One of the joys of the Christmas break is a full switch off, safe in the knowledge that most clients and colleagues enjoy the same downtime. However, switching back into work mode isn’t always a smooth process. It can take time to ease back into the working week, so I hope we have all given ourselves a little grace in this transitionary period, allowing our brains and bodies to adapt while we acknowledge that maybe, just maybe, changing everything about ourselves on January 1st isn’t the most sensible option.
Drowning in brand admin
While you may have avoided a mountain of work emails, it’s harder to avoid on a personal level with endless surveys, reminders and general noise inflicted on our inbox for every booking, purchase or discount code dangled in return for our details. Guardian columnist Jay Rayner gave an entertaining rundown of an experience with a restaurant that wouldn’t leave him alone and, in doing so, soured an otherwise excellent experience.
Before sending out another request for feedback, it’s worth taking a glance at your opt-out rates and considering the timing and annoyance factor of your communications. Are you asking someone to review an item before they have even had a chance to use it? Are you providing something of value, or to paraphrase Jay, coming across like a desperately insecure person, gagging for affirmation?
Done proper
Yorkshire Tea launched the latest in a series of brilliant brand ads, this time featuring Happy Valley’s Sarah Lancashire on the case of the stolen biscuits. The brewdunnit follows in the footsteps of Kaiser Chiefs’ live hold music and Sir Patrick Stewart’s eloquent leaving speech, proving you can gain cut through if you commit to the message (and have the bucks for this level of production!)
And finally…
If you only follow one account this week, make it the British Library, if only for their posts highlighting obscure or almost obsolete words such as ramracketing, overquat and crawmassing. All of which should be used sporadically during the festive season (hat tip to the Clueless).
