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

Digital Marketing Campaign is a Royal Success

Broadwater Community Association is still celebrating after the amazing Royal Wedding Picnic event which attracted over 3000 people and raised £1500 within a few hours.

The success of this event is down to a creative agency called The Brand Surgery who are based in Worthing, West Sussex. The organisers said: “We needed to promote this community event to raise money for a local charity called Broadwater Community Association. The Brand Surgery came up with a fantastic online marketing campaign which included an event website, plus a combination of Facebook, Twitter,
Linked In and blog posting.”

Vicky Vaughan, Managing Director of The Brand Surgery said: “We are thrilled with the success of the Broadwater Royal Wedding Picnic. It was an amazing day. People said they heard about the event via Facebook and Twitter, which just goes to show how powerful social networking is when combined with innovative and creative minds! Whether you want to attract businesses, children, adults or couples to your event, our social media marketing expertise seems to work a treat. Thanks to the brilliant event organisers for their time, passion and enthusiasm.”

We spoke to Vicky Vaughan to find out a few trade secrets to online success.

How does one begin to promote a successful event?
VV: It is best to create a new page on your company website especially for your event. If you don’t have a website, then simply create a new one for your event. Then you need to create Twitter, Facebook and Linked In accounts which should all link to your website. Ideally your social media accounts should be branded to match your organisation’s corporate identity. We created a logo for our event as it is an excellent excuse for marketing, PR and promotional give-aways. Social media is an amazingly cost effective marketing tool.

How did you raise money using social media?
VV: We set up a ‘shop’ in Facebook and people donated through this. They can also donate via our website. Then we energetically tweeted and used our online PR skills.

Why did you decide to get involved with social media?
There is a demand for social media as getting your message out there at a reasonable cost is essential, so armed with our copywriting skills, we launched the first in our range of social media services: blogging. We now have many customers who benefit from this wonderful search engine optimisation (SEO) tool and they all reach top spot in Google for their chosen keyword searches.

Does The Brand Surgery still design logos and websites?
VV: Yes. Our branding and website services are very popular and have won awards for us and our clients. We have in fact just completed a brilliant website for Manhattan Furniture. Look at what they said about us: “The Brand Surgery has just completed our website and we are thrilled with it. They took our brief, and enriched it with innovative ideas using the latest technology and our website is now leaps ahead of our competitors. The Brand Surgery is professional in all communications with us, and the team has made this an enjoyable project. They have looked after us along each step of the way and we would thoroughly recommend The Brand Surgery to any company who wants a competitive edge.” Phil Kethro, Marketing Manager, Manhattan Furniture
Anything else you want to say?
VV: Yes! Just incase you didn’t know, in 2009 we were commissioned to design the entire fleet of Coastliner 700 buses which cruise between Brighton and Portsmouth every 10 minutes. We are still celebrating this achievement. Helen Martin, Marketing Manager at Stagecoach South said:
“We have been working with The Brand Surgery for five years and always find the team enthusiastic and full of new ideas.
Not phased by bigger (literally) projects, The Brand Surgery did a great job of the striking illustrations of south coast iconic images that now brighten up our Coastliner 700 buses.”
Finally, we are soon to become Chartered Marketeers and to celebrate this achievement, we are offering one lucky organisation a free strategic report worth £1000s. Simply email to enter the prize draw. Terms and conditions do apply. Please ask for details. Everything mentioned in this blog is produced in-house. To find out more about how our range of services can give your company a competitive edge, contact
Vicky Vaughan at The Brand Surgery on 01903 824229 or 07909 693172.

business disasters with Evan Davis

Business Nightmares with Evan Davis is the must-see TV show, made in partnership with The Open University. This show tells the stories of the world’s most momentous business disasters and how they happened. The show documents the damage caused and the lessons that should be learned.  This fantastic three-part series examines business nightmares in detail and highlights the three fundamental areas in which disasters occur: The episodes are called: Doomed Designs, Marketing Mess-ups and Disastrous Decisions. The show features many case studies from businesses that got it wrong.

Unfortunately, the final episode is tomorrow (Thursday 19th May at 8pm on BBC2). The good news is that you can catch the first two episodes for the next eight days on BBC iPlayer by clicking here.

Business owners (including myself) do seem to fear failure, however, failure can be the best thing if we learn how to understand it, learn from it and recover from it. Part of my CIM Professional Diploma in Marketing involves my researching case studies and white papers. It is interesting that the April 2011 issue of the Harvard Business Review was called “The Failure Issue” and it comprises many case studies of how businesses turned around their companies from failure level. I am still a firm believer that learning from others mistakes is better than making your own!

Since studying for my Diploma, I have learned that the subjects I have covered in my book Do a Madonna have been quoted by the world famous marketeers such as Handy, Belbin, Norton and Kaplan. Do a Madonna has been written in an easily-digestible format for new business owners and it includes some of the case studies mentioned in this TV show as well as others. You can purchase a copy of Do a Madonna by clicking here.

Sunny Worthing Food and Drink Guide

Sunny Worthing Food and Drink Guide

We are the proud designers of the first ever Sunny Worthing Food and Drink Guide.

This interesting project utilised many skills from within our branding agency. First we created a concept for the front cover design, and one inside page. We wanted to promote the ‘Sunny Worthing’ them, so we added sun rays around the Worthing Town Centre Initiative logo. We then created a ’sea’ effect using a combination of illustrations and photo effects to create a rustic effect.

Next, to continue with the ’sunny’ theme, we created a ’sun’ with food objects such as strawberries and chillies. Once this concept was signed off, we then set to work importing all the catalogue data from Excel documents supplied by Worthing Town Centre Initiative. We set all the data in the listing style that had been approved by our client. This was a lengthy task as there are over 125 restaurant listings distributed over 40 pages!

The brochure was then printed with a lovely gloss laminated cover. The whole effect is stunning and we are immensely proud of it.

Manhattan Website Goes Live

It has been a big week of websites for The Brand Surgery. We are currently working on two new websites having just switched Manhattan’s website to ‘live’. It feels so good when we flick the switch! There is lots of testing before that happens though!

The Manhattan website is not just a pretty website, it is functional and is a persuasive sales aid for the Manhattan sales team. You can view the full product range and specifications, check out Manhattan credentials, browse the photo gallery and much more …

With this website, we followed the corporate identity which has already been in place for a number of years. Click here and see what you think. If you fancy a stylish and slick website like this for your business, you know where we are. Just a quick reminder: You can call us on 01903 824229 for an informal discussion.

As you know by now, our Facebook branding and posting secured an income of £1500 and attracted over 3000 people to one of our recent events. We didn’t spend one pence on advertising.

You can benefit from this amazing promotional tool also as for the month of June, we have reduced our Facebook business page branding fee by 30%. Our usual price starts from £500. During June, our fee will begin from just £350. This price will include us using your existing corporate identity and designing an attractive page to compliment your business website. We will also had one feature for you. This may include a Paypal setup so you can sell a product or service via your Facebook page. Or it could include a You Tube video upload like the one on our Facebook page.

We also offer a Facebook and Twitter posting service too, as well as our hugely successful blogging services, which ensure that our clients have reached the top of page one in Google for their chosen keyword searches, eg, Restaurant Worthing, Country Pub Horsham, Fencing Supplies, Branding Agency Sussex.

When’s the last time you saw a good website without the Twitter, Facebook and Linked In logos? Social media will compliment your website, and now with our fantastic June offer, what are you waiting for?

Latest Facebook pages:

• The Brand Surgery
• Broadwater Royal Wedding Picnic
• Do a Madonna
• Talent Within You

Facebook branding by The Brand Surgery

Chartered Institute of Marketing for The Brand Surgery

It’s official! The first assignment has been submitted and Vicky Vaughan, Managing Director of branding and website agency, The Brand Surgery, has already started work on her second assignment. Vicky is on track to becoming an officially qualified Chartered Marketeer by July 2012.

Vicky’s first assignment consisted of choosing a performance measurement standard for her chosen case study – the organisation  cannot be revealed until August 2011. Vicky had to critically evaluate the organisation’s current KPI’s and measurements, and decide which performance measurement standard to introduce. There is a wide choice, including Six Sigma, the ISOs (9001, 14001 etc), EFQM, TQM and the Balanced Scorecard. They all have their pros and cons, and now Vicky is familiar with them, she has the ability to recommend the perfect performance measurement standard for your business.

Whether you are measuring your website visitors, marketing campaign success, event success, productivity achievements, return on investment, social return on investment or even your personal development targets, there is a performance measurement standard suitable for your business.

Vicky’s next project is to launch a new product, or relaunch an existing project for a new organisation. The lucky organisation is getting two months of strategic marketing free-of-charge.

If you would like to benefit from the latest strategic marketing expertise, call The Brand Surgery on 01903 824229 for an informal chat.

Chartered Marketeer status coming soon for The Brand Surgery

Hey, here’s a brand new concept …

A branding agency that rewards you for referring your friends and networking buddies.

Simply pass The Brand Surgery referral card to your friends and networking buddies who you think would benefit from receiving our award-winning branding, logo design and website services. Your friend will receive a 10% discount off their very first order placed with us.

Remember to write YOUR name and  YOUR email address on the referral card because after we receive five referral cards with your details on the back, we will email you a voucher for one of our most popular services, each worth over £500:

Which reward will you choose?

• Five hours of design time (this would get you a bespoke double sided A4/A5 flyer or leaflet)

• E-marketing campaign software set-up (with username and password plus one hour of training time)

• One month of blog writing (one blog per week – great for improving your Google ranking)

Further referral cards can be posted or emailed to you by request.

Terms and Conditions:  (1) Referrals must be genuine. (2) Rewards can not be exchanged for money. (3)  Happy networking is essential.

How would you feel if someone stole your logo idea? Would you feel flattered or angry? You can’t stop businesses from copying your logo but you can stop them from using it, by registering your trademark or logo with the Intellectual Property Office.

Where do you start?

We have created a short presentation (below) because we are  frequently being asked how one goes about registering their logo. We registered our logo because as the number one branding agency in Sussex, we know the importance of protection.

We meet many business set-ups who think that registering their logo is a five minute process, when in fact, registering a logo and/or trademark is a four-six month process, whether you decide to register it yourself, or you decide to use a trade mark lawyer. How do you know whether to use a trade mark lawyer or not? Simple. Watch our short presentation and you will find out.

Design and protect your logo from plagiarism

Imagine you’ve been brainstorming for months, created a slick new logo and website, only to find out another business has previously registered your chosen name. Our presentation  shows you how to prevent this happening and how to protect your logo and/or trademark from plagiarism.

The Brand Surgery works in partnership with a dedicated trade mark lawyer because we know that your logo is one of your most precious business assets.  Call us on 01903 824229 for an information discussion on how to protect your logo or trade mark.

We listen to you. We design for you. We protect you.

Hey, here’s a BRAND new concept …

A branding agency that rewards you for referring your friends and networking buddies. Choose from three gifts – each worth £500 when you refer five friends or networking buddies.

Simply pass out The Brand Surgery referral cards to any of your friends and networking buddies who you think would benefit from receiving our award-winning branding, logo design and website services. Your friend will also benefit and will receive a 10% discount off their very first order placed with us. Everyone’s a winner!

Remember to write YOUR name and YOUR email address on the referral card because after we receive five referral cards with your details the back, we will email you a reward voucher for one of our most popular services, each worth over £500: Which reward will you choose?

• 5 hours of design time (this would get you a bespoke double sided A4/A5 flyer or leaflet)
• E-marketing campaign software set-up (with your own username and password plus one hour of training time)
• One month of blog writing (one blog per week – great for improving your Google ranking)

If you would like to benefit from this promotion, call us on 01903 824229 and we will post you some referral cards.

Terms and Conditions: (1) Referrals must be genuine (2) Rewards can not be exchanged for money (3) Happy networking is essential.

Think brand. Think success.

Call The Brand Surgery (the No. 1 Branding agency in Sussex) on 01903 824229 Email: rewards@thebrandsurgery.co.uk

Receive £500 of branding and design time FREE, courtesy of The Brand Surgery

Will Facebook and Twitter ever replace press advertising?

We never thought we would would say this, but we think it may just do that very thing in the future …

Just a few weeks ago, on Friday 29th April, a very special event took place. Not just Will & Kate’s fairytale wedding, but also an event we organised: The Broadwater Royal Wedding Picnic. Our working group had been working very hard for five months organising prizes, competitions, entertainment and so on. We discussed the advertising and decided we wanted to donate profits from the day to Broadwater Community Association and not the local press.

To begin with, we designed a Facebook page for the event using the logo and corporate ID we had created, and we developed a ‘shop‘ so we could accept donations from people wanting to gunge our local MPs and Councillors. We then embarked on a Facebook Frenzy campaign, and we Twittered into the twilight. Our social media marketing worked a treat: Our event attracted 3000 visitors, and we raised approximately £1500, most of which went to Broadwater Community Association as we didn’t waste money on advertising.

Our success didn’t end there. We recorded the gunging of Tim Loughton MP, Deputy Mayor Ann Barlow and Cllr Alan Rice, which is on You Tube, and it has now enjoyed over 2100 viewings – all from our Twittering and Facebooking.

3000 people enjoying the Royal Wedding celebrations on Broadwater Green

(from left) Simon Osborne, Deputy Mayor – Ann Barlow, Cllr Vicky Vaughan, Tim Loughton MP, Mayor Ann Sayers, Brian Fullick – Broadwater Community Association and Dave Hunt.

Vicky Vaughan, MD of the finest branding agency in Sussex, would like to thank everyone who worked hard to make The Broadwater Royal Wedding Picnic a huge success.

Only four days to go … Until William and Katherine tie the knot. Now we’re thinking – do we or don’t we? Would our customers really appreciate receiving A.N.Other advertising ‘eshot‘ branded ‘Congratulations to Will and Katherine’? There is a fine line between using events as an opportunity for marketing – how many of you sent out Happy Easter direct marketing campaigns?

Royal Wedding Marketing Gone Mad

We’ve been looking at some of the quirkiest Royal Wedding gimmicks on the the market and we were astounded when we Stumbled Upon these:

The Royal Wedding for Dummies! Whatever next? We wonder how many copies have sold!

Royal Wedding Refrigerator We thought they meant a fridge magnet, but oh no! This is a refrigerator with a difference. Will you decorate your kitchen to match?

Crown Jewels Condoms With the relaxed rules about memorabilia branding. Anything goes so long as it is tasteful – apparently.

Royal Wedding Dog Clothing A selection of different messages for you to choose from.

Broadwater Royal Wedding Picnic

We do have a real reason to promote The Royal Wedding because The Brand Surgery have been out in the community again. The boss, Vicky Vaughan, has organised a MASSIVE community event to celebrate this fantastic event which starts at 4pm om Friday 29th April on Broadwater Green, Worthing. There is an amazing line-up – Dave Benson Phillips is bringing along his gunge tank – and guess who is going to get gunged? Tim Loughton MP, Deputy Mayor of Worthing, Ann Barlow and Cllr Alan Rice have all agreed to be gunged if £500 is raised via votes. It only costs £1 a vote and you can by Paypal on our Facebook page (designed by The Brand Surgery) or you can come down on the day and vote. There is lots more fun, including entertainment from our Worthing Idol 2010 (website by The Brand Surgery)contestants and music excerps from the Seussical Musical courtesy of Anyone for Theatre?

Staying with the subject of weddings, the boss purchased some Union Jack bunting yesterday for an impromptu BBQ. Now she can’t decide whether to hang it outside the front of her house – is it patriotic or chavvy? Unfortunately, she had to abandon a project she was working on a few years ago. REBRAND BRITAIN was all about getting the community spirit back into the UK – until someone accused us of being part of the BNP because our logo sported a Union Jack. Logos and brands are all about memories. What does the Union Jack mean to you? You can read more about brand perceptions in Vicky’s book: Do A Madonna.