This blog section contains new ideas, information and examples for creative people who want to make their businesses and organisations even more successful.
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T-Shirts and Suits blogCate Blanchett 'Sparkles'Congratulations to one of my client creative businesses, Sparkle Media on their successful projects in Australia ! The visual effects and animation company has recently worked in Australia with Oscar-winning actress Cate Blanchett and Joseph Fiennes, producing video footage for the multimedia theatrical performance Minutes of a Separation. Sparkle Media also worked for Reebok whilst in Australia on an 'advanced fitness' website project. It's a pleasure to work with creative entrepreneurs like Glenn Maguire and Andy Cooper, who are the company's directors. Sparke Director Glenn Maguire said: Working internationally from their base in Liverpool, Sparkle has worked closely with creative industries support agency Merseyside ACME. Creative Times: Leading Creative People - it's like herding cats!Leading Creative People ... My presentation to the owners of advertising agencies from around the world was on the subject of Leadership. One aspect they were particularly interested in was how to lead 'creative' staff. Link to full article: Leading Creative People Creative Times is now online ! The Price of a BedWould you pay 50,620 Euros for a bed? Probably not. But apparently some people do. Why? What's going on here? I'm fascinated by pricing strategies and run workshops for creative businesses on the subject. In the case of a Hastens bed, you are invited to buy into the story of a small family firm in Sweden. The advert asks "Who would spend 50,620 Euros on a bed?" Are you one of the select few? --- I'm interested to hear from you about pricing strategies - especially about businesses in the creative industries. Carnaby Street W1Westminster Council bought the copyright in the design of its iconic street signs (pictured). The designs were created by Misha Black in 1967 and the copyright remained with the designer until his death, when it passed to his estate. Black's son then sold the copyright to Westminster Council in London for £50,000 GBP (100,000 USD). The Council plans to charge licence fees to more than 100 companies that use the design on popular tourist souvenirs and other products. Designers should follow Misha Black's example by retaining copyright when creating designs for clients, to make a profitable sale later - or to generate licensing income themselves. Photo credit: DearCatastropheWaitress. See related blogposts: Don't Co-operateIn contrast to the business strategies of collaboraton or Co-opetition, there is another strategy to consider: 'Don't Co-operate'. This is one of the characteristics of the success of Apple Inc., according to Wired Magazine in an article called 'How Apple Got Everything Right By Doing Everything Wrong'. The article shows how Apple breaks several of the conventional rules of business adopted by most hi-tech companies, such as 'Communicate', 'Play Nice', 'Love Your Customers', and 'Coddle Your Employees'. Apple's unconventional strategy demonstrates that there are no universal rules in business - you have to create a unique formula which works for your enterprise, and your customers. Beware 'Copyright Grabs'Photographer Chiz Dakin (Peak Images) asked me to warn other photographers about the problem of 'copyright grabs'. Chiz is concerned about the trend for businesses, particularly large corporations, to "grab copyright in any image they can get their hands on", as she puts it. This practice is a hazard for photographers who don't carefully read the small print in contracts with clients. So the advice from Chiz is: make sure you read the small print to ensure you don't lose your intellectual property rights in your images! See also: Paul Arden RIPAdvertising genius Paul Arden died on 02 April 2008. Some of his most influential work was done while he was executive creative director at Saatchi & Saatchi for 14 years. Paul was responsible for advertising campaigns for clients such as The Independent ("The Independent. It is - are you?"), Toyota ("The car in front is a Toyota"), British Airways, Fuji, and the slashed purple silk images for Silk Cut cigarettes. Earlier in his career he worked for Ogilvy and Mather and other agencies, developing his reputation as a leader in design-led advertising. His books are wonderful. A real maverick and often difficult to work with, he relished getting the sack and was proud of his lack of formal education. He was a Beckham fan, notably Victoria Beckham's wanting to be "more famous than Persil Automatic" and praised Elizabeth Esteve-Coll's controversial decision to adopt the slogan "An ace caff with quite a nice museum attached" for the Victoria and Albert Museum when she was director there. His creativity lives on... Give it away free!Creative entrepreneurs often ask me how they can make money from their music or computer games when MP3 files and software is so easy to copy. One answer is to use the fact that people copy your stuff to change a threat into an opportunity. Banda Calypso's music is copied onto CDs and sold on street corners in Brazil. They don't get a cut of this income but they don't mind. In fact they supply theses street-sellers with master CDs to copy! And they organise things so that there is a plentiful supply of their music for sale in each town on the route of their tour, before they arrive to perform. They see this copying and selling as an advertising function and they don't have to pay these street-corner entrepreneurs. Their gigs are always full and they've made enough money to buy a private jet to take the band on tour. Timothy Chan, one of the richest men in China used to get ripped off by copyright pirates. His computer game CDs were copied illegally and sold cheaply. He could have tried in vain to stop this. Or he could have let his business go bankrupt. Instead he changed his business to take advantage of the copying. He decided to make his money from online connection fees instead of CD sales. He changed the game so people had to play online and pay a very small fee per minute. The copied CDs spread like wildfire and so did his customer base. Every CD copied now helped his business. Smart entrepreneurs see opportunities when others see only threats. Let your heart drive you...A creative passion is often the driving force for creative entrepreneurs. I was asked recently by Putte Svensson from Rockparty in Hultsfred, Sweden, what would be my advice if someone said they just wanted to have fun. My answer was that fun is important and essential to any enterprise. I went on to say that I do indeed want people to have fun - and for a long time! Having fun for a short while and then going bankrupt isn't much fun at all. I help people to also look at the business issues that will help them to continue to have fun in a sustainable way, long-term. Things like marketing, finance and intellectual property also need to be taken into account to make sure the fun continues. The philosophy of T-Shirts and Suits is about combining creativity and business acumen. It's about using rationality as well as emotion - the left side of the brain as well as the right side. I sometimes talk about 'using our heads as well as our hearts'. Sara Lönnroth, who is the project leader for Mötesplats Mode&Design (MM&D), at the Transit Business Incubator at Konstfack in Stockholm, suggested a phrase about this, which I've adapted and translated as: I'm going to adopt this as one of my sayings from now on! 1,000 True FansInstead of dreaming about having millions of fans, nurture one thousand 'true fans'. He writes: True fans are the people who will buy whatever you produce or drive out of their way to see you perform.It's a feasible target and these people become the core of your customer base. You can then build up from there in partnership with a publisher, distributor or agent. The article has lots of examples of creative people using cool business methods to build a customer base and generate income streams at the same time. The full article is online at Kevin Kelly's Technium website/blog. |
