Call 0161 236 0770 to find out how we can help you build rapport with your target audience.
February 2009 Blog Archive
27 February 2009 Lost for words…
Confession of the week: I love Danny Boyle! Who else would take their new Best Director Oscar for a pint down their local? I bet the regular punters at St Mary’s Social Club in Radcliffe Greater Manchester couldn’t believe their luck - not only did they get a free drink courtesy of Boyle but they also got to rub shoulders with North West Tonight presenter Gordon Burns and experience a bona fide paparazzi scrum to get into the club in the first place. This has got to be the most exciting thing that’s happened in Radcliffe since Danny was last there a few weeks ago with his BAFTA wrapped in a carrier bag!
Danny Boyle has officially put Radcliffe on the map by giving the town a mention in his very humble Oscars acceptance speech. Kate Winslet even managed to inject a certain amount of humility into her moment of glory by holding back the tears and not waffling on for more than her allocated time slot on this occasion.
Speaking of the power of speech, I was intrigued to read that ‘dirty’ is likely to be the next word that will become extinct from the English language. This got me thinking, what will Christina Aguilera rename her famous song? ‘Soiled’, maybe? Or how about ‘Slightly Grubby’? Apparently, only 50 per cent of all words that we use today would be recognisable to our ancestors 2,500 years ago. I actually think this seems quite high. Anyone who has like me battled through Geoffrey Chaucer’s ‘Canterbury Tales’ barely recognising any word as having a modern equivalent I’m sure will agree!
One phenomenon that I’m sure will survive the next 2,500 years will be a few choice ‘outfits’ that have graced many an unfortunate red carpet over the years. This is my particular favourite.
Farewell for now!
The winds of change did not stop at the PC to Mac switch over last week; on Thursday the Rapport office received a changing rooms-style makeover (as in it all happened in one day), although I think Chris does fancy himself as the resident Handy Andy! Despite searching the Northern Quarter with a fine-tooth comb for a new suitable office before Christmas we decided that we couldn't bear to move so we would refurbish what we had! So after much agonizing over chair-colours and new seating positions we are sure you will agree it looks pretty good!...
If anyone happened to be in Piccadilly Station on thursday afternoon and saw me hanging around by the Balcony bar with a camcorder don't worry (too much!); it was all in the name of Rapport. We undertook out second Rapport Away Day, so while the office was being transformed we were sent a mission to produce a 15-20 second video to be broadcast on YouTube and a poster and a PR campaign for Rapport. Without giving too much away we incorporated all our company core values into a highly skilled and professionally produced motion picture, unfortunately the tape is now in Chris's hands and although he promises not to actually post in on YouTube I don't know if I quite believe him!
13 February 2009 Cajan Squirrels
This weeks blog is was written from my shiny new Mac computer, as those of us at Rapport still word processing from the dark ages finally made the switch this week. I must admit to being initially dubious, but somewhere in between adding 'widgets' to my 'dashboard' and using photobooth to make it look like we are in a fish tank (amongst admiring its efficiency at more serious tasks of course!), I realised that I actually quite like it and with Mac profits reaching £0.53bn in the first quarter of 2008 alone, it looks like I am not the only one!
It would have been Darwin's 200th birthday on Thursday and the 150th anniversary of the publication of "The Origin of the Species"; although only the second best thing to come out of Shrewsbury (behind Vicky of course), Darwin's ideas was questioned when an American poll found that only 39% of Americans believed his theories on evolution to be true. Interestingly the poll also showed a strong correlation between those who did believe and those who had attended higher education...
But Darwin's talents didn't just stop at Biology, in order to reach his specimen jars quicker Charles stuck wheels on the bottom of his chair, thus creating the office chair we still use today!
It was bad timing from HRH's marketing department this week, when the Queens new website went live on the same day as The Rapport Studio's new 'V Loans' website (admittedly the target audiences for the two websites may be slightly different!) V Loans came to us asking if we could update their company branding to better reflect their core values and what their customers want - so we did! to check out more on this go to our news pages.
The final chapter in my epic 'B of the Bang Chronicles' has, this week, been written (although to be honest I wouldn't hold your breath!), the final, final, final(ish) decision has been made by the Council; it will, indeed, be taken down. I thought it only right to pin point the events which made this our favourite land mark, as a fitting tribute to the piece of 'art' which has provided me with so much blog material over the months:
The Life and Times of The B of The Bang
2003 - Things got off to a promising start as construction started in Sheffield; the B was to be the largest sculpture in the UK and leaned at a greater angle than The Leaning Tower of Pizza.
6th Jan 2005 - the 2.1m tip of one of the B's spikes fell off, luckily it was closed off to the public at this time but uncertainty was mounting...
2005 - A grand unveiling was attended by Linford Christie, sculpture was named after his famous quote that in a race he sets off at "the B of the Bang"
May 2005 - another spike is found 'hanging loose' and has to be reinforced.
2006 - Yet another spike falls off the B, resulting in 9 more spikes having to be removed for safety reason, Public safety is now definitely questionable and the council begins legal proceeding against its creator Thomas Heatherwick's company.
November 2008 - An out of court settlement is reached in the Councils favour on the grounds of breach of contract and negligence.
January 2009 - The council advises that the sculpture should be taken down ASAP.
4th February 2009 - The Council changed their minds, giving us all a glimmer of hope; if someone could supply £3m in order to repair B they would let it stay up...
11th February 2009 - Obviously no-one came running because the council made its final decision that B should be dismantled for good - the end of an era.
It is not only our planet that we are managing to cover in litter, but we have now moved onto to the slightly larger dustbin of Outer Space. It was reported last week that over 1 million bits of debris are currently floating around Space, with the Russian Space Station releasing over 200 plastic bags into the stratosphere last year. With Space being so big and all this doesn't pose too much of a problem, except that the individual pieces of rubbish are traveling at a speed of up to 25,000 miles per hour, meaning even a 1mm metal chip can cause as much damage as a .22 caliber long rifle bullet - so much for moving to Mars.
Speaking of rubbish has any one tried the new Walkers flavours? The Fish and Chips flavour taste like Chicken and the Hoisin Duck taste like Duck but its just not nice, unfortunately I have so far been unable to drum up to courage to try the Cajan Squirrel...
Monday was national “sickie day”; statistically the day when Britons are most likely to call in sick from work – of course that didn’t affect us here at Rapport, the fact still remains that no-one has ever had a sick day in the history of the company. The bets are on as to who is going to go first and it seems that people’s money is on me! Now the stakes are so high that even arrival of the much anticipated Bird Flu epidemic warned to be imminent in 2004 (still waiting for this to hit) is unlikely to keep us away from the office! I will keep you all posted…
Ever innovative, Google have seen to it that ‘pulling a sickie’ when you are actually going on an all-dayer could soon become a thing of the past (not that I have ever done that!). Launched on Wednesday, “Latitude” means it is now possible for someone to track you using your mobile phone location (the more cunning amongst us may, of course leave the phone at home). The facility can’t provide the exact location but can give the general vicinity, i.e. close enough to get people in serious trouble! However both parties do need to give consent in order to ‘track’ or be ‘tracked’ and you can opt in and out whenever you like or make yourself seen to some and not others, so don’t be handing your mobile over to Envirofone just yet.
While I am on the subject of new technology; the fascinating world of the teenage networking site of the moment ‘Twitter’ came to light this week when Stephen Fry got stuck in a lift. After uploading a pic of himself stuck in the lift he then proceeded to have a ‘Twitter’ (I think that’s what they call it!) with all those in Cyber space documenting his progress. This resulted in a “Free Stephen Fry from a lift” facebook group and within the hour 25,000 people had viewed this picture – I think the more interesting angle of the story is the apparent size of the lift!
We couldn’t get through this week’s blog without mentioning the snow, its dominated the headlines, taken over the news and forget the recession, it’s the only topic on everyone’s lips. So while the BBC supplied us with funny clips of people slipping on ice provided by a carefully positioned London CCTV camera and GMTV covered breaking news on location from a school that wouldn’t be opening that day, I found out why a snowflake has 6 arms – unfortunately it’s not that interesting!
Just when you thought it was safe to visit Sports City, the B of the Bang saga continues, it has now been decided that maybe it won’t be taken down after all. Manchester Council have suggested that £3million should be spent to repair the ill-fated sculpture, the only problem is that they don’t have anyone to pay for it, any offers?...
For all those of you who have been under a rock this week (or hiding out on the sofa after being ‘snowed in’) and have therefore missed our hard-hitting PR campaign; we are pleased to welcome Fiona Barwell into the Rapport gang. Have a look on our news pages for more info.