George Osborne’s emergency budget will hit growth and cost jobs, couple this with the expenses scandal and politicians are about as popular at the moment as a certain two foot long monotone blowing horn used by football fans (This article was posted during the World Cup in South Africa if you are wondering what this is!).

There is an interesting interactive tool, the “UK deficit buster”, on The Financial Times’ website encouraging the reader to take the role of the chancellor and go through a step by step process choosing which areas and by how much you would cut. The challenge is to meet the £37billion worth of cuts outlined for the next four years (see http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/abe91fdc-4e08-11df-b437-00144feab49a.html).

But where are government and council savings going to come from?

How do we know what councils are spending their money on?

Spikes Cavell and Bright Digital will give a clearer picture with the launch of “Spotlight On Spend”.

Spikes Cavell has been leading the way in data-based solutions for over 18 years. Their extensive expertise was built up through developing innovative data-based solutions to support decision making and program execution in the private sector.

Since 2004, they have turned their attention to translating this experience into producing solutions to help public sector organisations transform their procurement. Their years of experience, combined with their track record in delivering on their promises, have helped them become the leading supplier of spend management solutions to the public sector.

“Spotlight On Spend” is an initiative to drive improvements and efficiencies across all government departments in a region. It will help to improve private contract rates for councils, ensure competitive pricing and aims to save millions by the end of 2011.

Spotlight On Spend will provide the national public with clarity and transparency on exactly where their money is spent.

Bright Digital are proud to be part of this initiative.

For more details go to www.spotlightonspend.org.uk or call Kate

Compromise, negotiation, communication.

These could be the buzz words for state of the nation or its football team, or the summary for the emerging commercial habitat of social media.
The big boys have taken note with O2 having just appointed an inaugural head of social media and whether you’re a managing director of a bed manufacturer or a country manager for a software company, everyone seems to be talking and writing about the addition of social media to the marketing melting pot.

However, like the adding of chilli to a bolognaise or the telling of a non PC joke at a dinner party, it’s hard to know when and how much of this new ingredient to add. Members of parliament have lost their jobs, leaders in the city have been reprimanded and who knows what other gaffes and typos are going to result in corporate head rolling.

So what is social media all about?

It is a mass route to market that cannot be ignored but of what value is it and what is the best angle of attack?

For me there are two main areas of value.

For an enterprise size organisation it gives the opportunity for a personal touch. When “Dave”, the software engineer, gives you a direct answer to a direct question with technical knowledge and a practical solution it gives massive value to that brand and the type of PR that LSE graduates can only dream of. A customer feels, as all customers should feel in an ideal world, appreciated and listened to. It is a way to educate and inform customers of the benefits of their products whilst at the same time giving a personal service.

Secondly, it is a shiny new way of bringing products and services to market. As long as the tweeter or facebooker does not overload the reader with too much sales patter and jargon it can be a gentle and easily digestible way of getting a message across.

So when do we wake up from this digital dream?

The situation is that this is a new medium and there are not many that can claim to be historically proven experts in the field. For me it is all about communication and about being a good communicator. The problem is social media is just as it says on the tin, social. For anyone who speaks a lot will know that occasionally, in hindsight, you wish you hadn’t have said those particular words.

And so here lies the problem. Because we are human, and part of being a human is learning through trial and error, mistakes will be made. It is all about the balance of providing a value added service and translating knowledge to the masses. This needs to be done in a social, personal and informative way that allows the customer to feel enlightened and special.

So let’s not shoot the messenger who is translating a message without much content to work with. Let’s not jump on the back of those who are blazing a trail. Let’s accept this new tool as a slightly strange looking but highly useful addition to the marketing tool belt.

For facts and figures or more information call Oliver

Bright has been chosen by a leading IT security company to deliver their channel marketing communications strategy and strengthen their brand position. We won the three way pitch with a strategy that will enable Clearswift’s reseller channel to easily communicate their product benefits to end customers.

Peggy Van Nieuwenhove, Global Channel Marketing Manager at Clearswift, said of the project: “We chose Bright because of their background in delivering channel marketing to major technology companies. They have the right balance of creative ideas and business intelligence.”

We're going to be building a channel marketing toolkit that includes an interactive web tool to generate leads as well as build awareness. We will create new photography and an illustration style to reinforce the Clearswift brand, as well as manage regular communications to the companies’ resellers globally.

Etisalat is one of the world’s biggest telecommunications companies, offering mobile, Internet and data services to 10 million customers throughout the Middle East, Africa and Asia. We created a glossy digital magazine to engage visitors to their stand at the Mobile World Congress, the most important global networking event for the telecoms industry held in Barcelona last week.

Keen to introduce their brand and their proposition to a European audience in a slick and impressive way, Etisalat were thrilled with the outcome. The articles conveyed the key brand messages whilst also offering light and entertaining content that could be consumed easily at such an event. There was also an opportunity to collect data as people were encouraged to leave their email address so they could register to receive future issues.

Etisalat will also leverage their investment and use the online publication as an internal communication piece to send to employees around the world. This will reinforce their brand values internally and allow staff to keep up to date with what the business has been up to over the past year.
Find out more about our digital magazine solution: www.vmomags.com