Author Archive for Tony Heywood

Get it right on the inside first

If your employees are not living the organisation’s brand values internally then it’s going to be next to impossible to build the brand externally.

It’s surprising how much money and effort organisations put into building and promoting external brands when things just aren’t right on the inside. When culture is fragmented across different areas of the business. When employees just don’t have a clear view of the road ahead or who’s driving the organisation. When employee disengagement starts to spread because the organisation forgot how to challenge or reward them. When recruitment campaigns fail to get a result. When sales volumes start to dip because enthusiasm and belief for the organisation’s products and services just aren’t there any more. When change moves employees out of their traditional comfort zones and brings on stress and discomfort. When efforts to communicate with employees fall on deaf ears.

Organisations are switched on these days to identifying the warning signs but tend to experience significant difficulty when it comes to finding solutions.

Most branding consultants are inexperienced when it comes to thinking strategically and creatively to identify employee-related issues and finding ways to prescribe solutions – ones which, in many cases, significantly affect the future wellbeing of the organisation. Consulting firms tend to focus on business processes and the bottom line. Employer branding consultants like Heywood Innovation however, focus on employee-related issues and opportunities and how the organisation is perceived as a competent and attractive employer from both the inside and the outside.

Which one did you go for?

Published by Tony Heywood on 20.07.2011 Closed

The world is moving online

The world is moving online and so are investors.
You’ve decided to transition your communications online and wind down the old print versions.
Online annual reports, sustainability reports, websites, e-newsletters and much more.
Makes sense.
There may even be some cost efficiencies!
You meet with your design agency who hand over their fees estimate.
You hit the roof and disbelief sets in.
Sound familiar?
Enter Heywood Innovation.
One of the most experienced online communications teams.
High value and industry leading results.

Published by Tony Heywood on 20.07.2011 Closed

Move your printed communications online

Ten reasons why you should be moving your printed communications online.
1    Print can be expensive – mailing certainly is.
2    Online can be a more compelling experience – video, animation etc.
3    Tablets and smartphones are outselling PCs this year – notice the trend.
4    People want their communications right here, right now – not next week.
5    Stick with print and they may perceive you as a stick-in-the-mud company.
6    Your print design team will try and hold you back – their jobs are at stake.
7    Your competitors are probably already moving there – with your customers.
8    There are cost efficiencies we can identify for you – smaller budgets, bigger results.
9    You’ll get to know who is reading your communications – and what they’re reading.
10   Online communications can be produced quickly – a lot faster than printed ones.

Published by Tony Heywood on 20.07.2011 Closed

Wherefore art thou print?

Statistics for online's rapid rise

If you had any doubts about the accelerating shift from print to online consumption of information, above are a few snippets of information in support of the argument. The team here at Heywood Innovation have had a determined focus on the new opportunities that have opened up in the online space, particularly in the investor communications area, ever since we pioneered the introduction of online annual reporting here in Australia in 2001. It seems the days of the traditional PC are numbered, a casualty of the associated technology shift to a more convenient mobile model. The future is tablet shaped and sized. We look forward to constantly degreasing our finger tips and de-streaking (new tablet terminology) our tablet screens.

Published by Tony Heywood on 24.01.2011 Closed

Celebrating Australian pioneering spirit

Morning Star Gold 'William Gooley Memorial Award'

MORNING STAR GOLD
Morning Star Gold is presently breathing new life into the Morning Star Mine in the remote alpine region of north-east Victoria – once Australia’s premier gold mine. The local township of Woods Point sprang up when gold was discovered by Irishman Willliam Gooley in 1861 while prospecting near the Goulburn River. This prompted a wild rush for gold and by the mid 1860s around 50 large mines were in operation. To celebrate MSG’s commitment to the local Woods Point community and these pioneering miners, we have created the inaugural William Gooley Memorial Award for Community Service. This award, sponsored by Morning Star Gold, will be presented to a standout contributor to the local community in early 2011. Our involvement included concept, copy writing and design of logos, award and poster.

Published by Tony Heywood on 04.11.2010 Closed

Pumping up the story to shareholders

Pan Pacific Petrolium 2010 Online Annual Report

PAN PACIFIC PETROLEUM

Pan Pacific Petroleum is an ASX-listed oil company operating in New Zealand and Western Australia. This is the fourth printed annual report and third html ‘microsite’ annual report we have designed and produced for PPP. The online version features a ‘landing page’ style for the home page facilitating several points of entry to the report, enabling readers to access faster than with traditional single navigation access.
FULL REPORT

Published by Tony Heywood on 04.11.2010 Closed

Accountability rules OK?

So you’ve applied your strategic and creative genius to launch new employer branding activities, but then the CEO asks you to report on the ROI! How do you do this? How do you go about measuring ROI? It’s not easy to measure. You can for example engage a talented copy writer to improve your job ads and measure the number of responses, but this has little to do with building a strong and sustainable employer brand. Most metrics are likely to be linked to tactics or one-off campaign activities, not real employer branding. So what is involved? Here are a few pointers to start you on your journey…

Employee engagement
A good measure of ROI are the levels of employee engagement before and after the employer branding activities kicked in. By surveying the workforce before and after the activities you will be able to identify how effective they were, which ones hit the mark and which ones didn’t, and refine them accordingly.

Length of service/retention
This cannot be calculated in the short term. If length of service figures are increasing then it’s fair to say that the new EB activities may be driving higher levels of engagement and that employees have a new found higher regard for their employer and the employment experience.

Customer service
Are customer surveys highlighting new levels of satisfaction with the sales experience, the purchasing experience, the order processing experience, the delivery experience and the after sales experience? Were they greeted with a new found smile and a thank you? Are sales figures increasing?

Ideas and recommendations from employees
Are employees suddenly forthcoming with new ideas on how they can do their job better, save on production times, increase team performance and satisfaction, or ways to enhance the customer experience?

Cost per hire
Are you receiving more speculative applications from job seekers? Is this allowing you to reduce your reliance on advertising and external recruiters?

Job applications
Are applicants better empowered with information and an understanding of the job for which they are applying and the career opportunity? Is it because you now have a more compelling and informative Careers section on your website or are other improvements responsible? Are more job seekers visiting the website and, if so, are they the right ones? Are your job ads better written, more informative and more inspiring?

Higher productivity
Are production figures rising without additional resources? Do employees in the production area seem happier with their work and are they putting in a bigger effort?

Referral rates
Are you receiving more ‘better fit’ job applications from people who have been referred by your employees?

Internal engagement
Are present employees more engaged with their work, their colleagues and with managers? Do they have a smile on their face? Has their behaviour shifted to one where collaboration is the norm?

Living the brand
How well is the organisation’s brand being emotionally received and lived by employees? Are they willing to defend and promote it to customers, colleagues, friends and new job applicants? Do they do this ‘from the heart’? Are they ambassadors for the brand, who instill a positive perception in the minds of customers?

Moving forward
Are employees keen to engage with personal development programmes, training programmes and do so willingly? Do they perceive the benefits flow through on personal, work, career and organisational levels?

Offer:accept ratio
Has this improved? If you previously had a 4:1 offer:accept rate, but now have a 3:1 rate, then you can reasonably say the EB activities are taking effect.

Recruitment campaign effectiveness
Are more people responding to your recruitment campaigns? Are they perceiving a more compelling offer? Does the campaign look more attractive and have stronger messages? Is it achieving more ‘cut-through’?

Employer of choice
Have employees since achieved greater clarity on what the organisation is, what it does, what it stands for… and how the employment experience it provides can benefit their career, job satisfaction and lifestyle requirements?

So do you think after your investigations you’ll be armed with sufficient data and feedback to look your boss in the eyes and tell him/her with great conviction that the organisation’s investment in building a strong employer brand has paid off? I hope so.

Tony Heywood is a Fellow of the Design Institute of Australia, founder of Heywood Innovation in Sydney and London with affiliates in Melbourne, Gold Coast, Singapore and Mumbai.

Published by Tony Heywood on 17.09.2010 Closed

Glued to our screens

Here we go again. July: Amazon.com has announced that online sales of e-books have nearly doubled those of printed books. Gulp. Think how many trees that just saved… how many printing companies have fallen by the wayside, how many printing ink manufacturers are afflicted by the domino effect, not to mention paper manufacturers.

It’s all going online. Magazines and company publications like the annual report. Mind you there are still plenty of baby boomers out there who insist on their printed items to remind them of the good old days, proud of their houses displaying obligatory bookcases with shelves bending under the weight of literary treasures coated in dust and awaiting their ultimate fate in the charity bin or some community book sale. When will they die off? The baby boomers I mean. Another twenty years? Who knows what we will have in twenty years to assist us with our reading endeavours? … virtual screens and surround sound you can conjure from thin air courtesy of that Apple device surgically implanted in the front of your forehead courtesy of your local Apple store.

Back to Amazon.com. They sold 143 e-books for every 100 hard cover books earlier this year but that has now reached 180 e-books! And this does not include books that are available as free downloads. And the e-books readable with their Kindle reader have only been around for a year and a half.

The book printing industry around the globe is understandably concerned.

So are the magazine printers and also the annual report printers who are fighting a losing battle with the new breed of digital printers positioned to pounce on small quantities and on-demand requirements.

The battle for attention in the online space will be won by those companies that invest in technology-savvy designers who can leverage the power of the medium and grab people’s attention in a compelling and interactive way that the printed page never can.

Tony Heywood is a Fellow of the Design Institute of Australia, founder of Heywood Innovation in Sydney and London with affiliates in Melbourne, Gold Coast, Singapore and Mumbai.

Published by Tony Heywood on 05.08.2010 Closed

Will our new name fit on our letterhead?

PricewaterhouseCoopers is a pretty big firm. In fact it’s the biggest of the Big 4 audit firms in the world (or it was the last time I looked). And it also has one of the least creative names in that sector or, in fact, any sector… and the longest.

It was formed in 1998 by the merger of two large firms, Price Waterhouse and Coopers & Lybrand. Both firms have a long history dating back to the nineteenth century. So did it get just too hard back in 1998 to think of a brand new name? … or a new brand name? Was it a bad year for creativity? Were the naming firms on holiday? Were both firms so precious about their names and heritage that they just wouldn’t give them up no matter what?

It turns out that in 1989 Price Waterhouse and Arthur Andersen had discussed a merger to explore economies of scale. So we may have ended up with PricewaterhouseArthur or even PricewaterhouseAndersen. Luckily Price Waterhouse didn’t merge and avoided getting tainted by the Enron disaster.

But wait there’s more. Coopers & Lybrand was the result of a merger in 1957 between Cooper Brothers & Co; Lybrand, Ross Bros & Montgomery and a Canadian firm McDonald, Currie and Co.

Hey it could have been RossbrosmontgomerymcdonaldCurrieCo! How would that have looked on the letterhead? Pity the poor receptionist… “Good morning this RossbrosmontgomerymcdonaldCurrieCo, can I help you?

I guess it would have been a disaster if it had an office in a certain small village in north west Wales… “Ello boyo this is RossbrosmontgomerymcdonaldCurrieCo’s Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch office… can I ’elp you?

Tony Heywood is a Fellow of the Design Institute of Australia, founder of Heywood Innovation in Sydney and London with affiliates in Melbourne, Gold Coast, Singapore and Mumbai.

Published by Tony Heywood on 26.07.2010 Closed

Brands off the agenda again

Australian companies are once again on the hunt for…

– tasty acquisitions now the war chest has been replenished, or
– mergers with like minded businesses intent on the ‘bigger is better’ model.

They’re looking for acquisitions that can fast track new growth in recovering markets. Sadly we’re not seeing much evidence that brand is being considered as part of

a/. the due-diligence processes preceding negotiations or
b/. the integration activities that follow a merger

They’re paying big bucks to expensive advisors to get the deal across the line. Why don’t they invest some money and time making sure those valuable brands and the people attached to them are going to survive the journey?

Enter marketing department stage left. The good old ‘we can do it all’ marketing team are once again thrown headlong into the fray to manage the brand through the latter stages of the merger or acquisition, usually when it’s too late, usually headed by people with little experience or little desire to be dragged away from their new designs for a multi-page pop-up direct mail piece.

Without a doubt customer brand allegiances influence M&A deals. Tamper with them at your peril. Customer and employee perceptions of the brands play a huge role in determining the smooth transition of the deal and the ultimate viability of your post-deal branding strategy. Ask them about it before it’s too late.

Surely acquirers would have done their branding homework before approaching the target? Surely they would have included robust research to determine brand value and the true drivers of brand equity. Did they look beyond this to determine what role the brands might play in driving long-term business outcomes and the ultimate success of the deal?

I hope so!

Tony Heywood is a Fellow of the Design Institute of Australia, founder of Heywood Innovation in Sydney and London with affiliates in Melbourne, Gold Coast, Singapore and Mumbai.

Published by Tony Heywood on 20.07.2010 Closed