David and I recently spent a short stint in rehab – at Willowdene Farm in Shropshire.

We spent a morning with six residents helping them with interview techniques and holding mock interviews. Willowdene is a fascinating place where former heroin users spend nine months gaining up to 20 qualifications as well as undergoing extensive therapy. Over 90% of them go on to full-time employment and a drug free life after their time in the centre. We learnt a lot about the barriers that substance users have to face before starting afresh and hopefully passed on a few tips whilst we were there!

Amanda

Featured: Amanda with Jeremy, qualified Agricultural Engineer

On Friday night, the team had a cracking time at the DMA North’s GlitterBall at the Hilton, Manchester Deansgate. As elected creative partner to DMA North, we produced the invitations, tickets, place settings, menus, programmes and powerpoint presentation for the evening, so we were keen to let our hair down and enjoy ourselves when the night came around. The venue was gorgeous, and despite not winning a thing in the prize draw, we had a great time. Too great for some in fact... it was almost impossible to get Kev to leave...

While visiting clients at SED today we spotted this drag racing JCB which was creating quiet a stir. It's a drag racing backhoe fitted with a 1000hp engine capable of doing speeds in excess of 100 mph. Check this out...

I recently met marketing guru - Drayton Bird. He led a packed seminar at the recent International Direct Marketing Fair at Earls Court. His presentation took us back to the basics of commonsense direct marketing. Our role as marketers, he said, is simply to find, and then keep, a customer. It's all about finding ways of developing relationships with customers. Dell, he argued, is ruining their brand through their continual focus on discounting.

Digital marketers are failing to learn the fundamentals of direct marketing. He put this down to complacency created by the low cost of digital marketing channels. "Email is an incredibly cheap medium compares to direct mail. There is a tremendous cost advantage which means you don't have to try as hard. His two key rules are: one, test everything. Two, if in doubt refer to rule one. There are no certainties, no short-cuts, no set route map for success. Test and then test again.

Here's the transcript of his presentation...

The agency was asked to develop a campaign for Boris. Here's one of the ideas submitted...