The Brand Surgery - Branding Agency, Graphic Design and Website Design in Worthing, West Sussex

Official Diamond Jubilee logo

2012 is going to be a monumental year for the UK as far as events go … It’s the year of the Diamond Jubilee AND the 2012 Olympics. And we should all be celebrating, arranging themed events, boogying-on-down at a record number of street parties to spread happiness, love and joy … Yes, it’s time for BIG SOCIETY to get even BIGGER.

There is one snag though … One of these international events is branded so far up its own you-know-what, that it won’t allow UK citizens to promote Olympic related events using the word ‘Olympic’! Yes it’s brand-awareness gone bonkers. The Olympic Committee’s ‘brand protection document states: “The information provided is intended to help people stay within the law and LOCOG expects it to be used in good faith. In areas of doubt, please respect the spirit of the law and do not undertake any activity which is contrary to LOCOG’s aims and objectives.”

The document includes a flowchart of controlled representations:

The Olympic Symbol (ie the five interlocking rings)
The Olympic Motto
(‘Citius Altius Fortius’ / ‘Faster Higher Stronger’)
the words:
“Olympic(s)”
“Olympiad(s)”
“Olympian(s)”
(or anything similar to them, or translations of them)
The Paralympic Symbol (ie the three “agitos”)
The Paralympic Motto
(Spirit in Motion)
the words:
“Paralympic(s)”
“Paralympiad(s)”
“Paralympian(s)”
(or anything similar to them, or translations of them)

We do consider that it is in rather poor taste to be so over-protective and to not ’share’ in times of economic melt down. You can download the full document by clicking here. We strongly suggest that you do read the ambiguous document if you are thinking of designing a poster to advertise your ‘OxxxxxC’ event!

Diamond Jubilee Celebrations are for everyone!

On the plus side, the Diamond Jubilee organisers have included a useful page on their website dedicated to event branding. Organisers of Diamond Jubilee Events will find links to the official emblem (above) so one can download and include official emblems for their event promotions.  You can find this page by clicking here.

In contrast to the Olympic brand guidelines, the Diamond Jubilee guidelines advise: “The official emblem is available, free of charge, for download from this website. It is available for use for activities associated with the Diamond Jubilee celebrations including community and national events, publications, retail and merchandising. View guidelines for use. It is intended that the emblem be used widely by individuals, organisations, companies and charities for celebrations to mark the Diamond Jubilee. This includes use for commercial purposes and advertising.

How can two major event committees send out such contrasting brand messages?

At The Brand Surgery, we publish a variety of magazines and promotional material and already we have been asked to promote a number of events (after our Wow Factor success back in November 2011). One of our clients is so concerned with the misleading Olympic brand guidelines that they have decided to pull out of promoting any Olympic themed events within their customer information magazine. We don’t blame them as the olympic guidelines suggest that promoting community events with the olympics logo maybe construed as ‘passing off’ of as an official Olympics event.

A message to all of you at Olympics head office. Please get off your high horse – you are not more important than the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee and you should take a leaf out from the Official Diamond Jubilee organiser’s book and share your ’symbols’ so everyone can promote this amazing event!

We appreciate that your sponsors pay £millions to use the dreadful 2012 olympics logo – we don’t particularly want ‘that’ logo. However, how did the five interlocking rings symbol created by Pierre De Coubertin in 1914 come to be copyrighted by the International Olympic Committee?

The five interlocking rings have a meaning: “These five rings represent the five parts of the world which now are won over to Olympism and willing to accept healthy competition.” (from Wikipedia so must be true!). Perhaps the Olympics Committee is concerned about a little healthy competition from community events – hardly surprising really. I’m surprised the Olympic Committee sold any tickets with their backward system.

We salute the Diamond Jubilee Committee for getting it so right. We ask that the Olympics Committee consider sharing.

If you would like advice on how to use the Diamond Jubilee emblem on your marketing material and website, please give us a call on 01903 324229 or email vicky@thebrandsurgery.co.uk. We also design exceedingly successful logos which we encourage you to share!

The Brand Surgery, marketing and website agency serving Sussex.

The Brand Surgery is pleased to announce the launch of the new website for Coastal West Sussex (CWS). CWS works to promote future investment and growth between Chichester and Shoreham and are an important organisation in developing local businesses and enterprise.

CWS had an existing website when they came to The Brand Surgery for help, and were quickly shown what needed to be done to bring them into the modern world of web presence. The old website was completely static and provided CWS with no way of updating other than contacting the website hosts, a very old approach.

We instantly suggested a Content Management System to sit beneath their new website to allow them complete control of the copywriting of the website as well as access to numerous dynamically created sections such as ‘News’, ‘Projects’ and ‘Enterprise Activities’ the latter of which can be submitted by website users via a unique and sophisticated form on the website.

Alongside the website itself, The Brand Surgery explained the importance of the role of social media in modern websites and online marketing and CWS jumped on board, setting up a Linked In and Twitter account, despite early protests against the move.

Caroline Wood from CWS had the following to say:

“We were unsure about the inclusion of social media with the new website as we weren’t sure how it would fit in with our organisation, but The Brand Surgery showed us how key they can be for Search Engine Optimisation and equally how few modern websites don’t include these links. In fact, looking back, I now wonder why we weren’t using Twitter and Linked In to network in the past!”

The website is not all about functionality though, The Brand Surgery’s award winning design team took a shine to the CWS concept and produced a modern yet corporate and business-like design that oozes class. Using CWS’ three main colours, navy blue, sky blue and yellow, we kept the styling simple to create the illusion of space on a website where massive amounts of content resides.

The introduction of modern website technologies such as jQuery, AJAX and CSS3 allowed the use of slick animations and rounded corners to name a few and the use of the Google Maps API allowed us to use interactive maps! Obviously, whilst all this was going on we were ensuring the website was completely cross-browser compatible.

CWS’ brief to us was:

• Modernise the existing website with a fresh design
• Allow CWS to update the website themselves
• Easy to find all information
• Attractive to new and existing businesses
• A resource ‘hub’

Check out their new website at www.coastalwestsussex.org.uk and see if you think we ticked all the boxes, we know we did!

Just before Christmas we brought you the news that The Brand Surgery had successfully submitted a mobile application to the Android Market and that an iPhone App was soon to follow for the well received ‘The Review Doctor’ website. Well, that day has come and we are pleased to announce that The Review Doctor is now available in the Apple App Store. You can download it by following the link below:

Anyway, after undergoing the process for submitting to both online app repository’s, we thought we’d compare the two processes and have our say on their pro’s and con’s. We have broken the process into several categories.

Development Environment

Ok, so we love both Mac’s and PC’s at The Brand Surgery, the Mac is brilliant for design work, especially when using Photoshop, InDesign and Illustrator and the PC is great as a general purpose machine and has many advantages for web development. (Not that Mac’s can’t be used for web development). But put simply, we like the option of choosing what we work on and the Android Market allows us this freedom. We can download the development tools for any platform! Apple however, restrict you to only developing on a Mac, which is somewhat frustrating for those that don’t have a Mac – this could greatly increase the cost of development!

Apple 0 – 1 Android

Cost

If you’re going to enter the world of mobile development, there is going to be a cost involved (at least if you want to use the market leaders) so this is purely a case of who is cheaper! Now, neither development programme is expensive (at least it seems), but Android Market charges $25 (around £16) as a one-off fee. Apple however have a slightly more expensive fee of $99 (around £64) per year. So Android wins again!

Apple 0 – 2 Android

The Review Doctor on the App Store

Sign-up Process

Androids process was quick, simple and intuitive. In fact, if you already have a Google account, you simply associate it to your development account. Easy, brilliant, thank you very much Google!

Apple however, require you to (if you sign-up as a business) provide proof of your companies existence by sending off various documents, etc. and we found them extremely awkward and arduous to deal with! After sending off our certificate from Companies House (as requested) they then changed their rules and wanted something else, and we ended up going backwards and forwards for several days!

Apple 0 – 3 Android

Support

Now it must be said, that we haven’t required much support from either Apple or Android, but Apple does appear to be far more equipped with a plethora of documentations, examples, videos and various other resources within it’s ‘Member Centre’ (presumably what the large cost is for) and although Android does have documentation, Apples is just far superior.

Apple 1 – 3 Android

The Review Doctor on Android Market

Submission Process

This was for us, one of the biggest differences between the two platforms, and to be perfectly honest, a perfect medium would be somewhere between the two!

Android accept pretty much anything onto the Market, once you  have created your app, you fill in the details to be displayed in the Android Market, upload the app and click submit. Then as soon as it has uploaded, and you verify this, the app is live in the Market. Brilliant! Or is it? Not exactly. It’s great for people like The Brand Surgery who are designing and developing quality applications because we get into the Market quickly, but consider for a minute those that are producing apps which are broken, pointless and poorly produced. These apps also get instantly approved and enter the market, filling it with a lot of poor apps to search through. Not ideal!

Let’s look at Apples approach then. You submit your app in much the same way as Android, except your app gets sent off for ‘review’ by one of Apples staff. This obviously allows for the rubbish apps to be rejected (although with some apps on the App Store, you may wonder who was reviewing them) but it also adds considerable time to the submission process, especially if your app is rejected. This would then result in a longer appeal process unless you make the necessary changes.

Neither gets the win in this round so it remains:

Apple 1 – 3 Android

Market Share

Simple, Apple hold the market share, so they get the win! We are able to reach far more people on the App Store than we can in Android Market. Ask us in a year’s time after the Google branded Android builds momentum, it might be a different story!

Apple 2 – 3 Android

So after all is said and done, this suggests that Android is the better platform to build for. Wrong! They are both of equal marketing value as each other. Each holds a significant weight in the market, and it gives off a better overall brand if you have both of those names attached to your website, application, concept or company. We highly recommend you add some weight to your brand by creating a mobile application and we’d be more than happy to help you out! Not only would you receive our fantastic design and top quality development, you will have all of our CIM Chartered Marketing experience and branding skills on tap as well!

Call us on 01903 824229 or contact us on online to arrange a FREE, no obligation quote or meeting.

The Pan Asia Group came to The Brand Surgery with the objective of raising the profile of their two fast-food restaurants through the medium of social media and The Brand Surgery quickly got to work on a set of complementing designs for the two restaurant Facebook pages. The theory behind the restaurant pages matching each others is to raise awareness of both restaurants simultaneously whilst promoting the overall brand of The Pan Asia Group.

Both pages were designed to match the restaurant branding and feature a range of animated images which cycle through, showing the range of food available in the respective restaurants above a bulletin style set of boxes promoting the unique aspects of the restaurant and the other restaurant.

In addition to the Facebook pages we created, we also set-up a Twitter Account for each restaurant so that each restaurant can ‘Tweet’ about relevent things to their restaurant, but every news article that is written on the Pan Asia Group blog will be fed directly into both Twitter feeds and the news feeds of both Facebook pages.

If you think that your company could do with some social media branding, then give us a call on 01903 824229 or email us by using our contact form. If you don’t think that social media could help your company, then give us a call anyway and we’ll explain just how it can help your business!

Remember, if you book your Facebook and Twitter page design by the 31st January you will receive our ‘Beat the January Blues’ rate of £65 per hour so get in touch today!

This week, The Brand Surgery published their first mobile app to the Android Market, with an iPhone app soon to follow in the Apple App Store. The application, for The Review Doctor, allows users to find local businesses listed on The Review Doctor and read/write reviews about them.

The application features a fun, yet simplistic design which we feel reflects The Review Doctor’s current branding whilst keeping the look and feel of a mobile app, which is important to make sure mobile users feel at home on the app!

By presenting the user with a map view, using the GPS location sensors and/or Wi-Fi of the mobile device to detect the users location, the user can easily see what business (that are listed on The Review Doctor) are immediately around them. If the business they want to read/review isn’t listed, they can easily add them by ‘tapping’ where they should be on the map!

For those using the app that aren’t near the business they are trying to look up, a simple directory search is available using both Alphabetical Order and Categories to make it easier to find your listing.

Check out the screenshots below to see how the app looks:

The app, which is FREE to download from the Android Market, is available now, and the iPhone equivalent for the Apple App Store is currently in the process of being verified and will be available in the New Year.

If you have a mobile application that needs developing, please give us a ring on 01903 824229 for a FREE, no obligation chat.

We are very proud to add event marketing (including PR, branding and organisation) to our list of services.

Recently we have marketed and managed several large events including:

• The Wow Factor – starring X Factor 2011 artists – we were given just three weeks notice until the event date and we sold over 600 tickets at £12.50 each without advertising – using just social media and our PR services;
• Broadwater Royal Wedding Picnic – this event attracted 3000 people and raised £1500 for charity, using our social media and PR services;
• Worthing Idol (2 years running) – attracted 20 acts each year, funding and audiences of 400+.

The Brand Surgery, the number one design agency in Sussex, designed all logos, marketing material, wrote all the press releases and managed the PR, designed the websites for these events. Plus we organised the events including venue location and hire, catering, prizes and tickets.

Our event success is largely down to our Facebook and Twitter setup and posting: Branded to match your existing company branding or new event branding. The benefit of setting up a specific Facebook or Twitter page for your event is that your event will get found more easily so will lead to new customer acquisitions, create lead generation, encourage client retention, improve marketing because of its viral effect which is excellent for event brand building.

Earn cash by telling your friends and acquaintances about The Brand Surgery

We are offering incentives for referrals: We will give you £50 per referral which will be paid to you once an invoice has been cleared by the new customer. Just think about all that Christmas shopping you could be doing!

If you would like further information (no obligation) on any the above services, please call Richy or myself on 01903 824229.

Blogging Services from The Brand Surgery

What’s all this blogging about?

We love blogging! It’s the best way, in our opinion, of getting your website noticed and improving search engine optimisation (SEO). Ever since we’ve been blogging, The Brand Surgery appears at the top of Google for ‘Branding Agency Sussex‘ and that’s for the last two years. We disguise our ‘blog‘ as ‘news’. Blogging is also the best way of keeping people coming back for more repeat visits. It’s also a great way to build up a relationship with your customers online.

It’s really simple. All you have to do is think of an interesting story incorporating keywords relevant to your industry, and then perform a little linking magic.

So why don’t you all do it? Perhaps it’s because you don’t have time and everything else seems more important …

That’s where we come in. We arrange a meeting with you to establish who your prospective customers are (because we can do that as we are marketeers too – members of Chartered Institute of Marketing), then we spend time researching your customers and your competitors. When this is done we look at stories relating to your industry and include specific keywords within these stories. Sounds simple? It is when we do it. And it works. All of the customers we create blog posts for are page one in Google for their chosen keywords.

The best part is that blogging is far more affordable than traditional SEO. With our blogging service, you are paying hundreds per month. Not thousands. We charge from £65 (ex VAT) per blog post which includes writing the post, including the keywords and links. All we ask of you is to give us the subject title of the story and the products you want to focus on. We also offer a service where we can create the subjects and even set up a blog facility on your website if you don’t already have one. Call us on 01903 824229 to discuss.

If you haven’t blogged in a while or have never started blogging, it is best to do two a week to kick-start your website presence. So we have created a special offer for first-time bloggers.

SPECIAL OCTOBER NEW CUSTOMER OFFER!!
TWO MONTHS BLOG POSTING FOR THE PRICE OF ONE!

Two blog postings per week @ £65 (ex VAT) per week when you book two months in advance. eg. 4 WEEKS = £260 (ex VAT). 8 WEEKS = £520 (ex VAT). This is a MASSIVE saving of £520 (ex VAT) ONE MONTH FREE! A single blog posting usually costs £65 (ex VAT).

After two months, if you like our service, we will continue to give you a 10% discount off our standard blog posting for the next ten months.

Terms and conditions do apply – we are very fair! We can provide these upon request. We can show you case studies upon request.

Either email us or call us on 01903 824229 to take advantage of our offer.

Terms and Conditions: This offer only applies to new blog posting customers. Blogs length and content does not include industry technical language unless supplied by you. You must follow our advice on legal and copyright matters.

Lizzie Haynes wins Worthing Idol 2011

We can’t believe where the time has disappeared. On 29th August, over a month ago, the second Worthing Idol took place. This time we held the event in St. Pauls Centre in Chapel Road. The atmosphere and acoustics in the place were amazing!

The judges were: Andrew Sparsis – Proto Restaurant Group, Iain Flitcroft – Carabao Thai Restaurant and Steak House and Manhattan Furniture, Tim Loughton MP and Cllr Carol Molineaux. There were 20 acts in total – mainly singers and two dance acts.

The runners up were Jacob Obong – who street danced his way to success; Anna-Smith who had an amazing voice; Rebecca Woods – who has the voice of an angel and also entered last year. And of course, Lizzie Haynes came first place with her Carly Simon record, Nobody does it better. Lizzie won £250 towards developing her talent and the runners up won £50 towards developing there talent.

Vicky would like to thank everyone who helped with the event, especially all the ‘behind-the-scenes’ volunteers: Simon Osborne, Peter Hill, Rebekah French, Sharon Clarke, Liz Malcolm, Bill Cooper, Nikki Thornton, Selina, Dalina and David Sawyer. She would also like to thank everyone who donated prizes for the raffle: Michael Cloake, Pressleys, Food, The Fish Factory, Carabao Thai and Steak House, Brio, Worthing Theatres, Worthing Town Centre Initiative.

Next year, Terry Winstanley from X Factor has kindly offered to be a judge. If you know someone with a musical talent who would like to enter Worthing Idol 2012, then please contact Vicky Vaughan on 01903 824229 or log onto: www.talentwithinyou.org.uk

Worthing Idol is yet another event which is organised and marketed by The Brand Surgery. We design the logo, the website, write the press releases, organise the auditions, arrange the lighting, PA and accommodation, advertise the event by social media (no advertising expenses). If you would your event promoted or organised, please call Vicky on 01903 824229.

The Review Doctor. Review. Read. Decide.

Welcome to The Review Doctor

Did you know that as a business, if you get stung by another not-so-nice business, you are not protected by Trading Standards or the Ombudsman relevant to the industry that has stung you. These organisations deem you intelligent enough to read through the terms and conditions. So if you want justice, you need to follow the legal process which can be costly.

Having had our fingers burnt on a few occasions, we decided the world needed a Business Review website so businesses like you can read reviews before signing the dotted line.

The Review Doctor asks customers up to questions for each type of business, for example:

• Hairdressers – How long were you kept waiting?

• Accountants – Was the estimate or quote accurate?

• Insurance – Did the Insurance company pay or wriggle out?

There are seven categories: Health & Beauty, Retail, Trade, Leisure, Business Services, Non-profit organisations, Finance/Legal. All kinds of businesses are listed – from dentists to business coaches to website agencies. We are adding more business types every day.

You can win a bottle of bubbly in our prize draw – all you have to do is review a business. It’s that simple. You can also list your business free of charge until the end of November and ask your customers to write good things about you and you can use these as testimonials on your website and other marketing material. Register today!

Our Mission: To make the world a fairer place by giving all businesses and consumers an honest review of all public, private and third sector organisations. Review. Read. Decide!

You can review any public, private or third sector organisation free of charge! Businesses can list their organisation free of charge until the end of 2011.

We LOVE honest businesses. We LOVE good customer care. We want to read good reviews too. This is a website for the good to shine and for the sharks to starve.

It’s high time a website like this was created. What are you waiting for?!!!

Businesses do not have the same support as consumers do. When you are a business – no matter how small you are – the government and the law say that you should take responsibility. There is  no support for businesses if you are ripped off.

The Review Doctor showcases our digital marketing, logo design, graphic design, website design, website development skills. If you like the design of The Review Doctor and would like a similar website for your organisation, give us a call on 01903 824229 and we will be happy to help you.