Lucy Kamall is PR director of Character Communications and organiser of the Wood Awards
The Wood Awards are now an established brand and design competition that opens the world of wood and timber products to all.
It has taken time to build the profile of the Wood Awards, but the calibre of projects they now attract and the media interest they receive make it the leading competition in Europe which recognises and promotes outstanding design and craftsmanship in wood.
Last year the Awards attracted a record 318 entries, the winners ceremony in London’s Carpenters’ Hall was a full house, and the value of coverage it secured in national and regional press, architectural and design media, in print and online exceeded £500,000
The timber industry is disparate by nature, with a huge variety of manufacturers, suppliers and specialist contractors offering a vast range of species and added-value products. The Wood Awards were created to demonstrate the range of timber applications this huge diversity allows. They have grown into a highly-respected platform which gives the entire timber industry a shared voice, a way of getting our message out to architects, specifiers, designers, clients and contractors, and meet their growing demand for information.
The Wood Awards have become an inclusive competition of the highest calibre and a true celebration of wood in buildings and furniture, attracting the best in the business, not only in terms of entries of unique and stunning craftsmanship and innovation, but also expert and internationally renowned judges. And as we build, grow and evolve the brand, the appeal broadens and increases. Last year, for instance, saw greater interest than ever from architecture and engineering students, excited to discover the limitless potential of our modern, sustainable, innovative, technologically advanced (and ancient) material.
The Wood Awards also take the message on potential timber solutions to architects, engineers and designers, leading by successful example to increase awareness and grow the market. The Awards supplement issue, was also distributed to 30,000 readers of RIBA Journal, with the digital version going to a further 65,000 professionals.
With the economy and construction industry headed for continued improvement in 2014 and Sunday Times architecture critic Hugh Pearman stating that timber is "the progressive mainstream", the more successful we can make the Wood Awards, the wider the market for the timber industry. It provides a myriad of support and profile-raising opportunities for companies that get involved (and is also open to as much support as the industry can offer it!). And, even with the disparate objectives each business has, the Wood Awards additionally provide an opportunity for the sector to present a united front. So now is the time to pass on the word and encourage customers to enter, and for you to use commercial support of the event to underpin your expertise and generate new business.
Anne McDonald is director of AM Communications
Like it or not, there’s no getting away from corporate slogans. They’re used across all promotional platforms including advertising, signage, websites, literature, packaging, stationery, promo goods, uniforms, vehicle livery… and so on.
Here are a few from the timber industry:
- Growing the use of wood – TTF
- We’re Good With Wood – Crown Timber
- A Tradition of Innovation – James Jones
- Home Grown Timber at its Best – A&J Scott
- The Leading Authority on Wood and Timber – TRADA
A good slogan is a valuable promotional tool, saying or implying something about the essence of a company and, sometimes, its products, in a uniquely memorable way.
And while a good slogan is only one element of an integrated sales, marketing and PR approach, it can be very effective. See if you remember which companies used these famous slogans:
- It’s the real thing
- Good with food
- Don’t leave home without it
- The best a man can get
- Just do it
- Between love and madness lies Obsession
- Because you’re worth it
- Does what it says on the tin
- The ultimate driving machine
- Probably the best lager in the world
Bet you did pretty well – the companies are: Coca Cola; the Co-op; American Express; Gillette; Nike; Calvin Klein; L’Oreal; Ronseal; BMW; and Carlsberg.
Corporate slogans imprint your brand name in people’s minds. Ronseal was a small player until that slogan in that 1994 campaign. Now it’s a market leader and the phrase has entered the language and indeed the Oxford dictionary of idioms.
A good slogan must be short, memorable, focus on the customer and can be witty, eg. Carlsberg’s "Probably the best lager in the world". It may or may not mention the product. Nike’s "Just do it" is one of the most successful slogans ever and doesn’t say anything about the product. Good slogans are often aspirational eg. BMW’s "The ultimate driving machine" and many are gender or demographic specific eg. Calvin Klein’s perfume slogan "Between love and madness lies Obsession." Sounds like a stalker’s charter to me, but I’m probably not the demographic! Slogans can, and I would argue should, evolve with time, as the market and customer expectations evolve.
A corporate slogan is also a daily reminder to staff, management, customers and suppliers what a company is about. To develop a good slogan a company must therefore have a clear idea of what it stands for and how customers see the brand.
What better way to start a new marketing year than to look hard at the essence of your company and what your slogan is saying to your customers about you. I’m sure you’ll find it useful!
Camilla Hair manages public relations for SCA Timber Supply and is a CIPR-accredited practitioner and a member of the Investor Relations Society
Your company’s good name – its reputation – affects everything you do, from your access to capital to your ability to recruit good quality people, or to see your business through tough times. Reputation is central to staff relations and also to supplier and customer interactions. Building and maintaining a company’s reputation among those who are key to its success is the function of public relations.
Relationships are at the heart of everything we do in our personal lives. They are just as essential in a business context. If you’re debating how to improve the quality of your operations, make a spider diagram of all your relationships, including trade associations you belong to; regulators; your bank and/or investors; suppliers; the local community from which you recruit; your current staff (and their families – often the key influencers of retention or performance); environmental organisations; customers, and through them, the wider market for your products. Each group may have a different picture of your company: being honest, is that picture good, bad or, potentially worse, indifferent?
Assessing these perceptions shows which relationships need the most attention in order to engender or restore a level of trust that enables you to function effectively. Building trust between your business and other groups requires engagement and an exchange of views, not simply unidirectional pushing out of information. PR practitioners create two-way dialogue, listening to incoming messages and helping you to respond appropriately.
Businesses undertaking their own relationship management often worry the most about media relationships. The ‘brave new world’ of bloggers, tweeters and Facebook-users only multiplies concerns about regular communication. Yet essentially these new channels have the same needs as professional journalists: appropriate, timely, accurate information with sufficient depth of context to understand your motivation, news and business ethics. Creating good relationships and trust between your business and professional trade journalists, such as the team at TTJ, should not be worrisome. They are part of their industry, and have its best interests at heart. They also take personal pride in their output.
American business magnate Warren Buffett is quoted as saying: "It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it. If you think about that, you’ll do things differently." If you feel unsure how best to audit relationships, create dialogue or maintain a correct perception of your business, then seek out members of either PRCA (the Public Relations Consultants’ Association) or the Chartered Institute of Public Relations (CIPR), who operate under accountable codes of practice. CIPR-accredited practitioners are also committed to continuing development, thus ensuring you’ll receive the most current advice.
Alison Relf is a director at Taylor Alden PR & Marketing
"Words are, of course, the most powerful drug used by mankind," said Rudyard Kipling, while Frederick R Barnard noted that "a picture paints a thousand words".
Since the dawn of time, words and images have remained the fundamental elements of effective communication. From ancient wall carvings to quill and ink missives; from the telegram to the email; and from the child’s first storybook to War and Peace; they all rely on words and/or images to convey a message.
While the myriad vehicles we use to transport words and images are changing at remarkable speed, keep in mind these uncomplicated basic tools and you are halfway to making sure your message is being understood by your target audience, no matter how confounding the journey may seem!
Whatever your business, arm yourself with a team that can produce words and photos or videos about your activities. Your factory, a great project, your products, your team, your fleet, your musings on the industry; these all make worthwhile snippets of information which today’s marketing vehicles can use in so many different ways to tell your target audience about you and your company. Responsibility could be given to internal members of staff or an external professional team or, ideally, a mixture of both. The key is to produce a regular flow of information.
Content – today’s buzzword is what today’s communication is all about. Yes, words and images. It really can be as simple as that. Produce enough of it, via an in-house team or a professional, and today’s channels will use it so that, however your customer likes to receive information, you have it covered.
Once you have the "content", you can choose the vehicles you want to employ depending on business objectives, marketing plans, and budget. The list is long – media articles, customer newsletter, websites, advertisements, billboards, vehicle livery, YouTube/your video channel, Twitter, Google+, LinkedIn, Facebook, Pinterest, bloggers, on-line literature… They are all there ready and waiting for your content and it needn’t cost a fortune.
And a final consideration: think about how you feel about the narrator when you read a piece of badly-written text or a spelling mistake, a muddled website, or a blurred, poor quality photograph. Take time to get these basics right.
So what’s new? What’s changed? It’s still as simple as ABC!
Louise Matthews is a director at Technical Marketing & PR
It’s not uncommon to start the new year with fresh enthusiasm and the determination to "really get marketing working for you this year". In reality this kind of approach often fails to deliver the required (and expected) results for a number of reasons.
In some cases it’s because of constant changes in direction. A new year does not necessarily mean the need to completely change your marketing tactics. To coin a phrase: "If it isn’t broken, don’t try to fix it." This is particularly true in an age where social media is on the up as a "most wanted" solution in the marketing mix.
If social media isn’t currently part of your planned activities, then be wary of getting caught up in the mantra "We have to be on Twitter". Pause and ask yourself "Why?" If there is a strong justification, such as Twitter is the most effective channel for communicating your message to a specific customer or prospect audience, then that’s the green light to start planning how you will use this channel.
Another reason the "New year, new marketing" approach often fails to deliver is because fresh drive and enthusiasm don’t always have enough momentum to carry strong ideas through to effective implementation. When changing anything in a business, one of the most critical success factors is ‘buy-in’ from the whole team – and this is just as true for marketing.
Sales and marketing are inextricably linked, which means marketing strategies should not change without consideration, and ideally consultation, as to how this will interface with sales processes.
That aside, according to Einstein the definition of insanity is "Doing the same thing over and over again but expecting the same results." If you’re not getting the results you need from marketing activities, then they need to be reviewed and changed accordingly. But don’t wait for a new year for a new start – it’s never too late or too early to make sure your marketing really is working.
