Angel Delights

Tasty titbits and tiddly tastings is what Christmas is all about. Here are a few recommendations to throw into the party mix: 

A Nutella® Pastry Christmas Tree… what’s not to love? “Indulgent Nutella® chocolate hazelnut spread is sandwiched between two layers of puff pasty, scored in all the right places then twisted to form tree branches. Ideal for Christmas parties and delicious washed down with some festive mulled wine.” Get the recipe here. 

The Ultimate Holiday Sangria is filled with citrus, pomegranate, pear and cinnamon for one irresistible cocktail. Prep in five minutes; leave the fruit to soak for two hours or even overnight for maximum flavour. Find out more here.

Packed full of good-for-you ingredients like apples, pears, oranges and guavas and infused with spices like cinnamon, cloves, hibiscus and tamarind, why not try the Mexican Ponche? 

Or alternatively, give Sloeseccos a go. Easy to make… fizz with a dash of sloe gin.

For a nice twist on the Christmas Eve seafood tradition, scallops, with chorizo and pea purée on buttery toast comes highly recommended.   

 And if time is of the essence, here’s a recipe for a two-hour Christmas dinner. 

Secret Santa

In the seasonal spirit of party games, we asked each member of the DBA team to reveal a little ‘secret’ snippet about themselves. Can you guess who…

1. Grew up on the estate where A Clockwork Orange was filmed?
2. Has lived (for at least a year) on five different continents?
3. Is kicking off 2020 holidaying in Miami?
4. Is a yoga teacher? 
5. Jumped out of a plane last year? 
6. Can ride a unicycle? 
7. Took a star turn on TV, presenting their elementary school science project? 
8. Used to work in a glassblowing gallery and studio? 
9. Chatted to the Queen about the joys of ice skating?

Answers below.

And a few Christmas Turkeys to round-off proceedings..

What did Santa do when he went speed dating?

He pulled a cracker.

Who hides in a bakery at Christmas?

A mince spy.

What did Father Christmas say when Mrs Claus asked about the weather?

Looks like rain, dear.

Be human

Lucy Mann, Gunpowder Consulting

Rethink and reinvent

Chris Sherwin, Reboot innovation

Seek criticism not just praise

Jonathan Kirk, Up to the Light

Seize the moment

Jeremy Paterson, IF Media Consultancy

Make it less lonely at the top

Heli Heartland, Rock Your World

Challenge yourself

Russell Edson, Withers & Rogers LLP

On a table put…

Gary Baxter, Lightbox Consulting

Keep it simple

James Pearce, JP Media Training 

Find the balance

Shan Preddy, PREDDY&CO

Pick up the phone

Andre Yong, Angsana UK

2020: position and focus; an ode...

Nick Gray, Mr Gray Branding

It all adds up

Chris Lang, Flash Accounts

Exercise your values

Michael Thomson, Design Connect

Back to basics

Aliya Vigor-Robertson, JourneyHR

Your business' most valuable asset?

Jeremy Pennant, DYoung & Co

Take the lead

Erica Wolfe-Murray, Lola Media Ltd

Deliver change

Manish Kapur, Manish Kapur Ltd

Grow your pipeline

 Natasha Ellard-Shoefield, The Hand Consulting

Act up

Adrian Day, Consultant & Non-Exec Director 

Action!

Jack O’Hern, Wright Vigar

Step up on the softer skills

If 67% of pitches are lost because of softer factors over and above harder factors*, then why don’t we spend more time finessing these softer skills? Invest in your people and empower them to present and communicate better – it might give you that much-needed edge over the competition.

Catherine Allison, Master the Art 

A final thought...

Jeremy Davies, Little Train BD

Founded in 1989, the DBA Design Effectiveness Awards recognise impactful, wide-ranging examples of design that have had a tangible and measurable impact upon business and societal success.

Judged by a broad range of business leaders and entered jointly by client and designer, the Awards draw focus onto design’s strategic and commercial value to business and society.

The judging panel 2020

The judging panel will be chaired by Clive Grinyer, who for more than three decades has led innovation teams developing human centred solutions for the modern world. He pioneered service design at Barclays Bank and has worked for some of the world’s most creative companies including Apple, Samsung and Cisco. 

“I’ve always loved the DBA Design Effectiveness Awards because they show the impact of design in an unarguable and measurable way. They speak to the heart of organisations and show that whatever your objective is, design can transform the results you are reaching for,” says Grinyer.

Entries are judged through a rigorous, three-stage process by leading figures across multiple industries.

The judging panel this year includes:

Paul Edwards, Head of Creative Design, Airbus

Hans Daems, Group Public Affairs Officer, Hitachi Europe

Nanna Ulrich Gudum, Vice President Design, Lego

Monica Dalla Riva, Vice President Customer Experience and Design, Deutsche Telekom

Sigrid Brewka-Steeves, Head of Global Retail Design, PUMA

Ben Branson, Founder & CEO, Seedlip

Bruce Daisley, VP EMEA, Twitter

Siobhan Fitzpatrick, VP Digital Distribution, Virgin Atlantic

The full list of confirmed judges can be found here.

And confirmed for the Grand Prix judging panel:

Tomasz Blawat, CEO, Carlsberg UK

Ewan Venters, CEO, Fortnum & Mason

James Cain OBE, Chief Executive, Harrogate Spring Water

Laura Citron, CEO, London & Partners

Mark Fairweather, CEO, Whitworths

Browse previous winners’ case studies and find out more about the DBA Design Effectiveness Awards here. 

Watch short films about previous winners...

What is Twenty/Twenty?

DBA Twenty/Twenty pairs rising industry leaders with established design pioneers for a 12-month one-to-one mentoring relationship. 

Since its launch in 2011, the DBA’s flagship business mentoring programme has worked with more than 350 participants from more than 200 DBA member businesses.

What value will it bring to you and your business?

Being mentored will take your thinking to the next level to grow your business – “We’ve seen massive growth in the last 12 months: doubled our staff, implemented new systems and moved to a new office. Part of that was made possible by the tools I picked up from mentoring, and part from the sounding board of experience.”  DBA Mentee. 

Being mentored helps you focus time on the business – “You spend so much time thinking about how to please your clients, and not nearly enough time focusing on the business itself. My mentor was able to put everything into perspective – being reflective yet forward focused at the same time.” DBA Mentee.

Benefit from guidance from someone more experienced – “Finding someone with such a wealth of experience from the design industry who can give an objective viewpoint on you and your business is invaluable.”  DBA Mentee.

Gain the space to truly define your goals – “The route to finding my goals was nothing like I expected. It involved being asked challenging questions and my mentor helping me to find the answers for myself.”  DBA Mentee. 

It gets you energised – “I’m back to being excited about my business. I felt the wind had gone out of my sails, but since having a mentor I feel happier, richer, invigorated, more confident and more focused.”  DBA Mentee. 

What's the experience like for a mentee?

Richard Taylor, MD, Brandon Consulting

Mentors are highly engaged in the programme too...

Read more about Jonny’s mentoring experience here. 

What's the experience like for a mentor?

Tell me about your experience…

Rosalyn: “My mentee and I started in January 19. We have had an easy relationship from the start. She has a determination to understand how she can deal with issues and so she has talked openly about her situation and driven the process quite well. I feel she has been honest about her worries and in her responses and she is a clear thinker – two important areas that help the process.” 

If you reflect back now, what impact do you think the programme has had on yourself? 

Rosalyn: “It’s interesting that in this case, I am mentoring someone who has been facing business changes that D&P has just been through – some quite specific, and not necessarily common, challenges. So it was good to share my own experience out loud and find someone else in a similar position, it was kind of reassuring.” 

What impact has the programme had on your company? 

Rosalyn: “Indirectly helped me/us realise we are not alone! I find sharing experiences valuable; the process of explaining them to someone from outside the business cements them and helps you understand better how you solved your own problems and what you learnt.”

 Why did you decide to apply to Twenty/Twenty?

Rosalyn: “I wanted to see if I could support someone outside my business through mentoring as opposed to supporting employees who may feel they have to follow what I say!! I wanted to test my ability to mentor rather than instruct. I also wanted to share my experience with people who may benefit.”

How do I sign up?

The programme has gone from strength to strength and applications for 2020 are now open.

To be supported on your journey upwards or to contribute to the success of our future industry leaders, read further details about being a mentor or mentee, and sign up to participate in the next cohort by 22 November 2019 here. 

You’ve been a mentor twice. Tell us what you learned from the two journeys.

Jonny: “Both experiences were insightful and valuable. As a mentor, it’s not just about industry experience, it’s also about general life experiences – it helps when navigating situations similar to those you’ve gone through. You’re able to share your approaches and learnings from a relatable example.

The first time I mentored, within three months of our mentoring journey my mentee lost his job, but out of this we turned our relationship into long-term coaching. I thought about how else I could help him, introduced him to networks and we focused on creating some new options. No matter what the situation, you can use the time productively and positively to re-orient around your mentee’s needs.”

Jonny: “My current mentee is in a completely different situation. He has a smaller business – an agency of a dozen people – and he’s focused on stimulating growth and resolving the pressure of business growing pains.

He really helps me to help him, by providing a briefing email ahead of our sessions, including the top three things he wants to achieve out of the meeting and how he wants to take his business forward after each stage – this gives every discussion a clear sense of objectives. Importantly, it gives me time to digest, process and be more thoughtful about how to guide him.

It’s critical that as a mentor you understand the challenges your mentees face in the industry and how this impacts them as a person – it’s worthwhile knowing that you’re making a positive difference to their life as well as their business.”

Top tips

Upon reflection, what impact has the programme had on yourself and the way you conduct your business?

Jonny: “It opens your mind to a different way of doing things.

Both my mentees have been running businesses in the same sector within the industry, but have faced very different scenarios – this pushes the mentor as much as it does the mentee. I’ve got loads of value out of the discussions I’ve had with my mentees, where we’re trying to solve an issue that they’re facing, but I end up discovering ways to apply the solutions we’ve come up with to a challenge I’ve been pondering. It’s like a reverse flow of positive stimulation – forcing up issues you didn’t consider as high priority.

It’s good to have friends in the industry – the mentees you work with who are running businesses are highly committed and they are inspiring people – it’s a pleasure to have the luxury of time with them.”

Why did you decide to apply to the Twenty/Twenty mentoring programme?

Jonny: “I’ve worked with the DBA for a long time, and after going from a corporate big scale agency to beginning a start-up and developing my own business, I felt that I’d reached a point in my career that being able to connect with other business leaders would be really beneficial.

I also wanted to help people who may have been in a similar situation to me now looking for support, which I felt able and ready to impart.

There’s a strong sense of community in the industry and the DBA is a great enabler of this. I value what the DBA do and wanted to be a part of it. The Twenty/Twenty programme also struck me as a good new source of inspiration and insight from fellow counterparts.

You’ve got to look at being a mentor or a mentee as an opportunity – you should grasp it while you can and no one else does it the way the DBA does.

It’s a pretty low investment as a mentor with very high developmental benefits and reward.”

It’s been over three years since your first Twenty/Twenty experience and just over a year since your second. How have the two compared?

Andy: “I’ve had entirely different experiences with two different mentors, but there’s something to be gained from each one. You have to come in with a really open mind and hold onto the little gems of wisdom that will become vital in the future.

I shared a very business-focused relationship with my first mentor, Andrew Eyles (CEO and Co-Founder of Bluemarlin). It was transformative and helped me understand how to move StudioLR from a design studio to a design business (which just so happens to be called a studio). We take a steer from his advice at the company to this day, in the way we employ, our focus and direction. My time with Andrew was really practical, it was like working directly with a business coach.

Continuing my development with Myles Pinfold (Founder and MD of WPA Pinfold) the second time round was equally valuable. Myles shared his experiences of how he built a successful design business. Having Myles as a sounding board has boosted my confidence to make changes (and in some cases the confidence not to), which keep me focused on moving forward.

I was so impressed with the transformational experience Twenty/Twenty had last time that I asked our Design Director, Dave King to join the programme too. Wanting to take the step up to Creative Director, he started working with a London based CD. He has grown in confidence – the tools he’s gained have been invaluable to making that crucial step.”

What impact has undertaking the programme had on your company?

Andy: “Andrew helped me understand how to be more commercially minded; since then we’ve had our most successful years. The real value has come from how we approach our business now. There’s a confidence and understanding in who we are and where we’re heading. Being consistently conscientious of our aims and strategy has led to exciting things – we’ve won two D&ADs (Writing for brands and Identity Design), the Marketing Society Star Awards’ SME agency of the year 2019, top honours at the Scottish Design Awards (including Grand Prix, and Design Team of the year) and even more.”

Did you face any challenges and if so, how did you overcome them?

Andy: “The only real challenge when working with Andrew was that he was London-based, and I was Edinburgh-based, but we were really good at making the time to meet. We held a quarter of the meetings in London, a quarter by Skype, and he took the time to meet me in Edinburgh.”

Why did you decide to apply to the Twenty/Twenty mentoring programme?

Andy: “We were already big supporters of the DBA and the value of the resources that we get as members. When we heard about the Twenty/Twenty programme, it sounded like the perfect thing to help take our business to the next level.”

“We suggested instead that they should choose one category inside the business and develop a new experience around that one category. Roll it out across the whole estate, so the business is affected by that in every store; drive a perception change amongst customers, impact the bottom line. That was our pitch.”, he recalls.

We’re discussing the pressures on the retail landscape and how changing demographics, technological transformation and demanding customers have driven many retailers to explore new retail formats. But ultimately, how sometimes it is more appropriate to work with existing formats, rather than following a more disruptive route, starting from scratch.

“I love doing new projects, because it’s new and it’s fresh and inspiring and I learn new things. With my designer hat on I’d do them every day of the week.” But, Johnston adds, “brand new stores are not always the best approach for business. Especially when you are working with clients who have five, six, eight hundred stores. You are always going to have legacy stores, but often it’s more effective for these businesses to look at consolidating things and to deliver consistency, because that can have a much wider, bigger impact on the business and its bottom line, and faster”.

Johnston believes that the real value comes from flagship stores when you start to extract some of the components and integrate them back into the wider estate. “In a lot of cases, such as our award-winning work with EE and Rogers, we will design a flagship or a premier store and then look at what we can pull back through the estate to create more efficiencies, more consistency throughout the whole business from manufacturing to marketing.”  

It’s no secret that the high street is facing huge challenges. With so many other channels now available to customers beyond physical retail that are both convenient and successful, Johnston sees a changing shift in the definition of success for high street stores, with focus moving from footfall to halo effect. 

“It’s a really interesting metric, because retailers are recognising that flatlining figures can actually mean success – if footfall has evened off but other channels are increasing, then the business is maintaining its current status overall.” Johnston flags the growing number of companies putting forward figures and stories that link the presence of a new store and increasing online sales in that region; in other words even if the store figures are not setting the world on fire, you can see a direct link or correlation between the physical store and the online uplift in the locality. “A lot of companies are starting to integrate the halo effect metric inside their store metrics,” says Johnston whilst the objectives for sales and footfall are increasingly “just ‘not to drop’ and that is deemed a success; anything on top is the icing on the cake”.

There are other ways to measure the success of design intervention in retail. When it comes to the customer, NPS scores are very valuable in understanding and measuring the impact on their experience. But the area that often gets overlooked by businesses, is one that is hugely important, especially in retail – staff engagement and motivation.

“If you look at the stores through the eyes of staff, what opportunities do you see? What can we learn from someone’s behaviour around the physical environment? How can that influence results? Clients eyes light up and they really get behind this” says Johnston, because when you put great people in a great designed store, “that’s a hugely motivating factor for people and that’s when the magic happens.”

Working with clients to identify where it’s appropriate to do the smaller things and where it is appropriate to do the bigger things; when to take the traditional route, when to disrupt, hangs on instilling confidence in clients especially, as is often the case in retail, when you have a huge number of stakeholder teams to convince. 

It’s all about “demystifying design” says Johnston, arguing that the crux of this is removing the fear; the unknown around how you get to the creative idea. “This is why in design we’re in the position where we are still too often asked to pitch for free – because clients don’t understand how we get to the creative idea, they want to see the thing before they buy it.” 

Johnston is clear that there’s a very linear line between objectives, research, strategy and design; design is not just some mystical thing that appears. “It is a really considered thoughtful process that delivers results” says Johnston. “And if clients understand your process and the scale of success it’s delivered before for other clients, you’re convincing them of the value and impact of the solutions you’ll propose. That’s really powerful. And ultimately, whether you plump for a more traditional or more disruptive approach, that’s how you’ll get buy-in.”

It’s 30 years since you led a management buyout of Elmwood at the age of 28. What was the Elmwood of 1989 like compared to today?

Jonathan: “It is strange looking back as it is easy to forget the fundamental differences. In many ways, life was simpler. No internet, no email, no mobile phones and no Macs meant the pace of business was so much more relaxed. If a client wanted to see a design amendment in a different colour then the visuals would have to be completely redrawn which could take a couple of days. Today it is a matter of seconds with the touch of a mouse. Letters were typed on a typewriter by a secretary as typing for designers and account handlers was not a required skill, and then they would be sent in the post and so responses from the point of sending might take a week. Face to face meetings rather than Skype were a daily affair and my annual mileage was well north of 30,000 miles a year. Today my business miles are probably less than 6,000.

The advent of technology has also meant that business is now much more easily managed internationally and so when I started, we would deal with global brands on a national basis, but today global brands are managed out of global hubs. Thirty years ago, our work for P&G for example would have been handled out of Newcastle for the UK market whereas today it is Geneva and Cincinnati for a global audience. This also means that the working day is now 24-7 as you have to work to global time zones but back in the day, when clients went home in Newcastle or Manchester or London, then so could you. So today I often have conference calls at 6am with Australia and 8pm with NYC and both on the same day.

In short, the biggest change in thirty years has been that the pace of life is so much faster today than it was thirty years ago. Today there is no time for an hour’s lunch break which was a daily affair in the late 80’s and early 90’s, but a quick sandwich at my desk if I am lucky.”

Design effectiveness has become integral to the way you work; how did Elmwood’s design effectiveness story begin? 

Jonathan: “It all began with Sir John Sorrell. When he Chaired the DBA in the very early years, he invited me to sit on the board as the first regional representative. He subsequently became a lifelong mentor and as the original champion of Effectiveness at the birth of the DBA Design Effectiveness Awards I simply followed his lead, being seduced by his passion to prove that design should not be judged through a subjective lens, but be measurable and held to account as a business investment and strategic discipline. And when he retired from practice to pursue more philanthropic ventures the door was left open for me and Elmwood to walk through and take up the mantle.” 

Elmwood ‘bake effectiveness into every stage’ of the design process to deliver results for your clients. If you had to briefly sum up the essential ingredients for successfully delivering effective design, what would they be?

Jonathan: “The most fundamental ingredient is to really understand the brief and in simple terms to understand why a client is commissioning you in the first place. In other words, it is important to really understand what success looks like for them so that you can establish tangible benchmarks to measure yourself against. It always amazes me how often clients don’t have a tangible goal in mind when setting out a brief. They always know the reason why they need to do something e.g. we are losing market share so we need to do something! But, they don’t always have a view on what the upside should look like. What we try and do is make sure that success is grounded by a realistic goal be it a hard goal such as a percentage sales uplift or a soft goal such as an improvement in customer satisfaction. Only then can you work out what you might need to do to achieve success.

Beyond this you need to have a great relationship with the client. A relationship which represents a true partnership born through understanding, trust and indeed friendship. If you work as one then you each have empathy for one another’s challenges, challenges of budget and time lines. Nobody (client or agency) gets the time or money they would really like and so being able to work out how to get the most out of your resources, right at the start, is a key factor in delivering a great outcome. And today more than ever with the pressures of procurement departments and the sheer pace of modern life, this dynamic is a key reason why in Elmwood we have invested heavily in training to embrace genuine ’agile’ working methodologies.”

Has entering (and winning!) in the DBA Design Effectiveness Awards played a role in honing your approach?    

Jonathan: “It has almost become an addiction. Everyone knows of our pedigree in these awards and of course it is something we are incredibly proud of. Last time out was the first time I had actually gone up to collect an award myself, as I have always liked to see team members go and enjoy the recognition that they have worked so hard for, but having topped the league table for the tenth year straight I thought for once that I would go up with Sarah Dear who runs Elmwood in the UK. What was so heartwarming was that the warmth that we received from my peers was tangible. We are lucky to work in such a great industry.”

What about staff; you have a large team, spread around the world – how do you ensure the whole team are consistently delivering effective design and can talk confidently about the value design can add?  

Jonathan: “It is just hard wired into our culture. Simple as that.”

Why is evidencing the impact of design important?

Jonathan: “The truth is that we are all designers. We design our own homes and the way we live our lives and the way we look as we dress in the morning. In short we all have our own style, our own likes and dislikes. As a result everyone can view design through a subjective lens. And that is dangerous as all too often the client is not the end customer and so we have to have qualitative and quantitative criteria to assess design beyond personal taste.”

What’s the most memorable feedback you’ve had from a client on the results you’ve delivered for their business?

Jonathan: “There have been so many but in a couple of cases we have had a client actually say that our work has indeed saved their business from extinction!” 

Looking ahead to 2020 and beyond, do you see trends or influences which will increasingly factor into the design industry?

Jonathan: “I believe that our industry is changing faster and more fundamentally than at anytime in my career. Moving from cow gum and letterset to the Mac was a big change but arguably only a change in process. Thirty years ago a marketeer would own their budget and have a pretty simple mix of agencies to take their message to market. The ad agency would most likely be the key strategic partner as they held the lions share of the budget controlling the message and media spend supplemented by research, PR, design and a handful of others.

Today life is much more complex. Multiple channels beyond TV, radio and press with social media, APP’s, bloggers and Vloggers. Artificial Intelligence to Virtual Reality and new technologies such as RFID tags pushing messages to your many devices’s means that Marketeers no longer have the bandwidth to really get a grip on the best route to market and so trusted business advisors are now where brand owners put their faith.  

People are again putting their faith in people and so why having a relationship at the C Suite is key. It is perhaps why the likes of Accenture and Deloitte are entering the Marcoms space at the expense of the likes of WPP and Publicis. Whilst this is perhaps a scary time, it can also be an exciting time as this can be the opportunity for the design industry as design is at the start of the marcoms food chain. As a result, if you can win the trust of the client then you can also become the conductor of the marcoms orchestra.” 

And for Elmwood’s future – what’s particularly exciting to you; is there an area that you’re specifically wanting to focus on, or a new direction of travel?

Jonathan: “As I say above this can be our time to own the C Suite and as a consequence we have the opportunity to activate the brands we create. To this end we are actively looking at potential acquisition targets that can add gravitas to our strategic capabilities to ensure we make the most of relationships at the top table and earn the trust of the budget holders, but also businesses that can then activate our brands to ensure we don’t leave money on the table.

There are many wounded beasts out there from Ad agencies losing revenues, to digital agencies and design agencies themselves being commoditised by roll out agencies and so this challenge feeds into two Elmwood mantras that have never changed in thirty years. The first being that all businesses are taking part in a race, a race that nobody can win as in business there is no finish line – so the goal has to be to continually lead from the front. It is that Darwinian thing that it isn’t the strongest that survive or the most intelligent, but those most adaptable to change. And secondly and in the words of the late great Gerry Garcia “it is no longer good enough to be the best of the best, but the only ones who do what you do”.

So as I start to think about my own succession, I know that the future success of Elmwood is totally reliant on having a world class talent pool, people capable of leading the race and driving our difference to make our offer continually compelling and of course as a result…amazingly effective.”