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Six months have passed since you began working with your new communications firm. And while they started out strong, they seem to be falling down from time to time on simple things. You’re starting to second-guess your decision and question whether you’ve selected the ‘right’ firm.

What should you do?

Imagine…you’re one of 4 children. You’re constantly on edge because your mom or dad continually compare and contrast what you do over and above your siblings (and vice versa). Their expressed love, approval and financial support depends wholly on how you’re perceived within the family. Would you ‘play fair’ as a child in this household, or seek every opportunity to self-promote and also detract attention and accolades from your siblings? Human nature would say that the later would be true.

This is also true of clients wishing to retain multiple agencies. For marketing agencies to ‘play fair’ toward a collectively shared integrated campaign goal and step away from selfish posturing, clients must first foster an environment which promotes it. Rules must be set upfront and client-side marketers must be unified and consistent in disciplining and rewarding agencies toward enforcing the rules. Insecurity and perceived untapped opportunity motivate marketing and communications firms to posture for a larger slice of a client’s budget.

Since 2004, every agency that I’ve worked for/with was in the midst of developing their own bespoke client asset management library. They’ve had various bells and whistles and each worked in different ways, but all with the same basic purpose: to efficiently share out brand assets (logos, etc), guidelines, etc. And there have been loads of software development firms who offered this type of package to big brands, as well (SmartPath being just one example), but with big annual subscription and/or customisation charges to match. Loads of marketing agencies and marketing departments spent major money on building their own asset management systems or on customisations for off the shelf solutions. And many of the systems weren’t the most intuitive.

Now, we’re excited to see a new UK start-up on the job. Brand Regard is a seemingly simple cloud-based solution. But it, and other cloud-based brand asset libraries like it, will make it much easier for smaller brands to keep their multiple agencies, partners and employees ‘in the know’ and using the latest marks, copy, photos, etc. As we’ve seen lots of brands move toward a roster approach and away from single integrated firms, this could be the ‘basecamp solution’ for asset management for marketing departments within SMEs.

Over the past few months, we’ve been questioned many times regarding what’s an appropriate answer for the ‘corporate tone’ ask as part of our project brief template. Given the frequency of the question, we thought others may find our long-form answer helpful. This is the third of a three-part series written by our resident copywriter Danielle, outlining our pointers for capturing your corporate tone. If you haven’t yet caught the first or second instalments, of course, link to those first.

7. Evolve

Over the past few months, we’ve been questioned many times regarding what’s an appropriate answer for the ‘corporate tone’ ask as part of our project brief template. Given the frequency of the question, we thought others may find our long-form answer helpful. This is the second of a three-part series written by our resident copywriter Danielle, outlining our pointers for capturing your corporate tone. If you haven’t yet caught the first instalment, please find it here.

In this series we focus on how to create a successful brand profile. You can find the first three steps in our previous entry below.

A friend makes the best cupcakes in the world. Ok, maybe I’m exaggerating…but I’ve certainly sampled my share of these golden and delicious pillows of goodness and consider myself of discerning taste. Hers are incredible cupcakes. And they’re just as beautiful as they are delicious. So, chatting with her a few days ago, I was surprised to learn that she’s struggling to sell her covetable cakes.

This conversation with my friend made me again realise a lesson I’ve learned over and over again (though sometimes, even I, choose to ignore). Start-ups must be brave in asking for help when they need it.

Many brands that we speak with are suffering overwhelm. Social media has changed the way they need to operate. They’ve previously hired interns to handle social media, but have found that social media’s such an important aspect that they need someone with a bit more worldly perspective to generate good, worthwhile content. Meanwhile, loads of journalist friends are finding themselves in a new world. No longer employed by news outlets, they’re having to find jobs in the business world and suffering a bit as they don’t feel that they can be as objective and independent as they were once able to be.

Increasingly, we’re seeing journalists take (oftentimes invent) posts as client-side social media content developers; a perfect marriage which fruits impressive results. And, what’s more, this client-side role is easily done as a freelancer, allowing journalists near-complete autonomy. A recent post floated up on Stumble Upon along this theme.

Advice for technology start-ups by Cordy Griffiths, UK General Manager, Ballou PR (www.balloupr.com)

According to some counts of late, there are over 16,000 marketing and communications agencies in the UK. And as someone who spends most of every business day speaking with, reading about and selecting agencies to be put forward for client briefs, I’m continually disappointed by how many marketing agencies neglect marketing themselves.

I find myself in conversations with clients daily to the tune of ‘Believe me, they’re a good marketing firm with talented people onboard…they just aren’t great at marketing themselves.’ How sad.