Fellow restaurateurs might feel a bit terrified by the thought of opening their doors, filling chairs with customers and then paying staff to serve them lovingly prepared British delights…for free! That is essentially the risk ‘Mya Lacarte’ in Berkshire took when they first decided the best way to get to know their clientele was to let them pay what they felt the meal was worth.

Owner, Matt Siadatan explained “The idea was not to make any more profit, but to gauge what our customers thought our dishes should be priced at. This being said, our first night a achieved 20% increase on our current prices, the second was pretty much even.”

I have to say, as proud advocates of Berkshire, our team were thrilled to learn that this scheme had reached our restaurants. It may surprise you to learn that the “pay what it’s worth” model is not a new marketing concept, but instead popularised over decades by the likes of swanky London restaurants, television programmes and even musicians like Radiohead.

Matt adds, “The idea was inspired by my father who exercised the concept on his own catering unit about 10 years ago!”

As passionate foodies ourselves and experienced hospitality marketers we were keen to understand when and how this concept could be implemented effectively as a methodology to obtaining meaningful, quantitative and qualitative data. Using Mya Lacarte as a case study the findings were rather promising, two dishes from their menu even received approximately a 30-35% increase in sales against their usual price point. So why does this model work so well in a restaurant environment?

- The “pay what it’s worth” model taps into consumers value system to be “fair” and “objective”.

- There is an underlying need for businesses to be seen as responsible since a series of negative PR stories pushed consumer confidence down. The British value system is mapped out to believe that an accidental underpayment would be considered “offensive”.

- There is an in built desire in British people to feel helpful and part of something important.

- There is social pressure to not be seen as a “bad sport” or take advantage of the objective.

As far as a methodology goes to creating valuable market research this is very much down to how it is applied by the business in question – for example, Radiohead offered a free download of their latest album, released in October 2007. Their aim was to overcome piracy and cut out the middle man by having no record label attached to the promotion but unfortunately they received unfavourable donations (less than 2 out of 5 actually donating money for the download, ouch)! We feel this is due to the environment in which the album could be obtained, from the comfort of your own living room for example, there is none of the social pressures that you might feel in a shop or restaurant.

It will be of no surprise to a seasoned marketer that the devil is in the detail; here are a few top tips to help you plan this scheme effectively:

- Be strategic in how you target potential diners for this experience. Mya Lacarte, for example, hosted two types of evening; one was “first come, first serve” whilst the other evening was for pre-booked appointments carefully selected to ensure the profile of diners where well matched to the restaurant. 

- If you want meaningful, market research results then do not indicate any expectation in payment from the consumer, as this will distort the final outcome.

- Work out a clear means of tracking donations including what they eat.

- Chose an “off peak” period as you do not want to be a busy fool. 

- When contacting your database spread out the invitations over a period of time so that you do not saturate your data, leaving other nights empty.

- Create a comprehensive feedback form so you can achieve qualitative results as well quantitative ones.

- Do not try and predetermine a positive result, let the results be honest so that you can really learn from them.

Good luck and remember to comment on this post if you have enjoyed it!

Cherry White Design are offering The London Link Up attendees this August a chance to have exclusive access to their senior team including; Managing Director, Adam Hunkin with a gleaming career working with power brands such as Ford, Ericsson, Three, Lloyds, Honda and Jaguar. Adam has spent his profession specialising in user experience interaction, delivering commercially effective design solutions to keep companies at the top of their market. Adam’s latest project includes overhauling Three’s extensive client portals providing hundreds and thousands of customers with effective communication at the touch of a button!

Sales and Marketing Director, Lucy Allen will be available to shed light on how to optimise your existing marketing strategy for the most profitable returns for your business. With a career in successfully merging sales and marketing efforts Lucy has developed solutions that have benefited industry change and shifted mind sets. With an extensive marketing career in retail and hospitality Lucy is a natural choice for companies looking for an “outside the box” thinker.

What attendee Natalie Couzens at Namco has to say about Cherry White Design:

The Design Clinic at The London Link Up in March 2011

“I arranged to meet Lucy from Cherry White Design at the last London Link Up and am so glad I did. Lucy and the team helped us with our website redesign proposal, after giving us a free website MOT (very handy). The MOT and redesign proposal gave us lots of food for thought and presented all the changes in a professional and, essentially, an easy to understand manner – which garnered much respect from our board of directors who had previously struggled with ‘techy’ language. Cherry White Design are a great company to work with and I would certainly recommend at least having a chat with them – their knowledge is brilliant.”

Adam at Cherry White Design commented “Our first time sponsoring The London Link Up was a great way for us to test the water, having made some valued connections in March we are excited to be taking part in this event again in August and look forward to seeing how attendees respond to our design and marketing clinic!”

Book a place for this event

Cherry White Design visited this year’s Marketing Week Live Expo at Olympia, London on Thursday and we must say it was a truly fantastic event.

Marketing Week Seminar 2011

With 5 seminar spaces running all day from 10am to around 5pm we left feeling inspired by all the case studies, industry news and government changes that will create new opportunities for marketers across the country and even the world. We were particularly encouraged by a seminar held by Mark Roy, Chair of the DMA Data Council who talked of his experience in previous recessions and believes that this time around is different, marketers need to up their efforts in a bid to retain market retention with marketing departments increasing their budgets to remain strong, a great time to be offering design and marketing services we thought!

Marketing Week Live 2011 View Front Upper Tier

Other seminar highlights included Manchester United talking about the power of football and Nokia’s worldwide localisation project. All in all a great day to listen, learn and develop! Keep an eye on our “Knowledge Box” page as we will be publishing more “how to guides” and “top tips” very soon.

As a local Reading based business, we are passionate about our area and therefore were terribly excited to learn of the towns recent bid to be granted with “city” status and with this window of opportunity opening for Reading, councillors have eagerly clubbed together in an effort to put Reading’s request for city status forward, (due to be reviewed by the Queen in 2012).

Reading has been made famous for many things over recent years including being the hosts to one of the country’s most popular festivals and with a wealth of arts, culture, retail, transportation links and commercial ties it is no surprise to learn that Reading is often referred to as the commercial capital of the Thames Valley!

Picture: Reading Festival

But despite all of these great tributes Reading has not previously been recognised as a city, much to the disapproval of the council, its partners and much of Readings population, Jo Lovelock, Leader of Reading Borough Council Cllr comments: “We believe Reading should finally be recognised as a city. It’s got a rich heritage and it also has a 21st Century approach and you just have to look around Reading to see that it should be a city already.”

Readings bid will be considered in 2012 and with a strong case for approval to be granted, Reading could be about to gain the notoriety it deserves! This potential change will bring about fantastic new opportunities for economical growth through funding, endorsement and tourism.

Local businesses across Reading are largely keen that the bid be approved as it’s forecasted to have a significant increase in Reading’s credibility not to mention a positive finance impact. If you are a local business in Reading what are your thoughts on the bid. Tell us what you think by commenting, should Reading be crowned a city? Do you beleive it will change Reading’s environment? Do you think your business will benefit?

Reading, watch this space!

26 Interesting Facts about The London Olympics 2012

The London Olympic 2012

Potential spectators are waiting patiently in the wings, bank accounts plugged and tickets flow across the country like confetti. The London Olympics is nearly here! Cherry White Design have devised a short list of interesting facts about what this Olympics means for Britain. So whether you are a looking for ways to promote your business during this time or simply just an interested spectator, read on:

1. 26 Olympic sports will be played

2. 19 Paralympic sports will be played

3. There will be 60-70 London 2012 sponsors

4. The London economy is projected to grow by $80 billion by 2015

5. The Games are projected to generate 12,000 new jobs in the Olympic Park

6. 31 competition venues will be utilised

7. 20,000 press/media will be in attendance

8. 10km of new roads will be built

9. There will be 500,000 spectators per day

10. 9,000 new homes will be built

11. There will be 9.6million tickets for sale – 8million for the Olympics and 1.6million for the Paralympics.

12. Organisers say 75 per cent of all tickets will cost less than £50 and offer free travel on London transport.

13. A sell-out rate of 82 per cent for the Olympic Games and 63 per cent for the Paralympics is estimated.

14. Tickets for the athletics will start at £15 and there will be 20,000 £10 tickets for the Olympic Park to watch

15. The village will be converted into 3,600 apartments, most of them will be affordable housing.

16. After the Games four arenas would be ‘deconstructed’ and relocated to other parts of the UK along with the swimming pools that are used for water polo and the
50m training pools.

17. Charities will be given the sports equipment used in the Games for free.

18. 80 per cent of athletes would be within 20 minutes of their events and 97 per cent of athletes within 30 minutes of their events.

19. 93 per cent of training venues are to be within 30 minutes of the athletes village.

20. There are 9,000 planned park and ride spaces to be made available at Ebbsfleet where spectators can board a 10-minute javelin service to the Olympic Park. This
is the same station where continental spectators travelling by Eurostar will join the javelin to the Olympic Park.

21. It is predicted that on event days 78 per cent of spectators are likely to travel from within London and 22 per cent from the rest of the UK and Europe.

22. By 2012 it is estimated that over 135,000 hotel rooms will be available within 50km of the Olympic Park, up from 120,000 presently.

23. Number of foreign visitors: 350,000 per day

24. Food and Beverage potential: 18 million meals

25. Value of tourism benefit: an additional £2.1 billion

26. Total workforce needed: 200,000

It would appear that the royal wedding is a gift that keeps on giving, first a long weekend off work and then to top it all off a much needed boost to our economy but how will this affect our marketing strategy?

The Royal Wedding

First the facts and figures:
The tourist authority VisitBritain predicts the worldwide TV event of the year, will trigger a tourism boom that will last several years, pulling in an extra 4m visitors and some £2bn for the country’s coffers.

In the short term, accountancy firm Price Waterhouse Cooper estimates that the influx of wedding watchers delivered a £107m boost to London including our hotels, West End shops and restaurant trade.

The British Retail Consortium forecast that shops and pubs will benefit by nearly £500m. With 5,500 street parties in full swing with the biggest beneficiaries being the supermarkets, as people piled their tables with patriotic nosh such as sausage rolls, Coronation chicken and Victoria sponge. Sales of Wills and Kate merchandise, which ranged from mugs and tea towels to union flag contact lenses, were estimated to be at £26m!

Middleton’s recent move into the limelight leading up to the wedding has made her fashion’s latest icon with fans scanning shops for the latest Middleton must have’s! High street chains Reiss and Whistles have already enjoyed the benefits, after the bride wore their clothes in her official engagement photos.

So what’s next for us marketers?

Well in short B2C marketing demand is raising its game with retailers poised to deliver the latest supplement of this fairy tale story, articles are popping up all over ranging from the “how to catch a Prince” anecdotes to the “get the look” featured spreads in our favourite glossy magazines. Retailers are set to make huge profits in the pursuit to offer aspiring Princesses everywhere an affordable alternative to Catherine’s understated and classic look. Young adults all over the country have started to engage with the latest royal happenings sparking a new fan base for the monarchy’s previously traditional image, why is this? Well its simple PR really the couple are young, relatable and stylish. Young people across the country have been following this story through social media, forums, blogs and tabloid stories within this growing fan base breeds a celebrity lifestyle admired by its readers, so will we see a Posh and Becks monomania? Who can tell all we know is that this is just the tip of the iceberg!

Further to The London Link Up event in the amazing Plaza Hotel on Embankment, here are some photos of our experience. Cherry White Design enjoyed the benefit of showcasting our skills in front of 300 marketers from in and around London as well as demonstrating our capabilities at our Design Clinic, we have met some great contacts and established some fantastic opportunities. Please remember to keep the networking going by commenting, sharing and clicking that little “like” button!

Annoucing the winner of our prize draw!

The Design Clinic in action

Left - Right: Lucy Allen - Sales and Marketing Director, Prize draw winner - Rebecca Stones

Left-Right: Alistair - Sales Executive, Adam Hunkin - Managing Director

Cherry White Design would like to say a big thank you to Only Marketing Jobs for setting up a wonderful event, its always a great experience and the whole team really got behind this event and made it really special for us as first time sponsors.

If you attended this event, why not tell us what you thought of it and how it has helped you gain opportunites?

Also Cherry White Design would like to hear from you if you are considering a Design and/or Marketing solution at present.

The Carlsberg Group recently introduced a new positioning for its master Carlsberg brand as part of a global overhaul. Carlberg plan to boost the drinks appeal by targeting its younger drinkers. The recent series of adverts themed around the “Probably the best lager…” straplines cleverly placed the brand in a position where Carlberg could make everyone Carlsberg customers dream come true.

A new tagline, “That calls for a Carlsberg” has been introduced but a spokesman for the brand insisted that the “Probably the best lager…” strapline will continue to be used and remains “part of the brand’s DNA”.

The alcholol industry has received heaps of pressure in the past to ensure that responsible drinking is passed on through all of its brand so its great to see that brands like Carlsberg are finding engaging ways of reaching their younger audience.

Although I personally feel their should be more female story lines instead of just fousing on male groups. Whats your opinion?

-You get what you pay for. If something is cheap then research, ask and consider if that is the right solution for your business and more importantly if it can evolve with you?

-Think about where you want to be in 5 years time as your website will need to accommodate your future as well as your present business model.

-Consider how often you will need to update the information displayed on your website and where about is this information? For example if your products are frequently changing you may need to consider a content management solution that allows you to make these changes yourself, this will increase the initial website build cost but will save you money in the long term on paying for a designer to make the changes for you.

-Consider how you want people to interact and use your website, for example if you are running an online shop then your aims will be very different to a website that is designed to drive awareness about a charity fundraiser.
-Template or bespoke build? If you buy a template website then it may not suit your needs, a bespoke website will ensure that it is totally custom built for you and guarantee that no other business has the same site however this does mean that it will cost more due to the additional time invested by the designer.

We have launched our new website.

Make sure you take a look around and let us know what you think by filling in the survey. You can also sign up for account to our newsletter, which also gives you access to the results of the survey’s and more knowledge box information.