with Sony, edu:pitch, looking at opportunities to supply to the education sector, perfect pitch, looking at the music sector and our IPTV project looking at the future of broadcast and interactive TV. We also ran Fast company again to look at helping businesses raise finance and prepare themselves for investment.

Skills & Training

This strand was aimed at ensuring that there is sector specific and high quality skills and training provision for the sector and effective links between higher education and industry, particularly given the dynamic nature of the market. This was rolled into our various cross sector Skills programmes, including the work they have done with Hyperisland as well as placement and apprenticeship schemes. Due to current funding, no new training programmes are being launched in the foreseeable future.

Client

The aim of this strand was to look at the regional and national client or potential client base and promote awareness of the strength of the sector to them. This group completed a lot of work helping to establish a supply chain and putting together initial thoughts on how to educate clients by providing a step by step guide to briefing and finding agencies which could be distributed nationally strengthening the North West offering. Unfortunately, again this work will have to be brought to a close because of funding cuts.

Talent

The Creative Currency report identified a shortage of certain key talent, specifically senior account managers [and digital programmers]. The Steering Group agreed to a marketing campaign to help attract senior level talent to the region, particularly those who may have left the area earlier in their careers for job opportunities in London . With the help and support of the Steering Group we set a brief, shortlisted and chose the agency to develop and deliver the campaign. This was always going to be the most controversial element of the programme and risked alienating some of the existing high calibre talent in the region. However, this was considered to be a serious issue for the sector and one worthy of investment.

As you are aware this campaign came under fire when it was launched in the region and this agency in particular bore the brunt of considerable criticism. It was always the intention that this was a campaign by industry on behalf of industry and this is why the Steering Group were asked to lend their full support and backing. Without this it would only be seen as a heavy handed and unwanted intervention. Unfortunately, we have not had this backing, and therefore made the decision to pull, or at least for the foreseeable future postpone any further promotion of the campaign. . I personally feel this is a shame, particularly given the importance which the Steering Group placed upon this issue.

I’d be happy to discuss this or any of the other issues in this update with you. I’d also like to know whether you think it would be useful to convene a full Steering Group meeting to review the status of sector support and look at potential future solutions. As I said earlier, our funding is currently very limited but we would be very happy to help look at options and we can update you on future developments with Creative England, the new creative industries support agency, which will be established later in the year and which Vision+Media is a founder partner.

I look forward to hearing from you.

Regards

Enda