Together with design agency, rhc creative strategy, I recently had the pleasure of working with Percussion Plus, who manufacture and distribute a huge range of percussion and drum instruments.
Many of these instruments are manufactured at their Market Harborough factory - rightly, a great source of pride: to produce something of high quality and to be able to say 'Made in Britain' is some achievement. Percussion Plus needed to find a way to stand out from the competition (much of it low-cost imports). We ran a Marketing Workshop with the team at Percussion Plus. This uncovered two fundamental truths. First, the manufacturing process, in their own factory, produces products of great durability - in other words, the instruments last a long time and take a lot of punishment. This is particularly important when many of your customers are in the education business, with limited budgets and active children. Second, emotion is hugely important. From the love and pride that go into making the products, to the enjoyment and enthusiasm of the musicians playing them, to the enjoyment (sometimes!) of the audience (including proud parents). This emotion was shared by all stakeholders and was, I felt, the key to a more distinctive positioning. This led us to a communications strategy which can best be summarised by these two copy lines: Instruments that take some beating and the 'strapline' - A Passion for Percussion
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Wearing my 'rhc advantage' agency hat, I have recently had the pleasure of working with Steve McNulty, the founder and CEO of Visbuzz. Steve is a man on a mission: a mission to end loneliness. The subject of loneliness has been high profile of late - and deservedly so.The statistics regarding the number of older people living alone, the lack of social contact that they have - and their feelings of isolation - make depressing reading. 'Hanging on in quiet desperation is the English way', as Pink Floyd sang. Add to this to the educational and social mobility enjoyed by many people in the 40s, 50s and 60s, meaning that they are unlikely to live anywhere near their elderly parents, now in their 70s, 80s and 90s. So, we have on the hand lonely elderly parents, isolated from their busy - and on the other, their guilt-ridden adult children. Enter McNulty - a successful businessman, with an elderly mother himself - and his brainchild, Visbuzz. Visbuzz is cloud-based software supplied to the elderly parent on a tablet computer. All the user has to do is to touch the faces of their chosen contacts shown on the screen of the tablet, in order to hold a video call with them. That's all they have to do - and that's all that the tablet will do. We have worked with Visbuzz to create a brand identity, press advertising, promotional materials and a website. I've enjoyed developing a brand communications strategy from scratch (apart from the name Visbuzz) and writing copy which - I hope - makes the concept seem as logical, attractive and simple as it is intended to be.www.visbuzz.com |
AuthorMark Beasley Archives
May 2021
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