Scottish Marketing Association

The new name and identity (the project previously had the working title of the SMART Initiative) will be unveiled tonight at the awards when the Scottish Marketing Association sponsors the event’s shortlist programme, handed out to all 400 guests, and it also sponsors the Marketing Services Company of the Year category.

The Scottish Marketing Association’s new identity has been created and developed by Edinburgh-based design consultancy Redpath after the name was finally agreed upon following the last meeting and numerous discussions.

The Association’s membership now numbers 27 Scottish marketing services agencies and the members met at the offices of BD-NTWK in Glasgow on Tuesday (19 April) to discuss the progress so far and to consider exactly how the agencies can work together to meet its goals and targets.

More than half the membership, 17 in total, were able to make it along to the first full scale meeting of the Scottish Marketing Association with attendees including The Leith Agency, Elmwood, Navigator Responsive Advertising, Red Cell, Carnegie Worldwide, Real PR, Profile Plus, Marsh Data Engineering, Third Eye Design, Tuna, Adrel, Arc Worldwide, Colours Management, Family, Jump Marketing, Lewis Creative and Uist Media.

It was decided that ultimately the most efficient and effective way for the Association to progress and push forward with its plans was to create a number of committees that would each draw on their own specific expertise and work on their own initiatives, in turn ensuring that decisions could be made and action taken effectively.

An executive committee will be formed from a smaller core of members and this executive committee will be ultimately responsible for making any major policy decisions that will affect the Association. These decisions will be based upon input and feedback from the entire membership, which will meet in person every eight weeks to discuss progress.

Running in tandem with this executive committee will be a number of special working groups. At Tuesday’s meeting it was decided that initially there will be four groups, each of which will focus on one area of the Association’s ambitions.

The four special working groups formed include an Online Team that will look at giving the Scottish Marketing Association an effective online presence that will be available to the public looking to gain marketing information and insight. The site will also host a members area where the membership can communicate and trade their thoughts and ideas to move all the SMA’s initiatives forward.

A Design Team was also created to consider how the Association‘s identity should be applied, used and communicated in all of the Association’s activity. This team will also consider how the Association’s expertise can be communicated at the many industry and sector specific exhibitions, conferences and seminars at which the Association will be seeking to gain a presence.

Real PR and Profile Plus agreed to work together as the PR Team, which will put together a realistic communications schedule to ensure the Association’s initiatives and projects are communicated effectively to a wider external audience and that the SMA is also ideally positioned as a source of expert comment, advice and guidance to the media.

A Fresh Talent Team was also formed which will consider ways to ensure that the SMA’s dedication to developing, retaining and attracting fresh marketing talent in Scotland, and to Scotland, remains a key objective. This team will look at developing initiatives, possibly events, at which the SMA can engage with external audiences to demonstrate that Scotland is not only a good place to do business, but also a good place to work on a diverse range of business.

A number of specific initiatives were also discussed at this inaugural meeting, and these will be progressed in the coming weeks by the individual project teams, based on the input from the members. Further details of these initiatives will be revealed following the next meeting of the Scottish Marketing Association, which will take place on Tuesday 14 June.