This week M&S have reported a 2.8% drop in fashion and home ware sales but maintain that the pilot stores, changed by CEO Marc Bolland, are “performing well” and the roll-out to all stores is due to complete by the end of next year.

We have to ask….is the new layout REALLY working?

check out our last post here http://bit.ly/Ixomqx

read the full details here http://bit.ly/HRCIGL

Some say not, some say that mums and dads are the target audience, and that they don’t care for cowboys and indians. Others say that the kids are still the ones to think about and that exciting images are just what is needed on confectionery packaging.

Time will tell…

Visitors to a blog or site using a tag cloud, are able to easily see the most popular tags within the page – making it easy to discern the topics covered in one quick look. Also called a weighted list. See some here

So how do consultancies tackle international briefs and ensure projects can be tailored  to local markets? and how do you make sure your designs resonate in the country they will launch in?

Recently Holmes & Marchant created a new variant of Philadelphia cream cheese for the UK market – the Philadelphia Cadbury product, which blends Philadelphia Cream cheese and Cadbury’s chocolate. For Germany, however, the cheese will be branded with Milka Chocolate.

Simon Gore, Holmes & Marchant managing director, says, ‘Food as a category is still quite locally orientated. It’s linked to recipes, ingredients and lifestyle – how families eat together and different ways of cooking.’

As well as its base in the UK, Holmes & Marchant has a Singapore office, with a core team of British designers working with designers from India, Singapore and other areas to represent the regions the projects reach.

Gore says, ‘With global brands that we work on, we operate the old “global local” argument about how people organise their brands.

‘At the briefing stage one of the important things to ask is what territories we’re talking about, and that’s strongly related to the target market. We talk about future-proofing brands, which is particularly important for naming and sub-brand names. Taking something across Europe, it’s very difficult to get something that’ll engage on a local level.’

Gore points to the success of Unilever-owned Wall’s Ice cream, which is unified globally by its iconic heart device, but uses a different name for each country – such as Frigo in Spain, Good Humor in Canada and the US, Miko in France and Morocco and Eskimo in Solvenia, Croatia and Austria.

The internet, of course, has in many ways made the world a much smaller place. While UK-based designers can research remotely in the hope of understanding global markets, ultimately, common sense says that actually visiting the places- or sending out representatives will be a far more likely way to achieve success.

Article from Design Week – 13th March 2012

As we all continue to attend exhibitions, trade fairs and conferences in an attempt to showcase our work, we continue to spend money.

This is the right thing to do!

But a great way to turn those pennies into pounds is to opt for a versatile twist system that can be used in a wide range of settings depending on the space you have, the impact you want to make and the impression you want to give.

Twist systems are easy to assemble and come with bags for easy transport. Should you require, twist systems can be provided with hard cases for overseas travel.

Once you have your twist system hardware, a brand overhaul is easy – and cost effective, twist system graphics can be easily redesigned and supplied separately.

At Prime we have designed and produced twist systems for many of our clients, who continue to use them month in month out.

Contact us before your next exhibition and see what we can do!

Prime creative also create exhibition stands on a large scale and offer a bespoke service including attendance at your exhibition.

Not only will you cut printing costs but its an environmentally friendly option too. Go one step further and donate your printing costs to charity!

Our exciting software gives you the opportunity to send festive greetings from your desk, and keep track of who has received and opened your card.

Contact us for a chat about what we can offer… http://bit.ly/fawIeA

Our Drag & Drop editor helps you easily create a newsletter and copy and paste text and images directly from Microsoft Word.

Or, use one of our free templates as the foundation of your design, then simply add your contacts to an address book using our simple and easy import tool,  - the software does the rest.

Naturally we offer that little extra for those who want a bespoke mailer, we can design and build them for you for a nominal fee.

If not use the templates and just pay for mailing which can be as low as 2 pence per mailing.

Build & Design your own HTML emails.

*Increase and organise your opt-in email lists

*Send your campaign and get it delivered

*Monitor campaigns and view marketing reports

*SMS Mailing

“Small businesses can have more fun with their sites, probable more than larger companies who have a corporate image restricting their creativity. A small-business site needs to include something that reflects the creativity and personality of its owner.”

Maybe you’re a couple working side-by-side in a spare bedroom.

Maybe you’re putting yourself through university.

Present this well on your home page and/or an “About Us” section; the way you operate your small business may have unique selling points to customers.

“People want character; it has meaning, a solicitor may not want a site that illustrates that they work from home with a dog curled up nearby or a child asleep. But that may work well for anyone in a creative industry including journalism, design, PR, product design, catering etc.

Customers want to know who you are!

Your website can make the difference of you being credible and a “real” company however small you are.

Read the experts’ top ten important things that customers want to know.

A clear sense of what your company offers

Make it a priority on your home page to provide at least general information about your products and/or services, with links to specifics on a Products page.

Contact information, including a phone number and physical location

This may seem like a no-brainer, but many companies are purposely vague about their location. Some prefer to do all of their business online and see no need to publish an address or phone number. Others are home-based or they worry that giving a street address or hometown will somehow hinder them.

Third-party validation

This means customer testimonials, client lists, case studies, awards and recognition you’ve received, positive news clippings and the like. Potential customers want to know whom you do business with, and what current customers have to say about their experiences

Secure Socket Layer (SSL)

SSL is an encryption system that helps protect the privacy of data exchanged between a customer and a website. If you have an e-commerce site that takes credit card information, customers want to know that their sensitive data is encrypted. Get SSL if you don’t have it. If you do, let customers know that and about any other safeguards you proactively take.

Ease of use and navigation

If people can’t find it, they can’t buy it. Porter advises keeping sites “crisp, clean, and easy to navigate,” but also for site owners to study traffic and usage patterns to adjust their sites based on what visitors are coming for. “The ability to search a site is very important,” he says. “Businesses should study their search data to see if there are trends and what to make front and center.”

Clear guidance on your processes

Let customers know, step-by-step, important things such as how to order–and where to go and what to do should something happen out of the ordinary. Customers also want to know your shipping costs and procedures and how they can get status reports. Last but not least, customers want to know how you handle complaints and problems, return procedures and whether you have a money-back guarantee.

An ability to give feedback

Encourage feedback about your products and services, your ordering process and your site in general, by providing a feedback mechanism–either feedback forms or e-mail links. Not every small business prefers to offer this, in some cases because of resource constraints.

Clear calls to action

Customers want signs or buttons in order to act, be it “Buy now” or “Sign up for our newsletter” or “Click here for more information.” But many small-business sites don’t provide calls to action or they don’t present them clearly enough, Cutler says. “This is one of the biggest things that nags me,” she says. “If you have a captive audience, this is the time to grab them!”

Special offers and personalization

By personalising a sale with a special offer, incentive or coupon, small businesses can gain an edge on their bigger counterparts, Porter says. “This can be as simple as a hand-written thank-you note, free gift wrap services or a special offer for repeat business.

“Having a personalized touch,” he says, “is something small businesses can do that many big businesses can’t.”

Information in this document is from an article on http://www.entrepreneur.com

The next best thing is reading about what our fellow consumers have to say about purchases, whether that is a new frock, a television or dinner in a restaurant.

We read these reviews, compare these reviews and make decisions based on these reviews…..but how genuine are they?

No more pulling the wool over our eyes… http://bit.ly/oCsiJu

Results said that customers found the store difficult to navigate and had trouble finding what they were looking for. Upon hearing this Bolland tested 30 colleagues by asking them to find just five items within the store in under an hour. Only eight completed the task.

This has prompted Bolland to embark on a new way of retail layout in their stores, but we have to ask…are they setting themselves up for a fall?

We all huff and puff when our local Sainsbury’s changes its layout or moves products, not only because it takes us an extra hour to finish our usual shop but because our trolley mysteriously fills up with things that we never planned to buy.

Seeing things that we don’t usually see can spark immediate interest and cause us to become impulsive, not worrying about the purse strings, but suddenly “needing the new and improved, fancy sun dried tomato ciabatta”

Now relate this to your local M&S, if you’re looking for a nice leather overnight bag for your holidays and there’s a big arrow pointing to leather overnight bags, then you will simply buy your bag and go off on your holidays, if however, it takes you some amount of time to find this bag and you happen to see “this seasons hottest beach hat” or “the M&S answer to ‘on trend’ knitwear” then its fair to say that your holiday suitcase may just include a new hat for lazing on the beach and a gorgeous new cardigan for those cooler holiday evenings!

Well that’s mission accomplished for M&S, less money in your pocket and more ringing of their tills, but maybe that won’t be the case with a less complicated, easy to navigate store layout.

Have M&S forgotten the power of browsing and one of the key principles to retail?