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Ask any creative what ad campaign they’d love to work on and a car or a beer campaign would probably get their vote. If only voting for an MP was that easy.
Enter politics. Now, this can be a minefield topic and one close to many people’s hearts. We at 360º are no strangers to the political advertising arena thanks mainly to the relationship we have forged with the Independent on Sunday, call it a coalition for want of a better word.
 The Independent on Sunday For the past few years, we have supported and supplied the IoS with a few political ad campaigns to whet the appetite of their readers and help raise some of the topical issues of the day. Whether, that has been straightforward party political advertising ideas or specific policy agendas, we have thrown ourselves into the political arena.
So, why do we do this? After all, we don’t get paid for it and we (creatives) work out of hours to do it. Well, that’s a good question and we will try to answer it like any good politician would. Now let us make ourselves absolutely clear and we think we have in the past; we believe in adding value in every area of our business and we want to improve the lives of everyone we represent…blah, blah, blah… Look, it’s just great fun. It’s an opportunity to flex some creative muscle and spin ideas that get gut reactions. It helps sharpen creative thought and gives everyone in the agency a chance to be creative – jobs for all. And, it’s a drug. Once you start doing these projects, you can’t stop.
Not only that, you learn something. I’m not sure we, as a collective, knew a great deal about the detail of the referendum planned in May for the Alternative Vote. Now we do.
So here is how it worked. We got a call from a journalist about a week before publication. He apologised for the short notice but to be honest, impactful advertising fairs better when time is of the essence. We grabbed the brief and the first available lunchtime and headed for the pub.
Get a few people in a pub with a bottle of wine and a few packets of crisps and you’ll be amazed at the productivity. This might be a good time to mention discipline. No, not where the wine or nibbles are concerned but where the ideas come from. With a brief that requires you to take a number of perspectives i.e. from all party point of views, you have to put your own political persuasions to one side to do this well. In fact, you have to sit on both sides of the fence and see the arguments from every political standpoint.
The brief was simple.
Should we change the way we vote in general elections?
Currently we run a (FPTP) First-past-the-post system which means whichever candidate gains the most votes, gains the seat; everyone gets one vote and that’s that. The grumbles come from the minority parties and the Lib Dems. They argue that a candidate can win a seat with less than 50% of the returned votes. In other words, the majority of voters didn’t want he or she to represent them in parliament.
Therefore, on May 5th, there will be a referendum asking the nation if they want to change to a different system known as (AV) Alternative Vote system. This gives the voter more than one choice. You can, if you want, vote for more than one party but must put them in order of preference. In the event that no one candidate receives 50% of the votes, the party with the least votes gets knocked out but their voters’ 2nd, 3rd or whatever number of choices they had get added to the other parties. This carries on until one party goes over the 50% target.
Our ideas
 AV could create a popular but potentially weak government.
 AV could take people even longer to cast votes. Chaos could ensue.
 Dave and Nick may not be on speaking terms if AV gets the vote
 AV will ensure politicians work hard for their seats.
 Is AV one expensive makeover this country doesn’t need?
 ’Not like that, like that’. There is no magic answer Nick. See, simple. There were quite a few angles we could approach; everything from the cost to taxpayers for changing the electoral system or putting a drawing pin on a safe seat to the division this referendum would cause to the coalition – Tories are keen to keep things as they are but the Lib Dems want to change and this whole issue was a key bargaining weapon for them when forming the coalition with the Tories.
 You can view all the ideas published by The IoS here. For us at 360º, it was just a case of taking the different propositions and create strong ideas for them. It didn’t matter what we believed was right in terms of electoral reform; it was just the concept that mattered.
Mark
Helen Giles a HR specialist with particular focus on the charity sector, has raised some provocative issues regarding the employment tribunal process in a Times Opinion piece 4th January and again when interviewed on the Radio 4 Today programme 5th January. She writes:
“A major concern that perhaps hasn’t come out strongly enough is that the government is embarking on some major initiatives in an endeavour to stimulate the economy, reform the welfare benefits system and get long-term unemployed people back into work, and to achieve social improvement by involving community groups and charities in setting up and running social enterprises, locally run/free schools and so on. But the degree of employment regulation/employment law that has been introduced and the way that this law is administered by the Employment Tribunals system as it stands poses a major obstacle to achievement of these aims because of the costs and risks involved for employers in employing people generally, and particularly if they make the mistake of employing the wrong people, which is a very hard mistake to avoid all of the time.
In a nutshell, the issues are:
- The Employment Tribunals framework was set up in the 1960s as a simple and cheap means of jurisdiction in employment disputes. It has evolved into a complex system of legalised extortion, extremely costly to both employer and state (another unnecessarily heavy drain on public funds at a time when savings have to be found).
- The Coalition Government clearly has some inkling that there is a problem whereas the previous administration refused point blank to accept any need for a review, claiming that any reform of the system would lead to workers oppressed by hard-hearted employers being deterred from seeking remedy. Noises have been made about increasing the qualifying period necessary to claim unfair dismissal from one to two years’ continuous service. But this misses the point that many of the most vexatious, costly and troublesome cases are taken under one or other of the heads of discrimination, for which no length of service is needed – age, sexual orientation and religious and philosophical belief were added to sex, race and disability. 38,310 discrimination claims were lodged last year. It’s free to lodge the claims but employers have to pay legal fees from the moment they receive notification of the claim.
- The elaborate pantomimes that the law forces employers to play out when trying to deal with an employee’s poor performance or conduct for fear of a claim being made is severely restricting efficiency both in public and private services.
- Every year the volume of ET cases filed goes up exponentially – over a quarter of a million cases accepted in 2009-10, an increase of 56% over the previous year - so that the system itself can’t cope and in busier parts of the country it took 18 months for cases to be heard. Only 13% of these were successful in court. Two thirds of claims are settled out of court, sometimes because the employer has done something wrong or procedurally unwise but more often because the costs of fighting, irrespective of the weakness of the employee’s case, are prohibitive. The HR Director of a Housing Association recently told me that for the cost of fighting a case, which they won, they could have built three new family homes.
- No-win no-fee lawyers are shamelessly inciting people to submit claims on flimsy grounds because they know they can bully a settlement out of the employer on the eve of a case being heard, however weak the employee’s case. They know employers and their insurers (if insured) would rather pay out £25,000 for the employee to go away rather than £50,000 or more to fight the case in court, even if they are almost certain to win the case.
- I recently ran a Business Link seminar for small business people on how best to protect themselves against the perils involved in employing people. One participant told me that many of his small business-owning friends employ illegal immigrants cash in hand because although the penalty if caught is an unlimited fine and two years in jail, they see this as less risky than having workers on the payroll who are likely to exploit their limitless rights.
- It is going to be tremendously difficult for the Government to achieve some of its key policy objectives unless it undertakes a wholesale reform. The long-term unemployed about to be reintroduced to work constitute a massive risk for employers liable to have claims made against them when they try and part company with those who don’t work out. And the Government wants charities to play a large part in bringing about the ‘Big Society’, but charities always have to have some paid staff and the smaller ones are groaning under the burden, expense and risk involved in complying with an employment law system that has become so far skewed in favour of the employee, largely because there is absolutely no financial disincentive to pursue weak and opportunistic claims. Moreover, it is just very difficult to run an efficient workplace when employment law encourages people to present themselves as victims of bullying and discrimination whenever the employer justifiably tries to tackle their poor performance or behaviour.
- I have practical ideas of how reform can take place, for example every claim should be subject to a desktop assessment in precisely the same way as insurance lawyers have to certify the employer’s case as having more than 50 per cent prospect of success before they will underwrite it. Where the employee’s case is deemed as having less than 50 per cent prospect of success they should be advised that they will have to pay the employer’s costs if they insist on pursuing it. There are many others, including lawyers, who have all manner of practical suggestions. The general principle is that claimants must be made to bear costs if they lose cases.
- I have many true life astounding tales of the nonsense that gets entertained by the ET system, and the real costs to the organisations involved.
- Employment regulation more broadly is set up to undermine organisational efficiency. For example the TUPE (Transfer of Undertakings Protection of Employment) Regulations means that a service (say a social care service) often fails because the staff are so bad, yet when the service is re-tendered all the bad staff have to go with it, and the rest of employment law makes it really difficult to get rid of them. Or the regulation which states that when redundancies are being made, a woman on maternity leave has the automatic first right to any job that remains. This means s a poorer performing employee has to be kept in preference to a high performer just because the former has had a child. Or the ridiculous procedural lengths that have to be gone to before dismissing an underperforming employee – typically it takes a year or more to go through all the hoops before dismissing someone, so that employers often pay poor performers massive sums to go away – sometimes 100% of salary whereas in a typical performance related pay scheme the most someone can hope to earn as a bonus for exceptionally good performance is 10% of salary.”
Helen continues
“Statistical evidence, such as it is, can be found in the most recent Employment Tribunal Stats. There is no measurement in these or any other stats that I know about of the amount of time that is wasted by employers on dealing with workplace grievances leading up to claims, nor of the amount and sums of settlement paid to stop people lodging a claim in the first place. This information would need to be collected through interviews of a cross section of size and types of organisations in all sectors. Bigger businesses fare best because they can afford to pay people to go away rather than entering into the months’ of effort and toil involved in ‘fairly’ dealing with an underperformer, non attendee or bad behaviour. And see, for example, the Telegraph article from 3rd January about the £600,000 that the BBC forked out in the last year to settle claims, having had 33 of them.”
Finally, a resounding endorsement of her opinions comes in the form of a letter in today’s (5th January)Times from an ET judge of 22 years’ standing, who gives yet another level of analysis on how the system is not working as it is intended.
“What started as system of quick informal justice for workers at a time when there was no real protection from arbitrary dismissal has mushroomed into a bureaucratic and hideously complex quagmire of procedural and legalistic niceties, based partly on an enormous increase in statute law”
Helen Giles is Managing Director of Real People part of the Charity, Broadway Homelessness and Support. Real People’s award winning HR team delivers a comprehensive HR consultancy service.
www.broadwaysrealpeople.com
We just had a call from a women whose husband had been informed that he had an interview for an Admin job with RBS.
Using our name (360) he was informed that to help his interview he could obtain a full job description for £2.00 payable by credit card. Despite his wife’s concerns he, obviously being unemployed and keen to get a job, gave over his credit card details. Luckily his bank phoned him to query why £200 was going to be debited to his account and the transaction was stopped.
These fraudsters were using our company name. Under no circumstances would we charge candidates for job information or for arranging interviews.
Be warned!
A newly published research report from PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC)
states that the cost of replacing a competent employee equates to around a year of that individual’s yearly salary. They say that this is an estimation of the costs associated with lost productivity, lost skill and the cost of replacing and training new staff.
The report predicts that UK businesses are losing around £42 billion each year due to lost talent and that the UK trails other economies in terms of staff retention levels (UK 10.4%, US 7%, Germany and France 5%)
Richard Phelps, Human Resources Services Partner PwC comments: “With many companies eager to maintain or grow staff levels as the economy starts to recover, it is crucial they consider the full costs of losing staff through resignation. The need is particularly pressing given that many employees who sat tight during the downturn may now be looking for new opportunities elsewhere”
Investment now on positive employee engagement and promoting your employer brand will clearly have an impact on your longer term retention levels with the potential to achieve significant savings. Here at 360 Degrees Advertising we are working with a number of clients on developing their Employer Brand and Employee Engagement strategies.
New agreement means a Midlands office for 360
I am very pleased to announce that agreement has been reached to acquire the business of specialist education advertising and marketing agency – AdsFab, from its shareholders – the University of Warwick and the University Advertising Consortium. 360′s existing education business 360 Education will join with AdsFab’s business to form 360Adsfab, to become the leading advertising and marketing agency for the education sector, providing a range of services covering recruitment advertising, course marketing, student acquisition, employer engagement and brand development. Clients of the new Agency include, Imperial College London, University of Warwick, Durham University, Essex University and University of Hertfordshire among others.
Located at the University of Warwick Science Park, 360Adsfab will also provide a Midlands office for 360 Degrees Advertising, adding to our existing London and Thames Gateway locations. Clients seeking a Midlands resource now have the option of a local service provision, under the Direction of Agency Director Mike Pickering and his team.
The new Midlands office underlines 360′s commitment, in these challenging economic conditions, to deliver insightful, creative and cost effective advertising, marketing and communications solutions.
Our new Midland office address is: 360 Degrees Advertising, Agent Court, Sir William Lyon Road, Coventry CV4 7EZ. Tel: 0247 6573888
Roger Juniper, Chairman
Apparently there is a direct correlation between the length of women’s skirts and the economy; the shorter the skirt the better the economy. Isn’t it time to be proactive and take the economy into our own hands – perhaps we can influence change by wearing shorter skirts? Obviously, in the interests of equality, men should wear shorts (although the effect on the economy hasn’t been proven where men are concerned).
Here at 360 Degrees Advertising the idea has been put forward and is awaiting approval!
If you have any other recession busting ideas that are printable let us know.
Anon
Last week, David Cameron revealed the government’s decision to cut public sector jobs in an attempt to bring the country out of its current £952 million debt. By 2014, this debt has been calculated to rise to a whooping £1.4 trillion, a serious problem that is going to reap serious consequences.
The solution is to be a raise in tax and a cutting of government spending, including the axing of up to 350,000 public sector jobs. These jobs have always been renowned for their security and for many working in the public sector; the full impact of the recession will not have been felt until now. Is any job ever safe and what should be our concerns when looking for a suitable career?
This axing of jobs has been met with surprise and outrage by many but why? Looking back throughout history it is evident that social change has often affected jobs; creating them, dissolving them and changing them. In trying to solve this country’s debt problem, changes are again going to have to be made.
Due to social change the textiles industry, for example, lost its importance within British industry and had dissolved within two decades. In 1850, this industry had made up 60% of Britain’s exports. In 1959, The Cotton industry Act was introduced in an attempt to help modernize and amalgamate the industry. In fact, it resulted in thousands of job losses and by the 1980’s had signified the extinction of the textile industry in the North West.
 Miners Strike, London 1984 Under Margaret Thatcher, both the Mining and the Steel industry suffered many job losses. After 1984, British mines were gradually closed and British steel merged with Dutch steel in 1988. Thatcher believed, ‘no government can do anything except through people, and people must look to themselves first’. Privatising industries in the eighties meant that many people became unemployed and although some of these industries have since been nationalised, it is fair to say that in a life time, most will experience the effects of a recession.
History then leads us to question whether we should be training ourselves for just one career or whether we should be trying to obtain many qualifications, to secure ourselves against redundancy. With the Internet becoming more prevalent in society today, it is quite plausible that many more jobs will be lost as society adapts to social change and to technology’s more efficient and speedy service.
Graduates today are having a real problem. Many employers expect evidence of an individual’s commitment to working for a certain industry and work experience is often vital. For example, students that obtain a law degree, studying for a vocational course for a minimum of three years can leave university and have no guarantee of employment, even with respective work experience. In such a competitive society, it is not effective to be suitable for different industries; it is imperative to be focused and trained for one career path. However, from studying history we can see that this is becoming increasingly dangerous in an atmosphere where even the public sector is experiencing a cut in jobs.
Tanya
The Newport Housing Trust (NHT) create housing and lifestyle solutions for the over 60’s. They approached us in June 2009 following a recommendation from another of our housing clients, needing a new corporate identity.
With an ambitious corporate strategy, NHT had plans to expand and develop their business and felt their brand needed to reflect this standpoint.
NHT threw their doors open to us and we spent a few days with key stakeholders, including a variety of staff from all parts and levels of the company as well as valuable insights and opinions from NHT residents.
We conducted interviews and focus groups followed by a tour of the housing stock. We were invited into a home of a rather keen resident who showed around their property. All of this helped us build a clear picture of who NHT were and where they wanted to be.
The next stage was to throw everything we had learned around to build our own strategy to support NHT’s goals. This began with visual and word mood boards which became the starting points for very rough – and I mean very rough – logo designs. So rather than show you lots of scribbles that resemble a psychiatrists exercise, here are a few we did later.
 Early logo designs Designing a corporate ID is a journey of exploration. Not only is it important to develop something that best represents the company, you also need to ensure it works in one colour, through a fax machine, at teeny-weeny sizes and is loved by the Chairperson’s other half. So we kept going…
 These designs formed part of our first presentation back to NHT.  This rainbow design was becoming a clear favourite. All the above were created because of what people had said or said they wanted for the company. And with a company that listened to the residents, we held presentations back to the residents who had kindly taken part in the focus groups.
Now things were becoming interesting. We had a clear favourite but it had to be agreed by the board as well as Resident groups. We had to refine the design and show how it would look across a range of stationery and other print materials.
 Final Logo  Tenants Handbook Cover Once we had a logo and design style signed off, it was essential we put in place a set of guidelines to help NHT produce internal communications that were consistent and a true reflection of the brand values. These were concise and helped give clarity to a new brand that now sits firmly at home within NHT.
 Section of Guidelines
 Section of Guidelines  Section of Guidelines As with any new brand, questions will arise and we at 360 are always available to help and advise NHT employees as to how to adopt the guidelines in practical situations.
Mark
What do I do now? This is the question on many graduate’s lips. Exams are well under way, perhaps over, for many of 2010’s finalists, yet the hard work is only just beginning. Many of this years graduate’s will be considering further education or a gap year due to a lack of jobs and a lack of guidance on how to find them.
Before graduation, a student’s life is focused on obtaining the best degree possible. However, recently it has come to light that having a good degree is not all you need to achieve a good job. With so many people graduating from university, a degree is almost becoming worthless. Now experience has also become very important, along with having a ‘unique’ quality to set you out from the standard Joe Blogs.
 Graduation day Many graduates will have never had a clear idea of what career path they want to take. Being sociable, hard working and intelligent many young people can feel potentially valuable to many different companies and industries. However, on graduating it can be extremely difficult to even secure a job interview. The real problem is where to begin? What is important to a graduate looking for a job?
A good wage is obviously very important. With debts often over £20,000, a scheme offering a quick fix to money problems is invaluable. Job security is another crucial factor when looking for a first time employer. Companies with a reputable name are often used extensively on graduate job sites and are more likely to attract ambitious finalists. Obviously benefits and potential to advance within the company or industry are very important to new graduates looking for their first job. As when finding a first house or choosing a potential partner, finding your first ‘real’ job is going to be a daunting and important decision.
Milkround, Targetjobs and Prospects are just a few examples of companies that aim to aid students in their quest of finding the perfect first job. They are extremely helpful, offering advice on CV writing, interview technique and how to best use personal skills, yet they still have a long way to go in attracting students to use their services. With so many possibilities for graduates, companies would benefit from joining graduate jobs fairs, to appeal to students whilst they are still studying their degree. An employee who really believes in a company and has worked specifically towards obtaining a job for such, is going to be an invaluable worker and likely to help the company achieve their future aims.
Of course, another potential way for companies to secure graduate interest would be to enter the domains frequented regularly by students. Social networking sites, such as Twitter and Facebook are the ideal examples. Sending an invitation to become a ‘fan’ of a company or to join a group, takes seconds to reach thousands and recruiting students to be ambassadors, especially if paid, has proven to be extremely successful in procuring student interest.
Students have young, vivid and vivacious minds and with so many school leavers going to university and obtaining a degree these days, it can only be beneficial to both employer and employee to work for, and with, someone that each truly believe in. Our new, naïve graduates need nourishment and guidance to achieve their full potential, but are employers really doing enough?
Tanya
Towards the end of 2008, we were asked to design and develop an employer brand for RCT Homes. The brief was challenging, budgets tight and timescales set in stone. We couldn’t wait.
Now, 18 months on, I thought it would be interesting to take a look back at what we achieved and to give people the opportunity to see what can be accomplished through clear communication between a client and an agency, to reach and better still, go beyond expectations.
At 360º, our philosophy is get to know our client and their needs from day one. We give them a complete brand health check, prodding and poking every part of the business. Sometimes it tickles and sometimes it hurts but by the end of the examination, we know how it ticks and what needs to be delivered.
In RCT Homes’ case, we spent precious time with key stakeholders – everyone from directors to tenants – to highlight the good, the bad and the indifferent about the existing brand. We were introduced to a new set of values and the vision RCT had created, and it’s worth noting that RCT had already been working hard to promote change. So, with hours of video interviews, pages of notes and every piece of existing collateral under our arms, we were in a position to develop the messages needed to build a confident, trusting and focused brand.
 Spidergrams were used to work towards a clear proposition. Thorough and honest investigation is the best way to achieve a clear and strong proposition. We use a proposition to hang every piece of communication on so that everything is consistent and supports the values at every opportunity. We eventually settled on Built on Trust. Now, this proposition isn’t a headline or indeed a line that would appear on any work. It’s role is to act as a barometer for the creative team who use it to give them guidance as they explore avenues to best promote the values of RCT Homes and build the brand.
In terms of straplines, the strongest line of all was We’re better together. This underpinned the objectives of the values as well as being a positive, and inspirational mantra.
We used existing print material to create new designs and developed templates and brand guidelines to show how the look and feel reflected the brand. At this stage, the team had to think clearly about the needs of RCT Homes; how the materials would be used and what the tone of the communication should be. Designing a brand for a diverse workforce needs clarity and a quality that everyone feels comfortable with, notwithstanding the fact that it must all be trusted and embraced as a long-term plan and not a flash-in-the-pan initiative.
We developed a graphic device to represent the coming together of the company. This device would link sets of words as well as being a symbol of positivity, something that was at the heart of the objectives.
 Linking words with the graphic 'plus sign' So, how does it all come together? Below, you’ll see the manifestation of our work for RCT Homes, from the guidelines through to print and internal design communications.
 A few pages from the Brand Guidelines  Vision and Values pack
 Vision and Values Booklet with each value explained.
 Wallet sized Vision and Values fold-out
 Launch event
With the launch completed, our next task was to start producing internal literature and looking at how we create an office environment that mirrored the brand.
 Print material, New Starter Pack  Print material Internally, we have designed branding for the offices that encapsulates one of the RCT Homes values, namely Bold by using key words to use as decals on the office windows. This acts as an impactful reminder to staff of messages that will inspire and galvanise them.
 Office Decals  Office Decals  Reception Decals Unlike many projects we work on, a branding project like this can only be successful if it is maintained. If you like, it’s a living thing and it needs to be fed and cared for in order for it to thrive. We have a responsibility to support RCT Homes to ensure the brand remains in the detail. So everything from HTML emails, internal posters and any employee scheme needs to look and taste like the brand. The brand needs to adapt to change, change that might come through initiatives or necessity. The proof that a brand is working, is when you only notice it when it’s not there.
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