Posts Tagged ‘Fuzion PR’

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No “Protest Pressure” for the Homeless

October 30, 2016

Jonathan Corrie, Homeless man in Dublin

The Luas drivers and their Union knew it – go on strike, Dublin is upside down, the owners are losing money and keep it up for long enough and the pressure will make the other side buckle.

Win!

The teachers and their Union have just started the same process – go on strike, parents all over the country are upside down and keep it up long enough and the pressure will make the government buckle and they will get what they want.

Win!

The Gardaí and their Union will do the unthinkable and start the same process – go on strike, communities all over the country will not be safe. Keep it up for long enough and they will certainly get what they want.

Win!

The thing with all three of these professions is that they have a lever, a big pressure point that can be used to force what they want – If we do this they won’t like it so we can force a win.

What do you do if you are homeless?

There are more of you homeless every single day and every night. There is no “Union” and no obvious pressure point that can help you to force real change. Jonathan Corrie, a homeless man passed away near Leinster House in Dublin a few years back and as unfortunate as that was it managed to create “a stir” for about 10 minutes.

There are more and more bodies in sleeping bags and under cardboard and gradually they are more and more visible on our Irish streets. Today there will be a few more homeless than yesterday and tomorrow there will be more again – while it’s a huge problem there is no big “lever” that these poor people can use so there is no opportunity to apply any pressure to try to force a solution.

If this was a problem that affected enough of us there would be a solution , until then…

Greg Canty 

Greg Canty is a Partner of Fuzion Communications who offer Marketing, PR, Graphic Design services from our offices in Dublin and Cork, Ireland

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Posted in Homeless, Ireland, Strikes | Leave a Comment »

Attracting the first customers 

October 6, 2016

Marina at Vilamoura

The shoulder season must be a big challenge for those working in the hospitality industry as there are customers out there but not quite as many as in high season.

We walked along the marina in Vilamoura, which is a beautiful town on the the Algarve in Portugal and most of the restaurants had their “sales people” out front trying to encourage you to choose their place as your restaurant for this night. We didn’t feel like Chinese or Indian so it was easy to walk by these restaurants but when it came to the rest how do you quickly judge them?

Does a place look well, are the prices right, is there a special offer to attract you, is there something different about the place, do customers there look like they are enjoying themselves, does it feel right?

If they look empty then what does everyone know that you don’t so you walk by, if they are too busy then you might also walk by.

With so many couples on holidays I wondered why the restaurants did not bother with candies? – an empty restaurant can transform quickly into an intimate, romantic spot when a special atmosphere has been created.

Eventually we stopped at the restaurant alongside the waterfront that had a good number of customers eating but it wasn’t so busy so we were able to get a seat with a good view.

The waiter cleverly guided us to a spot that helped spread the customers even more throughout the restaurant making it look a little busier than it actually was – he understood the “optics” that a place looking busy would attract more customers.

My lasagna was gorgeous but Dee’s gorgonzola and spinach pasta was strangely missing gorgonsola – we probably wouldn’t be back.

To the front of the restaurant there was a stand selling ice cream and crepes to passing pedestrians strolling on the marina. During the course of our meal the woman looking after the stand didn’t serve a single customer until suddenly one man stopped and ordered a crepe.

Her hot plate was fired up, the deliciously smelling mix was poured over it and the whole area carried the tantalising aroma of crepes being made. Suddenly I so badly wanted a crepe as did most people who walked by – while the guy waited for his crepe more people stopped and queued and then more and more.

The woman within 10 minutes went from having nothing to do to not being able to cope!

People are simple creatures and we often look to others to see what they are doing before we are prepared to commit.

What are you doing to attract your first customers?

Greg Canty 

Greg Canty is a Partner of Fuzion Communications who offer Marketing, PR, Graphic Design services from our offices in Dublin and Cork, Ireland

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Posted in Business Planning, Customer Care, Motivation, Tourism, Travel | Leave a Comment »

A great customer ethos

October 1, 2016

Eathos

It was just another day and just another cafe and I ordered just another cup of coffee.

How many times have I done this in my lifetime? How many times have all of us done this and it’s just one of those many “customer transactions” that we do over and over.

While I was waiting for my coffee to arrive I inevitably lost myself in my phone checking emails and my twitter feed when a smartly dressed waiter appeared with my coffee.

With a big smile he placed the coffee in front of me and with full eye contact said “enjoy your coffee” in a way that made you feel he really meant it.

“Oh, thanks a million” he surprised me with his genuineness and I did exactly what he asked and took the time to enjoy my coffee.

While serving a customer a cup of coffee is quite a routine task there are many ways that this could be done and my waiter made a decision to do this in the best possible way.

In the course of all our work there is a good chance that we end up doing the same thing over and over for our customers or for the internal customers that we work with everyday.

Try to do these routine tasks in the best possible way!

Note: The cafe/eatery is called Eathos and it can be found on Baggot Street in Dublin. They seem to hire a team with a great ethos!

Greg Canty 

Greg Canty is a Partner of Fuzion Communications who offer Marketing, PR, Graphic Design services from our offices in Dublin and Cork, Ireland

(pic by Maura Hickey)

 

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Posted in Customer Care | 5 Comments »

MAGA and simple messages

September 28, 2016

Donald Trump

What in the name of God is MAGA?

Of course it is an acronym for “Make America Great Again” used for hashtag purposes by Donald Trump with his social media posts.

This phrase is that one thing, that tag line if you will, which his whole campaign is built around – it is that one message that he keeps pumping out over and over, in every speech and now in every social media post.

Functionally when he uses #MAGA or any hashtag it pops out at you as it appears in a different colour and when you click on it you will see a listing of all of the social media posts where that was used. This makes it easy to track all of the posts.

People are bewildered about the success of this brash, uncouth, abrasive and insulting man who is now dangerously within touching distance of being the “Leader of the Free World“.

How is this possible?

While it is unbelievable I have a simple theory that I think partly explains the Trump pheonomena.

Here goes …

In this fast paced internet age where we are being assaulted 24/7 by messages and news via many media platforms it is very difficult to focus one’s attention properly.

As a result our attention spans are tiny and if you have a message that you want people to grasp then you must have one simple, clear message that is memorable and used consistently over and over.

This can be really effective because most people do not have the time or the inclination to dig deeper, to do their own research and properly inform themselves of all the facts about issues that are important such as who becomes the next President of the United States.

This key message should become your tagline and if possible it should be capable of being used as a hashtag in your social media posts.

BREXIT - We want our country back

For example in the recent BREXIT campaign the ‘leave’ campaigners put out a consistent campaign about “getting our country back“.

This simple message was pumped out over and over resulting in a majority of voters opting for ‘leave‘. What was clear afterwards was that many of these voters admitted that they had no idea about the consequences of their vote.

The ‘stay’ campaign had no clarity about their message so they made it easy for the opposition.

A key learning for all of us in this ‘short attention span era‘ is that a simple clear message that connects with your audience used consistently will win.

Does Hillary Clinton have a clear message?

I’m worried ….

Greg Canty 

Greg Canty is a Partner of Fuzion Communications who offer Marketing, PR, Graphic Design services from our offices in Dublin and Cork, Ireland

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Posted in Branding, Communications, Marketing, Politics, Speech writing | Leave a Comment »

Customer Loyalty – Who is rewarding who?

September 20, 2016

champagne

You can see it all starting to change – things are getting better and inevitably the prices are starting to creep up and the special deals are disappearing. The free glass of wine or soft drink with your lunch is gone – the bill has crept up €5 per person.

We use a particular hotel (our second home!!) on a regular basis in Dublin. In the depths of the recession they were glad of the business introducing keen rates for Corporate clients and a loyalty card system that rewarded you with free nights every time you stayed 10 times.

The room rate has crept up and 10 times has crept up to 13 times and the free upgrades to the better rooms don’t happen anymore – the reward for loyalty is less than it was because they don’t need this ‘loyalty’ as much anymore.

Recently we rang to make our usual booking and it happened to fall during the Dublin Horse Show week.

“We have vacancies but we can’t give you the corporate rate. That rate doesn’t apply at busy times” the reservations person explained.

“Excuse me. The hotel isn’t full, the event is happening and you have vacancies. We stay with you in the depths of winter when the place is half empty” Logic wasn’t winning as we tried to make our point.

“Sorry, we have a new policy”

We resorted to jumping over that person’s head and having a quiet word with the manager who we have got to know quite well and he negotiated a rate closer to what we normally pay. We shouldn’t have had to make any phone call but as I already said, things are changing.

Initially we were angry and frustrated. You think about finding a new place to stay but this hotel is close to the office and its convenient and in truth we all just have to ‘suck it up’ and realise that things improving means that your custom just won’t be as valued as it once was.

However, we now feel different about that place and if there was a better option we would definitely have switched to it at that point.

If you are increasing your prices and squeezing up those deals try to do it in such a way that doesn’t let your ‘loyal’ customers feel like their loyalty was pointless – you’ll want them in January!

Greg Canty 

Greg Canty is a Partner of Fuzion who offer Marketing, PR, GraphicDesign services from our offices in Dublin and Cork, Ireland

 

 

 

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Posted in Customer Care, Marketing | 4 Comments »

A week off and the “not to be missed” opportunity 

September 19, 2016

Valentia , Co.Kerry

For once this year for a few reasons we still hadn’t taken a break and we planned a week off in beautiful Valentia, Co.Kerry.

Just before our time off a good opportunity came through to us. We were invited to pitch along with a number of other agencies on a really significant project – the deadline was really tight and of course the date for the pitch presentation to the client was …you guessed it!! 2 days into our “week off”.

Hmmm…it was a great opportunity, it would be really interesting and a nice one to win.

Despite the whole team being totally slammed I decided we’d go for it but this meant that our mini holiday would inevitably be affected. However, I could come back to work for just that one day and continue with the holiday after that – it’s just one day, isn’t it?

With the huge workload the work on the pitch started really late. We went to Kerry on Saturday morning to start our holiday and I was distracted – my head wasn’t in holiday mode because I knew I had to work on the pitch.

First thing on Sunday morning the laptop went on and before I knew it most of the day was gone. On Monday we finished the plan and we headed back to Cork and on Tuesday the work “glad rags” went on and I met the team and we went to the pitch.

The weather had turned nasty so we didn’t return to Kerry.

Working on this pitch turned out to be a huge sacrifice and in truth it totally and stupidly ruined my week off – I had no “head rest“, which I really needed. I came back to work the following Monday with a cloud over my head and I was really angry with myself for falling into this work “trap”.

But maybe it would be worth it?

What added salt to these wounds was not winning the account – according to the feedback we came within a whisker of winning as our plan was excellent. Thank you but not excellent enough!

If I had a cloud at the start of the week I certainly had storm warnings now ….I’m a big boy and I made the decision to go for this myself. No one to blame but me!

Win or lose you need to take your breaks and ignore these “opportunities”. There is always another one around the next corner.

You are the most important client of all and if you’re not fresh and rested you won’t win anything.

Lesson learned Greg? – I hope so!

Greg Canty 

Greg Canty is a Partner of Fuzion who offer Marketing, PR, GraphicDesign services from our offices in Dublin and Cork, Ireland

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Posted in Holidays, Motivation, Personal development | Leave a Comment »

Do we have a hunger for bad guys?

August 24, 2016

Pat Hickey - Olympic Council of Ireland

At the moment we seem to have an insatiable appetite for the bad guys – this often seems to start with the media, with us happily jumping on the bandwagon, lapping up all of the attention grabbing and often sensationalist headlines accepting all of what is being said without question.

Maybe all of these ‘shameful characters‘ are as guilty as they are portrayed and maybe they deserve all of those rotten tomatoes and for their reputations to be destroyed irrevocably.

However, maybe we don’t know the full stories and maybe just maybe the process of delivering those shocking, sensationalist headlines isn’t always that robust?

In the course of our Crisis Communications work we have seen 100% incorrect situations being portrayed by the media in a particular way, which would have Mr and Mrs Everybody unfairly believing the worst and as a result solid reputations are destroyed forever.

It can happen easier that you may think..

  • someone with a gripe concocts a story about their target
  • they start a disingeneous “legal process” against their target
  • the legal documents get deliberately leaked to the media
  • a “hungry for a great story” journalist gratefully accepts the gift and starts to write their sensational story
  • the target is told there is a piece being written about them the next day including the detail from the legal document (bear in mind if you are explaining you are always losing) – any comment the journalist asks? – this is offering a right of reply (they did ask = technical fairness)
  • the flustered target (often not used to dealing with the media) might say “no comment” (solicitors often give this normally suicidal advice) or they might in the best possible way try to give responses to the accusations
  • the article appears in the newspaper complete with the sensationalist headline “Greg Canty (it could be you!) accused of embezzling funds“
  • the radio stations pick up on the story and interview the person with the gripe who is more than happy to tell their story
  • the target is called by the radio station for interview to rebutt the claims – once again, when you are explaining you are losing!
  • the person with the gripe drops their legal process – it was never serious in the first place!

Question – what arresting officer in Rio would have taken the pic above of Pat Hickey of the Irish Olympic Council and tweet it? Why?

Mr and Mrs Everybody are shocked and horrified and they start tweeting about it, venting their anger and it goes on and on – the story gets bigger and bigger and then it grows arms and legs with further titbits being added as the hate momentum builds.

Maybe they did these terrible things but maybe they didn’t?

The next time we read these sensationalist headlines we should pause and carefully question everything we read before fully making up our minds about these “villains”.

Greg Canty 

Greg Canty is a Partner of Fuzion who offer Crisis Communications from our offices in Dublin and Cork, Ireland 

 

 

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Posted in Crisis PR, Ethics, Reputation | 3 Comments »

Your most important customer 

August 12, 2016

Cakes - Fuzion

Last week our fantastic and very lovely graphic design intern, Marianne sent everyone in the team this mouthwatering email:

“Morning, there are some home-made buns in the reception area should you fancy something sweet. They are cinnamon sugar and amaretto sugar buns (hope no one has nut allergies). Enjoy!”

Enjoy?!!

They were absolutely delicious but more than that, this fantastic gesture by her was a brilliant way to make a connection with her fellow teammates on her first week.

This huge gesture blew me away and it got me thinking about customers and customer service.

The most important customers aren’t the crew out there that buy our goods and services, they are the people who work alongside us, day in and day out. Our bosses, our peers, our trainees, our interns – our relationship with these individuals is the most important one of all.

We spend most of our waking hours together and ultimately it is this group who will help to deliver your personal success, who will generate your income, who will make your days more enjoyable, who we need when we have problems and are under pressure.

Most of us can’t do it by ourselves and isn’t it much more fun when we do it together?

The most important customer is the person who works with you – look after them, treasure them.

Well done Marianne and thank you. You get it.

#WinHappy 

Greg Canty 

Greg Canty is a Partner of Fuzion who offer Marketing, PR, GraphicDesign services from our offices in Dublin and Cork, Ireland

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Posted in Customer Care, Friendship, Management, Motivation, Personal development, Teamwork | 2 Comments »

Snapchat and the schoolyard bully

August 7, 2016

Schoolyard bully

“Let’s just copy exactly what they are doing”

These must have been the crystal clear instructions to the programmers who work for Instagram as the new features on the platform are unashamedly and with no apology exactly the same as Snapchat.

Snapchat, the quirky social media platform has taken the world by storm and I guess recognising the imminent threat to their dominance Facebook instead of trying to buy them as they did with Instagram have just decided to try to blow them out of the online waters by “cogging” them.

Snapchat versus Facebook

I don’t like this, I think it is a poor and awful reflection of their business philosophy, their ethics and I’m starting to question their value system. This isn’t just any value system, this is the value system of Facebook, the clear dominant force in global social media.

Facebook aren’t just any other company they are a profitable giant who are without doubt the dominant force in social media. They gobbled up Instagram with their cheque book and we can see already how the two platforms are being worked for advertising purposes.

Then there is Twitter who are bravely hanging in there but they seem to be struggling to monetise their platform sufficiently to make any profit and their growth in user numbers has hit a plateau. As a serious competitor they are struggling.

Snapchat have kicked up a big storm and are challenging but the schoolyard bully has just landed a big heavy, powerful punch and they find themselves lying on the ground bewildered, battered and bruised.

For the sake of social media and the sector not being totally dominated quite dangerously by the schoolyard bully, keep tweeting and keep snapping!!

Greg Canty is a partner of Fuzion

Fuzion offer Social Media Consultancy and Training from our offices in Dublin and Cork, Ireland

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Posted in Bullying, Competition, Creativity, Facebook, Media, Social Media, Twitter | Leave a Comment »

Sick notes and morality

August 1, 2016

sicknote

Eventually the day of reckoning arrived and it looked like we were hours from the court case starting.

We were there just to support my buddy and unfortunately his wife and his son had also been dragged into it.

The previous week saw plenty of movement with offers coming through to my buddy to repay him the significant amount of money that was personally lent by him to his previous employers, his great “friends” to prop up their business.

This was big – they were now admitting they owed the money and there was no more mention of the crazy things they had been accusing him of. Unfortunately their offer to repay was in instalments over 10 years, which could never be acceptable as one could not trust that this would be executed without fuss.

For this reason my buddy couldn’t accept the offer and to add insult to injury they had subpoenaed his wife and son to attend court as their witnesses!! This was crazy and totally irrelevant and I’m guessing a simple, deliberate tactic to upset them by dragging them into the intimidating atmosphere of court.

The intimidation certainly did not work and my buddy, his wife and son were in determined mood to fight to get their money.

We sat in the pub across from the court while the wheels of the court process slowly turned and while the solicitors played their games. The pub was full of little groups of people all with their solicitors huddled over cups of coffee discussing their respective cases.

At least today, nearly two years on, the case would be heard and this nightmare might finally come to an end for them.

An unexpected call came through …”sick notes”

“Sorry??”

My buddies ex employers, the “friends” had both tried to excuse themselves and adjourn the case due to sickness. One had a note saying he was unable to attend due to migraine and the other was unable to attend due to stress! The poor things getting sick on the same day – it wasn’t even first day back at school – what would their mum and dad have said if they pulled that excuse!

Both notes were coincidentally for a period of 5 days, which would happily take them past the end of the week by which time the courts would have closed for the summer recess.

This is a stupid, blatant game that is too easy to play and even a doctor, another professional was willing to play their part in the farce.

The presiding judge was having none of it and ordered that the “patients” would be present the next day to commence the case.

The next day arrived, other cases were heard before this one and the opposing side argued that there wasn’t enough time to hear the case before the end of the week so it should be adjourned.

Bingo, success, they did it!! Doctors notes, shenanigans etc etc and another four months have been bought.

It is far too easy in this country to play the game and for clever and devious people to work the system and dodge their basic commitments.

I watched my buddy and his family, I saw the strain that they were under and the cruel stress that they have been forced to endure and will have to endure for even longer. This was the sad reward for my buddy who helped these people that he believed, trusted wholeheartedly, people he considered were great friends.

I truly hope that justice will be served eventually and that my buddy and his family will get their hard earned retirement nest-egg fund back.

People talk about karma and I’d like to believe in it but sometimes I wonder..

I’ll keep you updated.

Check out my original post “Pillars of Society to be exposed” for more background.

Greg Canty 

Greg Canty is a Partner of Fuzion who offer Marketing, PR, GraphicDesign services from our offices in Dublin and Cork, Ireland

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Posted in Bullying, Friendship, Reputation | 7 Comments »

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