The Golden Treacle Tin Awards!

At RPM's last company meeting, our Head of Creative, Neil Hooper, handed out four Golden Treacle Tin awards to the Best Design and the Best Creative of the quarter. The nominations were taken from all of RPM's projects over the year, and the competition was steep!

The Golden Treacle Tin awards recognise excellence for RPM's creative department, with the winners receiving a £50 bar tab at the local pub. So, to the winners...

Coming joint first for Best Creative were the world-first Talisker Sail-in Cinema and the Johnnie Walker experience at Goodwood Revival, the latter celebrating the extraordinary life of Rob Walker. Awarded Best Design was Sky Arts at the Hay Festival, which aimed to encourage consumers to find their hidden talent through a den full of inspirational items.

The Recruitment Battle

Nicola Clark's article, 'Is Marketing facing a talent crisis', in this week's Marketing Magazine really resonated with us. We understand how important it is to welcome in original minds and passionate creative talent to any workplace and have found that our annual grad scheme is a brilliant way of doing just this. After a competitive recruitment day in August, we took on four new grads ready to give all they'd got to the agency, working on a rota within our Production and Account Team departments.

The consultancy McKinsey, quoted in Nicola's piece, speaks correctly when it says, 'if you sit still, the talent won't simply come to you'. As an example of a more proactive recruitment strategy, in 2010 our Creative department launched a recruitment drive called 'Catch A Creative'. This encouraged people to recommend a friend who specialised in either design, copywriting, artwork or illustration. If they were employed, the friend who recommended them would receive a cash reward.

This was very effective for both parties. For us, there were no huge fees from recruitment agencies and it became a PR stunt. For the public, it gave people that extra incentive to participate. Everyone wants cash, right? In true guerrilla style, we had staff putting up posters in cafes, phone boxes, pubs and lampposts throughout East London wearing red 'Catch a Creative' T-shirts and carrying huge nets. The whole campaign roused attention because it was different, and we had over 100 applications.

I think originality is the key to the recruitment battle; do something different when it comes to securing new talent, and the talent will see that you're creative, unique and passionate about getting new individuals to join your team.

Ensuring Efficiency in Traditional Digital Channels

Dave Squires, RPM's Head of Digital, believes that when it comes to new technology, effectiveness lies in the old and not necessarily the new....

When it comes to exploring new technologies, it's often the case that clients will push to come up with the next idea, when actually less detail is paid to perfecting the basics, leading to a flawed campaign.

We’re all guilty of getting caught up in the ‘what’s next’ culture without stopping to actually review the traditional technology channels and the benefits they have. What clients tend to forget is that a lot of the traditional methods and channels, the tried and tested ones, are actually the most effective.

When looking at mobile solutions, for example, instead of thinking about apps or QR codes, a channel as basic as a text message is probably the most effective means of communication through mobile. This makes sense. People have more access to text messages than anything else. QR codes are good, but they’re not as easily accessible and ultimately not as recognised nor understood as a text.

In terms of RPM's Digital department, this is how we get results. If you’re trying to promote a sound digital offering and a serious digital offering at that, I think reconsidering these older methods puts you in a great position; it shows you’ve got the confidence to pull yourself back from all these new technologies that don’t actually do anything in terms of building a community. It’s important to remember not to use new technology for the sake of it, and think about what the consumer wants.