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Better marketing from the inside, out. We’re transformation experts that align and empower marketing teams.

At Signal, we help brands navigate the noise and do better marketing - from the inside, out.

Signal | Better marketing from the inside, out. We’re transformation experts that align and empower marketing teams.

Signal | Full Service Marketing Agency | Cheltenham, Edinburgh & London

Signal | We're a full service marketing agency that help big brands make an even bigger impact. 

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Better customer-led communications for one of the UK's biggest banks.

A better welcome for new supporters, automatically.

A powerful campaign highlighting medical progress.

We really enjoyed working with Signal and were delighted by the clarity, confidence and boldness they brought to the project.

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Fundraisers, things just got interesting. Because moving fast has never been so important – which can be quite an ask in the traditional world of direct mail.

The good news is, that although we’ve had our fair share of challenges recently, it’s also sparked off a whole load of questions. Questions are good – we like questions. And fundraisers are now questioning established ways of working for direct mail, which aren’t cutting it in the current climate.

Thanks to Coronavirus (Covid-19) we’re seeing the adoption of digital skills and practices to improve fundraising agility across the board. 

And this includes direct mail where the opportunity for individual giving fundraisers is to shift to ways of working that radically shorten campaign cycles as well as improve campaign performance.

We’ve broken down the shift into three connected steps - that you can take to streamline and improve your direct mail activity during Covid-19 and beyond.

Templates are ace when it comes to getting things done quicker. Using pre-defined templates and formats can reduce DM campaign cycles by weeks.

Think of agreed templates and formats as ‘production containers’. Using this approach, you can drop in relevant topical content developed for specific audiences, but content that’s designed with the template in mind. For example, you wouldn’t have to start planning for a Summer Appeal now, when you could give yourself the opportunity to select the most topical and appropriate proposition and content nearer the time (but in tightly planned production parameters).

“It’s not controversial to say that audience, context and timing matter more than format.”

After all, we wouldn’t try to manage a very dynamic website without a pattern library, or develop an always-on email or digital advertising programme without an optimised set of templates to support rapid content deployment. But somehow for direct mail teams still work to painfully long lead times, with format often falling out of the end of an elongated content process.

Adopting pre-existing templates and formats is simply about reversing the order of play. You’ll get back weeks of your life and have far greater control over your budgets. Both of which sound like winners.

The BHF’s Appeals, Newsletters and Raffles were all produced one campaign at a time, with campaign cycles typically being 6–10 weeks.

By creating templated formats for each of these campaign types, and working in sprints on the content, BHF have been able to dramatically reduce overheads and lead times.

Fundraisers have been able to shift their focus from onerous campaign management tasks to activities that will drive performance like audience planning and testing.

They have taken things a step further with their raffles, and are now producing content for multiple campaigns using a single content platform and sprint process.

There are two reasons why high-speed digital printing for direct mail (also known as ‘white paper’ production) has been a game changer for direct mail:

It allows content to flex by audience within a single campaign.

It speeds up production by negating the need for pre-printed stationery and overprinted personalisation.

So why hasn’t this adoption for mainstream high-volume charity campaigns been faster? It used to be that the price point was a barrier, but not anymore. Arguably it’s because the established process is a barrier to change – with audience, data planning and selections happening too late. It’s still common for content to be developed ahead of the data planning – resulting in some crude mail merge process where content is generic and personalisation limited just to prompts and variable paragraphs. Not really the best supporter experience.

We call the shift to upfront data planning ‘design by data’. Connecting upstream data planning with the personalisation possibilities of digital printing opens up a new frontier for direct mail – and a much more personal experience for the reader.

The last piece of the direct mail transformation jigsaw is a new faster approach to developing strong content in short, focused bursts.

Developing campaigns in Sprints doesn’t require Agile training, it’s more about borrowing some ways of working that are commonplace in digital:

Planning: Agree on a block of time, perhaps a week or fortnight, and ensure a cross-functional team of fundraisers, brand folk, planners, creatives, and a project manager can come together to plan the creative process and commit to tasks.

Doing: Speak to each other on a regular basis during the Sprint, and set up tools (you have them already or they’re free) to enable real-time collaboration. Now more than ever, close collaboration and being in the development of the work together is key.

Deciding: Ensure that decision-makers are in the team, so when the work is done it moves straight into deployment.

Learning: Track what works and what doesn’t. Which templates and audiences are working better than expected, and what is falling flat.

The team can use this information to make each sprint more successful than the last.

Depending on your project, you can cut your lead times considerably. Not only that but there is a greater degree of flexibility, making the mobilisation of integrated campaigns easier to manage.

Agility benefits aside, everyone we’ve worked with in this way has hugely enjoyed the process and said that it produces better work. No great surprise when this process neatly circumnavigates those cumbersome decision-making and approval cycles.

When Covid-19 undermined carefully laid plans, the team at Brooke were faced with the challenge of dealing with the disruption, whilst maintaining relationships with supporters, and protecting income to fund their important work.

An integrated emergency appeal including Social, DM, email and DRTV was conceived and created in record time using a streamlined approach and daily stand-ups. Concepts were created and delivered in a day, digital went live within 48hrs.

Direct Mail was the central pillar of the campaign and followed quickly behind the digital activity rather than a channel that lagged behind the rest of the campaign.

Let’s face it, there’s no better time to try this approach, so pick a direct mail campaign or an integrated campaign with a direct mail element - and go for it. and go for it.

Maybe choose one that you want to mobilise quickly around Covid-19, or a campaign you want to delay starting because you’re busy on more urgent work in progress. You may also want to kickoff an audit of your established programme and process, to define the change that is required to migrate to a format and data driven set of BAU products.

“The key is to start experimenting – after all, the most effective transformations are iterative and incremental.”

At Signal we have extensive experience in direct mail and helping a wide range of charity clients apply digital skills and practices to their individual giving programmes. So please get in touch if you’d like more information, or a more detailed deep dive into template adoption, shifting to data driven or working in sprints.

Streamline DM.pdf

Life During Lockdown: Streamline your DM campaigns in 3...2...1...

How the fundraising experience needs to evolve to meet the wants and needs of the Post Covid-19 Consumer. 

In only a matter of weeks Covid-19 has turned our lives upside down, forcing us to re-evaluate what it means to be an employee, a citizen, a global consumer. When we eventually do return to our ‘day-to-day’ lives, we’ll be returning to a new normality, shaped by changing behaviours and attitudes born from this crisis. 

As part of our ‘Life During Lockdown’ series, we explore 5 key emerging behavioural trends that CMO’s/senior fundraisers in the charity space will need to consider when interacting with the Post Covid-19 Consumer (PCC).

Consumer confidence has taken a huge hit since the middle ofMarch 2020. This erosion of confidence is going to make brand trust more important as people crave security and look to avoid risk. Brands will need to focus on building confidence through every consumer touchpoint while finding new ways to reach those audiences most impacted. 

The scale of the shift can be seen in the GfK consumer confidence index below, with a drop to -34 in late March 2020. This represents the biggest fall in more than 45 years.

GfK’s research also shows that households’ willingness to make major purchases has deteriorated sharply, this is despite a spike in demand for freezers, televisions and home office equipment as consumers prepared to spend most of their time at home.

With more than 6 million on furlough, rising job losses and working hours being slashed, measures of personal financial health have also taken a tumble. 

The Guardian identified the harsh reality of the economic fallout as far back as late March, when half a million people put claims in for universal credit in only 9 days. 

How deep and for how long these economic issues will last is unknown, but it will be the young and low earners who will almost certainly be hit hardest. Lower earners have so far been twice as likely to lose their jobs as high earners, while 12% of under-30s report being unemployed because of this crisis, against only 6% of those aged 40-55.

Consumer confidence is closely linked to charitable giving, About Loyalty’s Sentiment Tracker shows that up to 30% of people intend to stop or reduce their donations since Covid-19. This is driven largely by younger age groups, with half of under 35-year old’s looking to reduce or stop their charitable donations. This reduction in giving from under 35’s will likely be further compounded as these younger cohorts continue to face the brunt of reduced income and higher job losses. Those affected will likely be as much in need of support themselves as they will be in a position to continue to give.

Be it remote working from your garden, video-calling the grandparents, or home-schooling the kids, the UK lockdown has brought a return to the home as the epicentre of day-to-day life and ignited all areas of virtual living.

As the Nielson’s study on ‘Stability after Covid-19’ outlines, much of this shift to virtual is here to stay: “Most manufacturers will strive to reposition their offering to cater to the new needs emerging in their markets. These new consumer needs, or accelerators, will increasingly require localisation, quality, efficacy, transparency and technology to be part of their product offering.” The signs are that retailers will need to continually embrace this virtual world and increase their digitised presence to ensure future sustainability.

This move to virtual raises a significant challenge for the sector, with many charities still heavily reliant on older, offline and quite traditional audiences. It will be crucial to develop an integrated strategy with a greater emphasis on digital engagement, which drives more relevant content and experiences to younger groups. Many charities are beginning to embrace this change – as shown by the virtual 2.6 Challenge in response to the cancellation of the 2020 London Marathon. With a broad digital and social aspect, this concept represented a fast and effective pivot to help fundraisers recoup some of this otherwise lost income.

A foundation for all charities weathering this crisis will be in tracking and reporting, ensuring you can monitor your performance against revised COVID-19 targets as well as any shifts in supporter sentiment. This will ensure you can isolate and manage those areas most impacted by the crisis over the longer term. 

Social listening and panel research are also great ways to tap into the feelings and attitudes of supporters, whilst deeper insight and research will help you unpack problem areas and fast-track new activities, products and propositions.

Whilst the sustained impact of the current crisis on print advertising is still unclear, John Arlidge in The Sunday Times highlights that certain sections of traditional print media are heading for very rocky times.

“Consumption of news and entertainment has soared since the lockdown with most media websites reporting between a 100% - 500% increase in traffic. Consumers are also watching a third more TV; viewing is topping at Christmas levels. 

The problem though is with advertising, which has plummeted. Print media is set to drop by 30% and TV by as much as 40% by

Whilst broadcasting could recover thanks to streaming services, the hit to magazines and newspapers could be much harder – potentially pushing many titles off the cliff for good.”

It will be survival of the fittest in print media, especially for some of the niche titles that charities historically might have turned to for inserts and print ads. Whilst all should be branching further into digital media, charities will need to keep an eye on the health of certain titles and focus on those most resilient to downward shocks.

Despite Joe Wickes workouts, record levels of joggers and wellbeing app downloads, the Global Web Index April Health survey results show the current crisis has brought a worrying wave of health concerns.

Two thirds of all respondents remain worried about becoming sick, whilst just over half are very worried for loved ones.

When it comes to age, younger groups are seeing the most dramatic changes to their health behaviors at this time. They’re more likely than their older counterparts to be sleeping less, eating less healthy and less regular meals, as well as keeping in touch with their loved ones less often.

The report also highlights growing mental health concerns, particularly around anxiety, depression and issues fueled by

prolonged isolation. The NHS has launched a range of tips for supporting those at home, and the good news is that many people are aware of the impact that the crisis is having and they’re taking active measures to mitigate against it.

Nine in every 10 surveyed adults have taken up some kind of activity to look after their mental wellbeing while at home, with looking for the support of friends and family topping the list among all demographic groups and segments.

Where possible, a renewed focus on events and fundraising initiatives that ensure experiences that compliment this renewed focus on health & wellbeing will be a must. Editorial content and stories about helping those in your community weather this crisis will be well received.

Everyone is being impacted so any content around mind and body wellbeing for your supporters will be universally well received; consider tips around cooking, meditating and journaling to resonate with younger groups, while decluttering, gardening and reaching out to friends/family (as well as the community) for older groups.

While your nearby high street chains (think Oasis, Warehouse and Debenhams) tip over the edge, there is some good news for local retailers, YouGov notes a 23% increase in purchasing at corner stores and a concerted shift with consumers to home grown, home-made or locally sourced goods and services. For local retailers to prevail a community outlook and giving back approach will be well regarded and, likely, well rewarded.

Nearly a quarter of Brits have used corner shops more since the lockdown

Since the start of the Government-imposed lockdown (23 March), have you visited/used the following more or less frequently than you normally would? %

You only have to poke your head out of your front door every Thursday at 8pm to see the renewed appreciation for those in key-worker sectors of the economy and to witness a renewed wave of community spirit.

About Loyalty’s Sentiment Tracker highlights that charities not associated with Covid-19 might be deemed of lower importance, with elderly, community support and health deemed of greater importance across all age groups.

Irrespective of your cause, PCC charity shoppers will be looking for an interaction where they are ‘helping me to do my bit and give back’. For those charities with a retail presence, signposting local community work as well as re-educating around charitable roles in the UK economy will be essential.

Hopefully this outline provides some inspiration on what’s ahead and where and how you can evolve to meet the needs of the PCC.

A good place to start is to gather an understanding of the implications of Covid-19 on your business now and in the near future. You can do this through a process of listening, pivoting, learning and reassessing.

You can then kick-start your PCC response by running a Scenario Planning & Response Workshop that’s cross functional, so you can gather inputs and information from a wide range of sources.

Make an assessment of a reasonable worst-case scenario across your fundraising operation.

Identify key potential risks and impacts around: income, retention, governance, reputation, fulfilment, people and technology and then prioritise where the efforts are going to have the most impact.

Complete rapid response planning to work out the actions required and owners of delivering the priorities.

Set up the measurement and tracking of what KPIs you want to report on.

We hope this article has also highlighted that now is a critical time to start accelerating your post crisis planning.

At Signal we have extensive experience supporting a wide range of charity clients and we are working with many right now to get ready for the PCC – so please do get in touch if you’d like more information.

The Post Covid 19 Consumer .pdf

Life During Lockdown: The Post Covid-19 Consumer

Boardrooms may have been replaced by kitchens, spare rooms or even sheds, but there’s no reason why remote meetings can’t be more efficient than face-to-face meetings. After all, they can promote a sharper focus and a more disciplined approach. Our tips should help you do exactly that – some of these techniques apply to physical meetings too, so they could help as a good reminder of best practice.

All meetings need preparation, but virtual catch-ups add a layer of complexity. It’s worth spending a bit of time thinking about the structure and mechanics in advance:

• Circulate an agenda – give people enough time to prep and remember that not everyone’s working hours and patterns are the same.

• Allow breaks – remote meetings can feel intense, so give people time to move away from the screen for a while.

• Keep energy levels up by never going longer than five minutes without a discussion or group activity. Use breakout groups to get people working together in smaller teams.

• Keep things tight and interactive – focus on the quickest, simplest and most effective ways to share information, promote discussion and make decisions.

Working from home makes for all sorts of distractions but encourage everyone to be present and stay “in the (virtual) room”:

• Clear your work space. Have pen, paper and the agenda in front of you but nothing else; put your phone on silent and out of view; close the door.

• Encourage everyone to have their cameras on (but stay on mute when not talking). This helps you all stay focused and fosters a team spirit.

• If it makes you feel more comfortable, stand up when you present (although remember where the camera is!).

Start the meeting by bringing everyone into the “room”. Connect as human beings – we need that right now – and help colleagues get into the right mindset by welcoming them in.

• Do a tech tour so everyone knows how to participate. Ask people what room they’re in or what they can see from their workstation to break the ice and introduce the chat function.

• Agree the purpose. As for all meetings, remote or otherwise, if there’s no purpose there shouldn’t be a meeting. Why are we here? What do we want to achieve?

Everyone has a shared responsibility to engage, rather than watch from the sidelines. Make sure everyone feels willing and able to participate fully:

• Set expectations of engagement from the start. In your tech tour, remind people about functionality like chat and hand-raising.

• Remind people that everyone has a voice – frame your meeting as an open forum where everyone’s point of view is valid.

• Try to prevent people talking over each other. As you can’t read the body language this can be tricky, but try to keep control of the meeting by asking people to speak in turn.

Video conferencing platforms such as Zoom and Microsoft Teams have excellent additional functionality to help your teams collaborate remotely:

• Zoom enables a facilitator to split the meeting into up to 50 separate breakout sessions, which is useful for workshops; you can also create polls for instant feedback

• Miro offers digital whiteboards and includes some useful templates

• Google docs allow you to co-create, edit and share easily. 

One benefit of lockdown is that it’s forcing us to learn fast, improve our working practices and think more about how work and life co-exist. And in the post Covid-19 world, remote meetings may well remain a core part of our working lives. Companies will invest more in enabling tech and less in office bricks and mortar; we’ll spend more time working from home and less time travelling.

With the right tech and tools to hand, there’s nothing to stop us connecting to tackle problems and explore opportunities, productively and effectively. And if we can do so in our slippers, then what’s not to like?

Objectives.pdf

Empathy Map.pdf

During lockdown we’ve worked with clients who are looking to re-pivot quickly on existing activity or do new activity in response to COVID-19 and these are a couple of the templates (Objectives & Empathy Map) that we’ve found most useful for this – feel free to use yourself

Virtually Better Meetings.pdf

Life During Lockdown: Better Remote Meetings

In our last bulletin, we looked at the toolkits that are out there to enable virtual collaboration in these disrupted times. Now we’re going to focus on how to deliver focused, effective meetings in the virtual world.

Life During Lockdown: Better Remote Meetings | Signal Blog

Teamwork is tough during lockdown. It can be tricky to kick around new ideas, get a game plan together, or have a group round up when you’re all flying solo at home. A few weeks in, and we’re starting to get to grips with the new realities of remote working. True, most of us have had the inevitable interruptions from partners, pets and children (my two-year old sitting in on my meeting was especially memorable). But it’s also given us a great chance to trial out some of the new collaborative toolkits out there. It’s true that Zoom and other video hangouts have already become a mainstay for many teams. But we’ve found that the teams that have adapted most seamlessly and efficiently to the new normal are the ones using more sophisticated options.

An Agile approach to managing work is becoming mandatory for marketing organisations. The teams that are seeing the most success are the ones that are purposefully building a “stack” of complementary collaboration tools that allow them to work together effectively and efficiently.

But it can be a challenge to pick the right set of tools for your team. Your options might be limited – either by the company you work for or the technological parameters you’re working in.

There are two steps to overcoming these challenges:

• Firstly, think about the specific marketing processes that your teams are involved in.

• Secondly, ask yourself whether you have the right tools in place for each of those processes.

To get you started, we’ve put together a list of the collaboration tools that we’ve found useful across Signal.

Hopefully our suggestions give you a starter for ten – but remember these tools have to work for you and your teams. Sometimes it’s a case of trying and testing toolkits to make sure they are making everyone’s lives simpler and not adding more obstacles. If you’d like to get some tips on getting the most from your toolkit or benchmark your position with similar businesses, we’d be happy to have a chat.

Collaboration Stack .pdf

Life During Lockdown: 
How do your collaboration tools 'stack' up?

Teamwork is tough during lockdown. It can be tricky to kick around new ideas, get a game plan together, or have a group round up when you’re all flying solo at home. Here at Signal we’ve put together a list of the collaboration tools that we’ve found useful.

Life During Lockdown: How do your collaboration tools 'stack' up?

Now that many of us are working from home, getting collaboration and team wellbeing right are more important than ever before. And that’s where taking an Agile Marketing approach can really help. We’re going to look at some Agile ideas that can help us all keep things running as best we can.

The coronavirus has disrupted businesses large and small across the world, creating an unprecedented remote working experiment. Now that many of us are working from home, getting collaboration and team wellbeing right are more important than ever before. And that’s where taking an Agile Marketing approach can really help. We’re going to look at some Agile ideas that can help us all keep things running as best we can.

Working from home can be isolating. But Agile Marketing comes with a built-in solution. One of the best things you can do to support remote working is to introduce a daily stand-up.

• Hold a short, 15-minute or so meeting every day that gives your team the chance to connect

• Chat through what everyone is working on

• If someone needs help, this is a great place to flag it

If you’re already running a daily stand-up, check the attendee list. Are there any other colleagues who could benefit from keeping in touch?

This is a concept from Agile project management. A retrospective is a short, facilitated workshop that lets a team assess progress and Identify ways forward.

• Talk through progress on a project or a campaign

• Or review how working remotely is going

• There are lots of meeting templates you can use, from “One Word – Battery Check” to “Three Little Pigs”

Running retrospectives has been popular in Agile software development, so there are already a number of templates available. We’ll also soon be publishing a separate article on retrospectives.

Collaboration tools are ideal for working remotely. Your business might not yet have taken full advantage of them, so now is the time to explore and see what’s possible:

• Monday is good for project management

Many platforms offer free or discounted trials, so you can experiment and find the right option.

Working from home means your team will have unavoidable distractions throughout the day. It’s important to remember that we are all juggling more balls than usual. Being flexible can really help:

• Tweak your work hours to make space for your life – or for your colleagues’

• Don’t worry if children or pets interrupt a video call

• Look out for your colleagues and if they’re feeling overwhelmed, offer to share the workload

Life has been turned upside down so much that it can be tempting to shelve big ideas for the moment. But it’s important to keep on track.

• This is going to be the new normal for a while, so don’t let it hold you back

• Some projects may be risky to tackle in full, but you could still take a first step

• An Agile approach breaks large projects down into more manageable pieces, so they are easier to move forward with

Hopefully these five ideas give you some inspiration on where to start. Exploring and experimenting now, even if it means a little trial and error, won’t just help your team get through the next few months. It could also mean you’re fully set up to work remotely even when life gets back to normal.

Agile.pdf

Life During Lockdown: 
Remote working, Agile style

Taking an Agile Marketing approach can really help whilst we're all working from home. In this article we're looking at some Agile ideas that can help us all keep things running as best we can.

What single part of your business has a proven impact on increasing revenue, lowering operational costs while growing your market share? 

Infrastructure? Utilisation? Agile methodologies? Robust business strategy? All have crucial roles to play, but there’s something else that has an even bigger impact.

It’s not just about having an in-house design team. It’s also about establishing the correct conditions for true design to flourish and making it integral to your organisation. 

InVision (whose design tools are used by 5m people worldwide, including every company in the Fortune 100) recently undertook the largest design adoption survey ever created and, luckily for us, it proves that good design = good business. 

‘The New Design Frontier’ surveys more than 2,200 companies across 24 industries, in 77 countries. And it proves that the more integrated design is to an organisation, the more successful they are across a plethora of metrics.

Before we delve into the intriguing statistics, it’s equally important to understand how they measured and analysed the data. InVision segmented the organisations involved into 5 levels of ‘design maturity’ - 1 being the lowest level of maturity and 5 being the highest. These can be summarised by the following:

Producers - Design is what happens on screens and makes things look good

Connectors -  Design is what happens in a workshop

Architects - Design is a standardised scalable process

Scientists - Design is a hypothesis and an experiment

Visionaries - Design is business strategy

Unsurprisingly, only a fraction of the companies that took part in the survey are truly benefitting from the impact of design. Visionaries make up only 5% of the companies that involved, while a whopping 41% fall into the Producers category, the lowest-level of design maturity. 

While 41% is the largest of the 5 groups, I believe this is still remarkably positive. As 59% of all other organisations fall into the higher levels of maturity, it is encouraging that the world is beginning to realise the importance of design and that we are moving in the right direction (albeit slowly).

“Companies in our study reported that when design takes center stage, it can have a direct impact on tangible business results, like revenue, valuation, and time to market.” - InVision’s ‘The New Design Frontier’

More interestingly, not only does the report demonstrate a direct correlation between design maturity and customer satisfaction, but also revenue and cost savings. 92% of Level 5 companies (Visionaries) state that design has significantly impacted their revenue - that’s 4x greater than that of a Level 1 company (Producer). As for cost savings, Level 5 companies state an impact that is 5x greater than that of a Level 1 organisation.

However, I’d be lying if I said I was all that surprised. Thinking about some of the fastest-growing, smartest and most-disruptive organisations in the world - agency, startup, product or a service - what do they all have in common? Design is intrinsic to their business. It’s not a coincidence that regardless of whether you see a website, app, email, presentation or printed material from these brands, everything has been considered and designed based on user needs and is of a consistently high quality. Nor is it a coincidence that better-designed products and services are adopted faster and in greater numbers. 

Design, like most creative fields, can be subjective. Even the very meaning of the word gets misconstrued. I am sure I am not the only designer who has had a ‘making pretty pictures for a living’ joke made at their expense before. The irony is that these comments couldn’t have reached me without great design being involved - they are frequently typed on an iPhone, via WhatsApp or a social network (with accompanying emoji of course).

In order to elevate design within your organisation, there needs to be a pivotal shift in the perception of what ‘design’ is, throughout all levels of the business. This begs the question...what is design? 

However, while the aesthetic value of design is, of course, important, it’s not the whole story. In the Design Disruptors documentary Julie Zhuo, VP of Product Design at Facebook states “Design is the act of intentionally solving problems” and lands on one of the closest descriptions we can hopefully all agree upon, regardless of the field of design. Let me explain why:

It has purpose - Designers inherently tend to work in the interest of others, not ourselves. The word ‘intentionally’ is used because we choose to tackle challenges, most of which are not our own, but that of a user. 


It has difficulty - The word ‘solving’ is there for a reason. Design is not easy. Regardless of methodology, it requires a lot of thinking that can last months, even years to perfect the solution to the problem.


It isn’t primarily focused on visual aesthetic - Yes, well-designed products tend to look good, but that is usually a byproduct of solving the problem better than others. For example, the iPhone was not the first smartphone, Apple just figured out how to do it better than everyone else. Apple’s competitors then copied their successful formula because the way it was designed had set a new standard for usability and desirability.


There is more to your design team than meets the eye

It’s clear then, that businesses too often pigeon-hole design in the ‘making things look good’ category, when really, your design team are an untapped resource of problem solvers. 

Design should be treated as an asset, not a commodity. Having a truly talented and empowered design team is rare, but it is your secret weapon against your competitors. Recognising this will empower your design team to deliver countless creative solutions to your business challenges.

The commercial and cultural results of elevating design are proven in InVision’s New Design Frontier research - with truly design-centric companies seeing four times the revenue and five times the cost savings. 

However, as the report carefully articulates, it is not a case of design adoption, but design maturity. And like all maturity, it takes time and steady progress. Crucially, this begins with a commitment to improve and an action plan that the whole organisation can buy into.

Design should be treated as an asset, not a commodity. Why? Design-centric companies see 4 times the revenue and 5 times the cost savings. 

What single part of your business has a proven impact on increasing revenue, lowering operational costs, while growing your market share? The answer? Design. 

Why good design equals good business | Signal Blog

Google occasionally injects movement and colour into their iconically spartan homepage with a Doodle.  

Typically these Doodles commemorate science, inventors and subjects close to the search engine's heart. That's not always the case, though, the first-ever Google Doodle was a Burning Man stick figure. And on the 5th of December, 2019, the homepage celebrated wellies.

An animation of Google's logo dancing in a puddle might seem like some welcome whimsy to liven up the day, but Google's Doodles are big business. They're multi-million pound opportunities that some of the world's best search marketers fight over.

They can deliver enough customers to empty your warehouse, fund your charity for months or even crash your website.

It is often the case that clicking on the Doodle, or trying to interact with it, will take you to Google search results for a related keyword. 

For example, in the first few hours of Google's Wellies Doodle, the top most result was a PPC ad from the Edinburgh based Hunter Boots. A company founded in 1856, and that holds several Royal Warrants by Appointment as official suppliers to the royal court was at the very centre of an entirely modern phenomenon.

As our Planning Director Phil Adams, who noticed Hunter's prime position, pondered on Twitter; did Hunter Boots plan this?

It's an interesting question. Would it be wise or unwise to have the top position in search when you are paying for each click during the surge in searches the Doodle was creating?

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