First she had botox treatment, teeth whitening, make-up and hair styling. The result was a shot of the modest Claire looking stunning. (*judge for yourself-see the before and after shots below)

It makes it all the more enjoyable when the subject is an ‘ordinary’ person and you see them bloom under the lights as they become more relaxed with camera and photographer. The unpredictability also makes it exciting, with a professional model you know exactly what you will get and to be fair you generally get a good result pretty quickly.
With an ‘untested’ model it is all down to the subject feeling confident in the surroundings and trusting the photographer won’t make them feel foolish or embarrassed. Consequently the shoot takes much longer but the results are often startling and you realise not only that the subject has latent model potential but that they have a naiveté which lends the picture a unique charm-
a potential models first time under the lights can be an empowering experience for the ‘model’ and not having to suffer the diva moments of a professional helps the photographer feel 10 years younger too!

Claire's portrait before she gets the full beauty treatment

portrait of mag editor Claire

a model is born!

However, when the site is done and it has awesome functionality, great navigation, all the connections to social networks, a whizzy visual device to hold attention, a contact on every page twice! and more key words than you can throw a stick , ask yourself this…

Does it help position and differentiate your brand?  Does it provide a platform for you to us the same visuals and messages on your other marketing vehicles, so you have a cohesive campaign across all your marketing activity and  have you planned a campaign of activity to market your new site?

I ask this because designing a website is not simply a graphic exercise demonstrating this years fashions in type and the latest web tools. It is potentially a platform for your whole marketing campaign. Consequently the brand values should be clearly differentiated and the whole website considered in the context of your total ‘marketing mix’.

The marketing mix helps you define the marketing elements to succssfully p0sition your market offering.  Essentially, delivering the right product in the right place at the right price at the right time. To determine the optimum mix, consider the 4 P’s as they are commonly referred to;

Product (or service) Place, Price, Promotion.

The Product decisions involves establishing exactly what the customer wants, which need your product or service fulfills. Place is researching exactly where your ‘target’ looks to find your product or service. Price is determining  the value the customer is prepared to pay for your product and Promotion is where and when can you get your marketing  message across ie via Direct mail, TV, press advertising PR, Web or a combination of all of the above. Get this formula bang on and you have major success on your hands. Get one element woefully wrong and you can miss the boat entirely.

So when you consider the redesign of your website think about differentiating your brand, think about creating a cohesive marketing platform that will work cumulatively, giving your target audience greater opportunity to recall your brand values and buy into your positioning. Think about  all the ingredients in your marketing mix and most of all think about using a Big Stick!!

Kings Road Garage is a Jaguar specialist which runs both a showroom and a service department from it’s Kings Road base. However to create more space Kings Road decided to move it’s service department a mile up the road from the Kings Road showroom location.

This would create space for upgraded diagnostic equipment in the service dept and a larger more diverse range of prestige marques on display in it’s showroom. As a longstanding local business in Berkhamsted they needed to communicate the changes and market their new enhanced facilities.

Solution

Big Stick updated the Kings Road Garage  branding and created a new marketing platform message ;

’It’s not just Jaguars that PURRR at Kings road Garage’ . 

Branding imagery for the new service dept and showroom was created and featured on banners, posters, direct mail and e’mailers to help communicate the key messages. As part of the strategy a new website was created which also reflected the corporate images and messages.

Result

The result is a cohesive brand delivery across all marketing vehicles and a successfully launched new facility

“You can see why they have won design awards, they think outside the box’
MD Kings Road Garage

The brief from The Dacorum recycling team was to create a campaign to promote recycling on their refuse vehicles, which would not only appeal to the public but also motivate the refuse collectors themselves.

Solution

Big Stick used humour based illustrations featuring the refuse collectors themselves on the poster creative.

They were portrayed in heroic situations, all supporting the recycling efforts and asking you to do the same. Amongst the scenario’s shown were  a refuse collector with a rose in his mouth for garden waste, bin men doing the ‘can, can’  (see illustration above!) to promote steel can recycling  (Yes! you can, can!) , and riding a motor bike to jump a wall of recycled cans ( in the style of Steve McQueen in the much repeated film ‘The great escape’).

Results

The refuse collectors felt very much part of  the successful campaign which, achieved excellent awareness in the Dacorum area and boosted recycling figures in the region.

“The Big Stick recycling campaign hit the mark in appealing to our staff and the public, it was a job well done!”

Sheila-Dacorum Recycling team manager

3 Rivers Council wanted to achieve improve on their recycling figures by using poster sites on the sides of refuse vehicles to increase awareness, particularly of food waste but also to encourage the recycling of paper, plastic and glass .

Solution 

A series of impact full images were used deliver astonishing facts about unnecessarily wasted materials.

Materials that could easily be recycled with a little more effortfrom all of us. Big Stick researched the market and found out why housewives, for example, were a little reluctant to recycle waste food… ‘It’s smelly and encouraged rodents!’ they said. However, when we told them that  a third of the food we bought was wasted (remember when you have meals and cook that extra pasta , just in case?) and that if we all recycled our waste food, it would be an equivalent saving in terms of the harmful gases released by wasted food  being  buried in the ground to taking ONE IN 5 CARS OFF THE ROAD. This seemed to change attitudes markedly and consequently was one of our featured poster messages.

Results

The result was a series of informative, entertaining and arresting posters which, stimulated re-evaluations of public attitudes to recycling, Food recycling in particular. Recycling in the 3 Rivers region hit the 50% mark which is one of the highest returns nationally.

“It was refreshing to see so many amazing ideas presented” Marketing Manager 3 Rivers Council

The challenge was to create a website aimed at 13-17 year old school children to help them widen their career horizons and maybe consider Higher Education for the first time. Big Stick were asked to come up with a name and a website design…

.

Solution

The concept was based on kids being able to try on a career for size by entering the “JobPod’ . Then choosing an avatar and answering questions
to focus on the career sector of their choice. Within the “JobPod” were job files describing different jobs, the qualifications
required and the different routes to achieving those qualifications. The avatar characters encourage multiple visits to raise the
awareness of the different career routes available. Big Stick provided literature,  promotional T-Shirts and post- cards to incentivise
school children to visit and compare notes.

UniPod- Advice for University students
This project was followed up with a ‘UniPod’ website which, was to support 15-17 year olds and give them the answers to their questions about University.This was supported with a folder to teachers and individual inserts to copy and distribute to their students in support of the website.

Result

UniPod is now used in schools to explore career choices and the newly launched UniPod provides all the answers to diffident teenagers looking for reassurance before taking the big step into HE.

Create a brand which would get Essex active! Led by Sport Essex the project was to launch a brand that would facilitate people getting back into sport, whatever their age.

 It was to be a new brand created by Big Stick and launched on a website. Big Stick were charged with coming up with a name and design style to apply to the website and supporting literature.

Solution

‘Get Energised in Essex’ was the campaign line created by Big Stick with a slick sporting looking logo!
The target audience were split into groups and the activity levels from ‘gentle’ to ‘competitive’ split across the groups appropriately.
The website allowed people to explore, why they should exercise and how they could fit it into their lifestyle. It made suggestions of new sports
They could try, provided taster sessions to try them and even an interactive map, where you could search for the nearest sports facility which,
covered the support you were interested in. There is even a nutrion page and a sports adviser to give you advice and guidance  to help you get started.

Result

The result was a site launched in Essex with a massive bike ride and a website which helps every age group in Essex find the activity of their choice to keep fit and healthy!

First Class Cars had a first Class service but the literature was a little dated and didn’t reflect
The prestige of the brand. MD Graham Coate wanted to update the brand and
in doing so carve out a distinct
niche for First Class Cars as the number one purveyor of airport ground transportation.

Solution

Big Stick created slick new literature with a layer of gloss and style. Using black , red and silver as the corporate palette
it oozed prestige and quality. Featuring clear benefits of it’s First Class Service and great new photography of it’s cars …waiting on the runway
ready to whisk you off to your destination directly from your private jet.
The design platform was then adapted cohesively across stationery, advertising, e’mailings, newsletters, direct mail and via a website
and online advertising.

Result

The brand is now distinct and recognisable and reflected the correct brand positioning throughout it’s online and off line activity.

As the FCC MD commented;
“The First Class Car brand is now synonymous with first class service!
Big Stick designed some very stylish literature and I have very good feedback from my team and our clients.”

The morning coffee trade had become a highly competitive business in Tring and Berkhamsted and the Akeman and Kings Arms bar and restaurant sites were determined to ensure they got their product and offer bang on to tackle the big corporate brands such as Costa Coffee.
So a plan was devised to
provide 100% fair trade speciality coffee for only a £1 compared to around £2.50 at Costa.
The message was then to be communicated on local posters and on in-house point of sale literature.

Solution

Big Stick came up with a number of ideas to target niche markets who enjoyed coffee mornings, from businessman and women to
housewives and local traders relying on coffee as their morning kick start.
The launch message was a simple cappuccino image with the £1 coffee message written in cocoa powder in the froth.
A simple hard hitting solution, it was then extended to include a housewife and business focused messages.
The series of posters set up a creative platform style to associate with our target audiences in a stylish accessible
way and to make sure The Kings Arms and Akeman got there fair share of the morning coffee trade. 

Results

The result was coffee sales quadrupled, the morning trade became brisk.
Peter Borg Neal the Akeman’s head of Business commented;
“Carl came up with half a dozen highly creative concepts , which captured my message in one hit”
P. Borg- Neal- MD

Business experts Stephen Ellis and Katherine Whymark had come up with an innovative new training game.A game with real life people management scenarios applicable to management professionals, graduate trainees and supervisory teams.

Based around a board game, teams of business people could be challenged with ‘real scenarios for them to respond within best practice people management guidelines.The issue for Big Stick was to create a brand, a look and feel for the board game , it’s packaging and a website to help support  direct sale activities.

Solution

The band was created with a professional, corporate feel and the board designed to appear fun but with the required gravitas of a game aimed at serious business professionals. It was supported by a benefit orientated website and Individual mock ups of the board game.

Result

Big Stick created a well designed brand, which lent itself to an attractive website and

produced individual mock- ups from which, we could generate sales. The initial response has been positive and very encouraging for the future of ‘FeelGood’

Kathy Whymark- Feelgood