I love Winnie the Pooh and his friends, particularly Eeyore who bears a striking resemblance to my own personality at times but is loyal to his friends in the Hundred Acre Wood to the end. I am also quite fond of Hello Kitty, who I first loved as a small girl and am now over the moon to see she is reining as Queen of Kitsch these days, and to her I owe some of my creativity.

On asking the boys of the Chichester Design office who their favourite characters are I got the following responses:

Ben

Homer Simpson – We all know Homer as the comedy father of the Simpson’s Family. This affiliation suggests that Ben has a weakness for doughnuts and beer but is also loveable and a bit yellow looking.

Optimus Prime – This adoration of the Transformers character reveals Ben’s rough, tough cream puff side that comes out when he’s in the board room and managing projects to optimum effect. And like Optimus, Ben is our much-loved leader and hero.

Jeremy

Kakashi Hatake – from the Naruto manga and anime series, Kakashi is initially portrayed as detached and apathetic, but his loyalty to his friends and students becomes increasingly apparent through – much Like Jezza’s dedication to the team and his work.

Captain Harlock – Harlock is the archetypical romantic hero, a space pirate with an individualist philosophy of life. He is as noble as he is taciturn, rebellious, stoically fighting against totalitarian regimes, whether they be earthborn or alien. In his own words, he “fight[s] for no one’s sake… only for something deep in [his] heart”. Erm, yes Ok Jeremy, keep up the good work!

These cartoon dudes are powerful little critters and our branding friends seem to have caught onto this big-time. Cartoons have long been synonymous with brands, just consider the little top-hatted Homepride man Fred and the Fairy baby (who, I thought as a child would actually come out and bounce on our towels if she used the product!) What about Ronald McDonald who came from across the pond and became one of the most distinguishable brand identities in history? Whether we like it or not everyone associates that red-headed clown with burgers. 

They have helped with brand association and are now continuing to do so as businesses start to associate their brands with already established and renowned cartoon characters.  The coin may have flipped but marketers seem as shrewd as ever, teaming up the likes of Keith Harris and Orville with Surf in 2004, Wallace and Gromit have endorsed Npower and recently been shouting about Kingsmill since the 2008 film, A Matter of Loaf and Death, and Specsavers have cashed in on both the Thunderbirds and Postman Pat as brand advocates. Theme Parks have even joined the band wagon, branding parts of their attractions around famous characters with Noddy at Butlins and the Beano gang at Chessington World of Adventures until just last month.

Using such characters means that kids become more excited and aware about products, especially food and drink – who here didn’t want to be the Kia-Ora kid’s dog and take a walk with Mr Soft to the Umbungo Jungle  where you could look forward to running into Coco the Monkey and Tony the Tiger? Just me? This is a clever marketing ploy as kids are influential and even have some influence over purchasing decisions, especially when they scream really loud in the supermarket!

But it’s not just about kids. Using Wallace and Gromit to promote Npower and having a giggle at Postman Pat who sat on his glasses injects a bit of fun into the day-to-day stuff.  Sometimes the more mundane the product is, the more successful the character branding association. The crux of it is, behind those tough facades everyone loves something a bit cutesy that they can associate with their favourite brands and, more often than not, brands can become favourites as a result of those cutesy associations.

Chichester Design are working with AtMarket who are currently using a cartoon bird as part of their brand identity. While we are working to improve this branding and create something truly memorable that says “online farmers’ market”, we hope to keep some element of the character branding, as it is character building after all. Watch this space: http://www.atmarket.co.uk/.

If you would like any help with your marketing – branding, social media, Search Engine Optimisation or Google AdWords especially, get in contact with our Marketing Consultant Kate at Chichester Design today.

Chichester Design has worked on many ecommerce sites and with Christmas coming up we will be soon seeing some of our masterpieces do their stuff. One such example is AtMarket, which will be re-launching with a new website in November, just in time for the Christmas rush.

Online retail spending increased by 14.2% in December last year and according to IMRG and Capegemini, UK consumers spent £4.67bn that month, that’s an average of £77 per person.

It’s good to know that there’s a bit of money to be made in cyberspace during the festive season and it’s important to understand when’s hot and when’s not when considering marketing strategies.  Knowing when people will be looking to buy indicates the best times to hit known customers with email campaigns and Tweets about promotional offers to get them double clicking their mouse and adding to basket all over the shop.

Chichester Design’s little gem

Some key online shopping dates for this year, and a good guide to plan your internet marketing around, include:

December’s almost upon us- 30^th November

The pre-Christmas peak in traffic to online retailers. Last year, there was a peak from Saturday 29^th November to Monday 8^th December as it dawned that Christmas was just around the corner and there are no presents to put under the tree.

Four working weeks to go- 7^th December

Traditionally the second Monday in December is the biggest online shopping day, with online sales of £320m on online sales. This way shoppers are not dicing to dangerously with the slow Christmas postal service and making sure their gifts are arriving in plenty of times to be adorned with bows, tags and alike.

Last minute stampede- 23^rd December

Pre-Christmas footfall peaks as people rush to buy last minute presents and hope to pick up some bargains at the start of the sales on the last full shopping day before Christmas. Although online sales are not as large as those made by high-street shoppers at this time of year, the sales in 2008 were markedly up on 2007 and earlier bargain hunting is predicted for this year too.

Bring on the bargains – 26^th December

This was the busiest online shopping day of the year for the last two years, with traffic starting to increase significantly on Christmas day after everyone’s got the turkey dinner and family niceties out the way.

So get planning your online marketing for the festive season and remember you can always contact us if you want a helping hand with your marketing strategies!

It was time for dressing up and again and I was fearful that I wouldn’t be able to don my dancing feet after all that walking in heels at Goodwood, but after a bit of pampering at the hair dressers I made a miraculous recovery!

The whole gang were soon there, Pete and I arrived first and had a good chat with Pete’s Cobnor colleagues (one of which revealed that he owns seven brief cases- the mind boggles!) Then Jeremy and Ben arrived with their lovely ladies Celine and Lucy. We found a nice big table just outside the marquee (close enough to duck under if the heavens opened) and near enough to the log fire to ward off that approaching autumn chill. 

There was much merriment from the Chichester Design table as we revelled in dining from a burger van while dressed up to the nines and built up the confidence (in glasses of wine) to throw some shapes on the dance floor. And let me tell you that a certain Monsieur who was insistent that he does not do dancing was up there shaking his stuff with the rest of us!

Big Boy Bloater and his band provided some sterling entertainment and Disco Dave filled in the gaps with some eclectic music (and eclectic jokes). Ben and Lucy even managed to bag themselves a crate of beer in the charity raffle, so all was good.

Everyone had a ball and it was a lovely opportunity for the Chichester Designers and their other halves to let their hair down at a local event and raise money for charity in the meantime.  Who could complain about good rustic food, good local booze, good music from a local band and, most importantly, good company? Ben and I complained a little about the giant mosquito bites we gained though!

The Chichester Design team is a dynamic bunch. We’re close-knit, on the ball and we stay involved and focused at all stages of the design process.

We have strong links with the local business and design communities and boast a profile of happy clients from manufacturers and services provider to government and not-for-profit organisations.

And it just so happens that we are looking for a web developer, experienced in building web applications in a fast-pace production environment and in developing using the Ruby on Rails framework, to hit the ground running.

Job description

We are looking for a talented web developer to work on an exciting new project we have inherited called AtMarket. AtMarket.co.uk is the place to find goods, including local farm produce, from fresh organic vegetables to delicious organic wine.

Does the challenge of scaling a Ruby on Rails deployment to change the way people do their weekly shop excite you? Are you passionate about using Test Driven Development to write tight well-tested code? If so, we’ve got the right position for you!

You will work closely with the client and project management team to gather requirements and rapidly incorporate them as you manage new features and projects from idea to prototype to production. This is your opportunity to take your passion for Rails and build compelling applications to enhance the revolutionary AtMarket concept.

Responsibilities:

• Collaborate with client and project manager to resolve any existing bugs and issues
• Collaborate with client and project manager to define clear requirements, deliverables, and milestones for new projects
• Design, test, develop, and deploy production-ready applications using Ruby on Rails
• Actively investigate interesting new tools and techniques
• Manage the Rails environment including developing recipes for deployment, auditing gems, and working with the team to provide the required hardware and software for a scalable Rails production environment

Skills range:

• 3 years experience building web applications in a production environment
• 2 years experience writing and maintaining code in an interpreted language such as Ruby, Perl, PHP, Python, etc.
• 1 years experience developing in the Rails framework
• Strong Javascript experience
• Strong understanding of the server side software, scalability, performance and reliability aspects
• Ability to work in a fast-paced, test-driven collaborative and iterative programming environment
• Proven aptitude developing applications leveraging XML/JSON based RESTful/SOAP APIs.
• Understanding of cross-site scripting (XSS) and other client-side vulnerabilities.
• Experience with OpenSocial applications or Facebook applications is a plus
• BSc in Computer Science or equivalent experience

Think this is right up your street? Apply to Ben Davis with your CV and a covering letter by 21/10/09. Chichester Design is looking for someone to start ASAP and is not interested in recruitment agencies or overseas outsourcing agencies.

Through the Chichester Design blogs I’ve gained the company quite a bit of attention and even won us some prestigious clients.  I don’t like to blow my own trumpet, but I will. A number of local companies have been impressed with my writing skills and asked me to write for them also. They have also asked me to use my Social Media Optimisation skills and Search Engine Optimisation skills and come up with a winning marketing mix.  As I said, I’ve been a busy little bee.

But that’s one of the key points of a blog, to promote the Chichester Design services to the online community.  We write about what we’ve been up to as a team, building the personality and brand of our company and (hopefully) making ourselves for appealing to you as a bunch of real people, rather than just a corporate entity.  We also talk about the projects we’ve been working on and the skills we’ve used, both promoting our clients and our services. Crafty, heh?

The blog is also a fantastic for Search Engine Optimisation. It’s a fab way to include keywords related to the web design and marketing business, so that when people are searching for Chichester Design our blog is coming up trumps. We use tags, related images and unique titles, both user and search engine friendly so everyone’s a winner.

Another point of the blog is as a right to reply.  I have recently been working on the blog for new online local produce market, AtMarket.  I wrote a blog about the launch of the site and have sound that visitors to the site have used this to leave feedback about the site.  This is all being taking into consideration and will help their fledgling business to fly.

Want a slice of the action? I can indeed write your blogs for you or give you a bit of marketing consultation so that you can get the most out of your blog.  Drop me a line today.