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Paper Fortress – 2009 – 2011 Reflection
January 16th, 2012 By greg Filed Under: Interesting, Weird and Wonderful
THE MALEVOLENT MOUSTACHIERS
November 22nd, 2011 By greg Filed Under: Everyone, Interesting, Weird and Wonderful, The Mighty Mash Family
Boys and Girls, we are in the thick of Movember, quite literally! After last years huge success we were chomping at the bit to donate our top lips for a ridiculous look…all in the name of chari-dee! But what a worthwhile cause it is. Prostate Cancer affects thousands of men in the UK and the awareness generated by Movember is growing each year. You might have seen the likes of Gary Linekar and the MOTD boys sporting some rather dodgy facial hair but, rather than simply let our taches raise awareness, the boys at Dylan (our awesome sister company) and Mash’s own Joerg decided to go the extra yard and, through a partnership with the Wilkinson Sword Men UK facebook page, decided to showcase characters inspired by said top lip ticklers. What you’re about to see is an homage to Pilots, Cowboys & Mexican wrestlers, amongst other creations. You can keep up to date on the Dylan Mo-Team’s progress on their Movember page and even make a donation to the team for this fan-tache-tic cause!
Mash Movie Night
September 28th, 2011 By greg Filed Under: Interesting, Weird and Wonderful
Last night saw the inaugural Mash Movie Night at the wonderful Garrison Bar & Restaurant in London Bridge. The evening kicked off with team-wide celebrations of a fantastic year as well as some specially selected anecdotes about the office Mashers from the year gone by. Some a little too ‘adult’ to print here so you’ll need to ask us yourselves when you call in…!
After some fantastic snacks, it was down to the serious business of the Mash Movie…and boy did we kick off with a bang!
Wasteland is an immense film/documentary -
“An uplifting feature documentary highlighting the transformative power of art and the beauty of the human spirit. Top-selling contemporary artist Vik Muniz takes us on an emotional journey from Jardim Gramacho, the world’s largest landfill on the outskirts of Rio de Janeiro, to the heights of international art stardom. Vik collaborates with the brilliant catadores, pickers of recyclable materials, true Shakespearean characters who live and work in the garbage quoting Machiavelli and showing us how to recycle ourselves”
We highly recommend!
http://www.wastelandmovie.com/
We cannot wait for Mash Movie Night Part 2…
What can you do with one hand?
August 18th, 2011 By greg Filed Under: Interesting, Weird and Wonderful
Throughout the Summer, our fantastic team of Brand Ambassadors and Street Artists have been touring the country welcoming the world to the new McDonalds Deli Wraps.
Rather than your standard sampling campaign, we thought we’d put a bit more oomph and theatre to things with a fantastic combination of BA’s, Football Freestylers, Acrobats, Magicians, Street Dancers and much much more…
Special thanks go to our 2 UK-wide Event Managers; Frog and Alex Wetham plus our Videographers, hit-squadders and last but certainly not least, the quite tremendous street performers of Streets United.
FROM THE MASH FIELD TO OFFICE GLORY…
April 11th, 2011 By greg Filed Under: Brand Champions, Interesting, Weird and Wonderful, Uncategorized
We return to our weekly installment of our top Mashers who after representing us in the field are now displaying their talents at Mash Towers.
Each of our featured Mashers are fantastic evidence of where you can get with hard work, professionalism and no little fun…
Having already featured Seb Haire, who heads up the Digital team in our sister company Dylan. May we introduce to you, our very own Natasha Harden.
i) Why did you like working in the field so much for Mash?
I loved being a Brand Ambassador for Mash. The roles I was offered were always for great brands; and the briefs given by Mash always made you feel passionate about that brand – and therefore the activity. Mash always work on amazing campaigns and you could guarantee to be in an optimistic, hardworking team. Plus everyone in the office were always so friendly, they really made you feel like part of the ‘Mash Family’.
ii) What do you think makes Mash stand out from the rest of the promotional staffing agencies?
From my experience, there is a clear difference between a team of Mashers compared to any other promotional staffing agency I’ve worked for, especially in terms of staff excellence and top organisation. With Mash, you know that everyone is striving towards the objectives of the activity and each person will pull their weight in achieving these. For another agency I worked for, the Event Manager allowed smoking in branded uniform; longer break times for their ‘mates’; and a general lack of care and attention to the activity.
iii) What could Mash do even better?
This is a hard one to answer…I think something that could potentially help both Mashers and Account Handlers is an availability calendar on Moogle. Although you can add an absence, it tends to only be used for holidays, not when working on other jobs etc. It would save Mashers and Account Handlers time calling each other to check if they are free.
iv) “I’m not a politician but if I was………
I would make everyone listen to Glee everyday!
v) “You now know me as a Masher/Dylanite but in another life I’d have been…….”
A princess if I had the choice…but seriously I would love to be a midwife! It’s something I’ve always wanted to be but chose the business route…and very glad I did or else I wouldn’t have ended up working for a great company like Mash!!
vi) “In a nutshell my philosophy is….
‘Dance as if no one were watching; sing as if no one were listening; and live every day as if it were your last’…cheesy but true!
The new middle class: 6 people marketers need to know
March 22nd, 2011 By greg Filed Under: Interesting, Weird and Wonderful
A new study gives fresh insight into the growing proportion of consumers who describe themselves as middle class. Its findings are critical to brands, writes Gemma Charles of the Marketing Magazine.
It was John Prescott, the former deputy prime minister, who said in 1997: ‘We are all middle class now.’ It seems that Prescott was ahead of his time, as a survey published this week reveals that 71% of the British population now believe they are, indeed, middle class.
Of these, just 7% say they are ‘upper-middle’, 43% opt for ‘middle’, while 21% identify themselves as ‘lower-middle’. Even old-Etonian Prime Minister David Cameron, a descendant of William IV, recently described himself and wife Samantha, daughter of a Baronet, as middle class. It appears there are no limits to the membership of this group.
The study of 2000 adults, ‘Speaking Middle English’, conducted at the end of 2010 by research company BritainThinks, is an attempt to plot the shape of today’s class system. It tracks people’s opinions across a range of factors that are critical to marketers.
As well as identifying social group demographics, respondents were shown a list of 100 brands to identify their preferences. Questions were also posed regarding ‘brand/company/organisation that people I admire would use or associate themselves with’, and opinions on statements such ‘I’ll often spend extra money to get the right brand’.
Source of debate
BritainThinks co-founder Viki Cooke says the number of people describing themselves as middle class has hit a high. ‘In the 90s, many people defined themselves as working class but aspired to be middle class. Now a large proportion have achieved their aspirations.’
The research splits the middle class into six segments: Bargain-hunters, Daily Mail Disciplinarians, Comfortable Greens, Urban Networkers, Deserving Downtimers and Squeezed Strugglers.
While customer profiling is central to most marketing departments, marketers are split on the merits of responding to the burgeoning middle class.
Steven Sharp, executive director, marketing, at Marks & Spencer, who participated in a panel debate at the report’s launch this week, says this segmentation offers ‘great value’.
‘It is clearly wrong to treat everyone as if they are the same person, but it’s also not possible to speak to everyone individually,’ he explains. ‘Segmenting based on their lives, attitudes and actions at least gives a credible way to maximise relevancy of the message.’
Jim Slater, marketing director of Costa Coffee, a brand favoured by ‘Urban Networkers’, has doubts, however. ‘Brands like ours have detailed customer data and real-time behavioural analysis, making segmentation models based on panel data seem like a comparatively blunt instrument.’
He claims that, with more than a third of the UK’s adults visiting Costa in any three-month period, his audience is a broad church. ‘We don’t believe it’s appropriate to pigeonhole customers along the lines of social class,’ he argues.
While Saatchi & Saatchi strategy director Richard Huntington ‘hates segmentation lumping people together with silly names and pen portraits’, he believes this research has worth. ‘Unlike most segmentations that just focus on brands and lifestyle, this has a political element, helping us get inside people’s minds and work out their motivations.’
Debates will forever rage about the relevance of class in the UK. Nonetheless, with so many consumers now identifying themselves as middle class, it’s a trend that marketers would be unwise to ignore when it comes to campaigns and NPD.
1 BARGAIN-HUNTERS
17.4% of population
24.3% of the middle class
8.1m adults
- More likely to be aged 35-54
- More likely to be women
- Read the Daily Mail
- Believe they have lower income than other middle-class people
- Have fewer holidays
- More likely to vote BNP
- Very concerned about kids’ future
- Like Britain’s Got Talent and take-away food
- Don’t like TV documentaries
Agree
- Always on the hunt for a bargain
- Would rather take on debt than cut back on spending
- Don’t have the energy to be active in my spare time
Brands
Like Tesco, eBay, Muller
Don’t like Visa, John Lewis, Sainsbury’s
2 DAILY MAIL DISCIPLINARIANS
15% of total population
20.9% of the middle class
7m adults
- More likely to be older (73% aged over 45), and male
- Read the Daily Mail and Telegraph
- Financially secure, with significant savings
- Expect their children to go to university
- Like watching TV and taking foreign holidays
- Don’t like volunteering or takeaway food
Agree
- Britain is a soft touch for immigrants
- Parents are too liberal nowadays
- People who talk about the environment are boring
- Less motivated by brands
Brands
Like Virgin, Cadbury, Sainsbury’s, BA
Don’t like L’Oreal, Channel 4
3 COMFORTABLE GREENS
12.7% of total population
17.8% of the middle class
6m adults
- Older (66% aged 55+, 44% retired), likely to own their home.
- Watch Antiques Roadshow and Strictly Come Dancing
- Active in their community
- More interested in foreign affairs
- More likely to vote Lib Dem
- Like reading books, watching TV, gardening and walking
- Don’t like fast food or talent shows
Agree
- Worried about the ‘lost generation’ of young people
- Buy everything from ethical and environmental brands
- Think about food provenance
Brands
Like National Trust, Waitrose, Marks & Spencer, BBC Radio 4
Don’t like Sky, Coca-Cola, Asda
4 URBAN NETWORKERS
12.5% of total population
17.5% of middle class
5.9m adults
- Younger (79% aged under 45), with young families, or single
- Urban, working full-time
- More likely to describe parents as upper/middle class
- Volunteer at kids’ school
- Watch US drama on TV
- More likely to have a pay-monthly mobile account
- Like takeaways and The X Factor
- Don’t like Six O’Clock News or Strictly Come Dancing
Agree
- The internet changed my life
- Online networks are a great way to keep in touch
- Very motivated by brands
Brands
Like Apple, Costa Coffee, PizzaExpress, Porsche, Sky
Don’t like None – they are very pro-brands
5 DESERVING DOWNTIMERS
8.1% of population
11.3% of middle class
3.8m adults
- Older, mainly retired (57%)
- More likely to own their home, be a graduate, have substantial savings
- Take more foreign holidays
- Frequent National Trust visitors
- Read The Daily Telegraph
- More likely to vote Conservative
- Like reading, gardening and natural history TV programmes
- Don’t like fast food, US dramas or The X Factor
Agree
- The burden from Britain’s financial problems is being spread equally
- Being a good parent is about setting boundaries
- People expect the government to do too much
Brands
Like John Lewis, Marks & Spencer, BBC Radio 4
Don’t like Asda, easyJet, Coca-Cola
6 SQUEEZED STRUGGLERS
5.8% of the total population
8.2% of middle class
2.7m adults
- More likely to be female and single parents
- Less likely to be graduates
- Less likely to read a newspaper
- More likely to vote Labour
- Like watching TV, especially US dramas and soaps
- Don’t like gardening
Agree
- It’s a struggle to make ends meet
- I want to be a contestant on a reality TV show
- It’s right that the less-well-off get more support from government
Brands
Like Tesco, The Co-operative, ITV, Gillette, British Gas, but admire
people who shop at John Lewis
Don’t like Marks & Spencer, Sainsbury’s, Virgin Atlantic, National Trust
8 steps to creating a great vision
January 31st, 2011 By greg Filed Under: Interesting, Weird and Wonderful
Step 1: Pick your topic
Because visioning can be used for just about anything, it’s important to start by being clear about what you’re working on. Is it a vision for your organization overall? Or just for a particular piece? For today’s shift? Or your retirement? We do visions for all of the above and everything in between.
Step 2: Pick your time frame
How far out should you look? There’s no right answer, but as a general principle, visioning works best if you go far out enough to get beyond present-day problems but not so far out that you have no sense at all of actually getting there. We have a long-term organizational vision that’s set in 2020. Most organizational visions will probably be set somewhere from two to 10 years out—but five is a typical place to start.
Step 3: Put together a list of “prouds”
Throw down a list of past positive achievements. You might include specific contributions that you or your colleagues have made to past successes, or skills, techniques, and resources that could be assets in achieving your vision. Anything good that comes to mind is fine. It shouldn’t take more than 10 minutes. The idea is just to create a base of positive energy and high-quality experiences on which you can build for future success. The more people focus on the positives, the more likely you are to attain the greatness you envision.
Step 4: Write a first draft
Writing a vision is hugely important. Before you start writing, here are a few technical tips. If you follow them, the work will be way better:
· Put something wild out there. Get past the 59 reasons why it won’t work.
· Put down what pours out, not what other people want to see.
· Write as if your vision has already happened.
· Keep writing for 15 to 30 minutes, regardless of how silly you sound.
· Build your passions into what you write. Don’t write a vision that you aren’t a part of.
Step 5: Review and redraft
When you’re ready to revise, read your draft through from start to finish. Don’t erase anything. You’ll have plenty of opportunity to edit the content and the language. As you read through, keep in the back of your mind: Does this sound inspiring? Do I get excited when I’m reading it? Stay away from vague statements like “We’re busier than ever”; instead, use real sales numbers that mean something. What are the key financial numbers that define success for you? Sales levels? Salary? Savings? Status?
Steps 6A, 6B, and 6C: More redrafts
If you want, you can take this second draft and make additional adjustments. But at some point, you had better get your butt in gear and move on to Step 7. Note that there is no 6D. If there were, the D would stand for Done. More than four drafts, and I think you’re headed down the long and unrewarding road of “I’ve been working on a vision for the past few years, but I still don’t have it finished.”
Step 7: Solicit input
This is where you let the cat out of the bag and get input from people you trust and respect. Whom should you show it to? Folks who have experience, insight, and expertise relevant to your vision. Inevitably, some of these advisers will shift away from talking about the vision into a discussion of the action steps that will have to be in a strategic plan. Just listen carefully, and take notes—some of those ideas might come in handy later.
Step 8: Share the vision
Finally, it’s time to share the vision with everyone who will be involved in implementing it. When you roll out your vision to the bigger group, it’s inevitable that people will ask questions about how you intend to achieve the vision. They’re asking you about the how. The vision, however, is the what. It’s totally fine if you don’t know how you’re going to get there. Later, you will figure out the how.
Source: inc.com
How to conduct qualitative market research
October 26th, 2010 By sboksh Filed Under: Industry Thoughts, Interesting, Weird and Wonderful, Uncategorized
As seen in Mad Men, fifty years ago, research was collected by having a one-way mirror installed and adverting guys would be on the receiving end. The homemaker would host the meeting with a group of women who would talk about soap or some other consumer product.
Visualize. Just as you head off to work you get a text message asking if you’ve had a cup of coffee. You reply “no.” About 20 minutes later you receive another text asking “did you have your coffee yet?” You reply “yes” this time. Now you receive a series of texts about when and where did you buy the coffee—a corner store Starbucks or company cafeteria. What brand or flavor did you choose—regular or Hazelnut? Why did you choose it? How do you feel now that you’ve had that first cup? Will you have had a second or third cup come lunchtime? Later in the week when you’re at the local grocer, you take out your cell phone to take a picture of the one pound of ground French Roast coffee you just purchased so you can post it online.
Welcome to the brave new world of qualitative research where companies can catch or capture their customers’ behaviors in the moment using modern technology. It could be a single person doing online journaling or a video log about a product or issue, a moderator directing conversations in an online chat room, or webcam gathering of people in Hollywood Squares game show-like fashion.
It’s a different spin on the traditional focus group. Social media is playing a bigger role. ‘We are even monitoring whole online communities; we have a targeted representative find out what selected individuals are saying in their social networks,’ says Peg Moulton-Abbott, a certified professional research consultant and principal of Newfound Insights, a Virginia Beach-based market research firm. Such tech-oriented research is generally skewed towards a younger twenty-something demographic. But more importantly it speaks to how market researchers are sprouting new methods of qualitative study as an outgrowth of old techniques.
Comparatively speaking, fifty years ago qualitative research was done in a big city like New York or Washington, DC with focus groups conducted inside women’s homes, notes Moulton-Abbott. A one-way mirror was installed and adverting guys would be on the receiving end, she explains. The homemaker would host the meeting with a group of women who would talk about soap or some other consumer product.
According to the Qualitative Research Consultants Association, qualitative research can help business owners identify customer needs, clarify marketing messages, generate ideas for improvements of a product, extend a line or brand, and/or gain perspective on how a product fits into a customer’s lifestyle.
Any size and type of business can benefit from qualitative market research, says Moulton-Abbott. However, ‘my job is not to make a sales pitch for your product; my job is to find out how people feel about your product and what you can do to improve it so that you wind up making more money selling it,’ she adds.
Qualitative research can help entrepreneurs to understand their customers’ or clients’ feelings, values, and perceptions of a particular product or service. Once you know the reason “why” people react a certain way or make certain decisions, you can use that feedback to help build your sales and marketing plan, says Moulton-Abbott.
The design and implementation of qualitative research will depend on your particular situation, says Robert E. Stake, PhD, author of Qualitative Research: Studying How Things Work and director for the center of instructional research as the University of Illinois. “The means are different in different situations. It’s what you are interested in that defines qualitative research,” he adds. “It isn’t the style of data gathering, it is whether or not you are interested in the experiences of your customers or clients.”
Business owners won’t have to wrack their brains over how to conduct the nitty-gritty aspects of market research if a professional is hired. But here are some general guidelines and what to expect on how qualitative research is handled.
How to Conduct Qualitative Market Research: Determine What You Want to Study
Do you want to investigate a current or potential product, service or brand positioning? Do your want to identify strengths and weaknesses in products? Understand purchasing decisions? Study reactions to advertising or marketing campaigns? Assess the usability of a website or other interactive services? Understand perceptions about the company, brand and product? Explore reactions to packaging and design?
Qualitative (qual) research is usually contrasted against Quantitative (quat) research. Quat asks closed-ended questions that can be answered finitely by either ‘yes’ or ‘no,’ true or false or multiple choice with an option for ‘other. It is used to collect numerical data, employing such techniques as surveys. Whereas, qual asks open-ended questions that are phrased in such a way that invite people to tell their stories in their own words. Methods used to collect data include field observations, personal interviews and group discussions.
The job of a qual researcher is to design and deliver data that drives results.
Dig Deeper: How to Define Your Target Market
How to Conduct Qualitative Market Research: Understand What Methodology will be Used
Typically qual researchers don’t use experimental methods such as field trials or test markets, Stake maintains. ‘Not many use really highly-developed psychometric (e.g., personality or psychological tests) or econometric (e.g., economic statistics) indicators.’ Qual researchers generally rely on methodologies rooted in ethnography (e.g. field or participant observation) and phenomenology (e.g., understanding life experiences using written or recorded narratives). Market researchers partner with professional recruiters to identify and screen qualifying customers or consumers who in turn receive an honorarium for their participation in the study.
You should rely on a market research firm to choose the best fit for you based on: what is it that you need to learn and who is your target audience demographically, where they are geographically, and what are their lifestyle behaviors or time constraints, says Kristin Schwitzer, president of Beacon Research, a qual firm that specializes in innovative online methods, based in Annapolis, Maryland.
Conducting qualitative research is about asking the right people the right questions in the right format, says Hannah Baker Hitzhusen, vice president of qualitative research at CMI, a market research firm in Atlanta. What qual researchers do is very much on the front end, it is discovery or exploratory work. ‘For a qual study, we generally do a discussion guide to make sure we cover certain topics or issues,’ says Hitzhusen. Qual is generally used for small sample groups, because, ‘you want to spend a lot of time with the participants, maybe 90 to 120 minutes. Quat usually uses a larger sample size of people and a smaller amount of time, 15 to 30 minutes (for someone to fill out a questionnaire),’ she explains.
Source: Inc.com
NBA & ESPN get some Mash Love…
October 6th, 2010 By greg Filed Under: Interesting, Weird and Wonderful
Sports and music experiential marketing agency Ignite produced a Fan Zone in parallel with the NBA’s Europe Live games at London’s National Theatre over the weekend. The activity aimed to increase NBA’s presence in the capital ahead of the game between Minnesota Timberwolves and the LA Lakers to take place at The O2 on Tuesday 5th October 2010 and also to publicise London Games 2011 – the first regular season NBA game ever to be held outside the US.
The Fan Zone outside the National Theatre on London’s South Bank featured a full-size basketball court that gave fans the opportunity to test their skills by shooting hoops alongside NBA legends and current players. MASH worked in partnership with The Promotions Factory to place a group of female sports fans amongst the fan zone, creating a buzz about the games ahead and the coverage held by ESPN. Six brand ambassadors were at The National Theatre on the 2nd and 3rd of October and ten brand ambassadors outside the O2 Arena on the 4th October, taking planes, trains and auto-mobiles to get there thanks to the warm welcomed tube strike!
All the sights and sounds of the NBA were on show, with skills clinics, a professional ‘dunk’ team, video games, NBA team mascots and performances by LA Lakers cheerleaders The Laker Girls alongside interactive sponsor experiences and attractions, of which our girls were a huge part and really helped to get the crowds excited.
The Larry O’Brien NBA Championship Trophy was also on show, with which fans could have their pictures taken on a green screen background and have themselves superimposed next to their favourite team.
Ignite will activate the Fan Zone at the Palais Omnisports de Bercy on the 6 October 2010 with the addition of a three point court and interactive activities.
A huge well done to the ESPN teams who worked hard to create a real buzz about the matches and promote the support and involvement of ESPN with NBA’s European tour matches. An eye-catching sight for all NBA fans, old and new.