As ConLib cuts just keep on coming, we thought we’d canvass the opinion of senior managers for their views on essential service areas for the chop. Read a summary of the results here.

Measures to reduce the current public sector deficit will have to be of a scale and significance to make an appreciable dent in this figure, in a bid to put Britain back in the black.  In order to obtain an expert view on the issue, business analysts Lindsell Marketing canvassed the views of the private sector professionals who have to make such hard financial decisions every day of the week.  Over 1,000 UK company finance managers were surveyed during May and June 2010.  The sample of respondents provided representation of the national business community in terms of region, size and sector.

While 48% of respondents focused the need to make spending cuts on central government departments and quangos, only 9% thought that NHS spending should be cut, and just 4% thought policing budgets should be reduced.  Even local government was largely designated a ‘no go’ area by company finance managers, with just 13% of respondents pinpointed this sector for cuts.  Education was also earmarked as a relatively low priority, with just 15% of respondents wanting priority cuts in this area.  In contrast, however, Defence was highlighted by 33% of UK company finance managers for spending cuts.

Paul Lindsell, Managing Director of Lindsell Marketing, notes, “In terms of spending cuts, finance professionals are advising the government to leave the Police, NHS, Local Government and education largely alone, and instead focus on cutting waste in Central Government departments and Quangos, and the Defence budget. This key finding may suggest that finance managers believe health, law & order and local government to be ‘leaner’ than central government departments and quasi-autonomous non-governmental organisations, and that therefore these two categories hold the highest potential for cost savings.    An alternative interpretation may be that law & order, health service and local government spending should be retained for reasons of social responsibility, stability and cohesion.

“This clear indication to steer clear of law & order, healthcare and local administration when implementing budget cuts only partly endorses Government policy.  NHS spending has been ring-fenced, although the shadow health secretary is now saying this policy will drive reductions in local and community services.  Policing budgets, in contrast, are facing cuts, with Scotland Yard’s head of counter-terrorism warning of adverse affects on his part of the service and the president of the Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO) stating that reductions in police numbers would be inevitable.   Local government has been told to find £1.165bn in savings in the Chancellor’s emergency budget, representing the largest single contributor to the Government’s cuts programme.  Yesterday’s survey from the Local Government Association gives corroborative support from voters for cuts to steer clear of front-line local services.

“This study gives the clearest possible indication that private sector professionals consider cuts in socially important areas such as health, policing and local services as a very dangerous game indeed.  Moreover, the emergency budget largely ignored the need, pointed out in previous recent studies from Lindsell Marketing, to substantially raise income tax for earners below the newly introduced upper rate threshold of £150,000 per year.  The coalition government has a honeymoon period in which to really address the public sector deficit, but it may well turn out that fudging the politically sensitive area of income tax is a critical mistake.”

Methodology

1,021 finance managers at British firms were interviewed between June 5^th and July 3^rd 2010.  The sample of respondents provided representation of the UK business community, by company size, sector and region.  Respondents were asked which areas of public spending should be the main focus for cuts during the term of the current government.

With a track record for successful award entries for our clients – here’s a case study example for those interested - we thought we’d share a few tips to help you in your planning for next year.

1. Try to build your case study portfolio throughout the year so you have a selection of well written and already approved customer stories that you can potentially enter.

2. Speaking to your customers about entering awards well in advance gives them a chance to organise themselves and appropriate approvals in good time – this will help with the last minute sign-off.

3. Make sure that there is tangible evidence for project/contract success and that your customer is happy for you to include quantifiable outcomes – this will be the key to whether you are short-listed or not!

4. Tell a story – an awards entry is not a sales tool or piece of collateral. If you treat it as such, you will only end up alienating the judges.  The entry needs to give the judges a real idea of what your organisation has done to deserve this award and why. So you should look to build a picture of the original customer pain, aims or goals, solution implementation and benefits. Just copying and pasting from an existing piece of material isn’t good enough.

5. Read the entry criteria – you don’t want to waste time writing up a great entry which may not qualify.

In short, drafting successful award entries requires a fine balance between persuasiveness without being salesy or pushy.  Knowledge and experience of tailoring content to different audiences is vital if you’re to have a chance of being short-listed.

I wonder if there’s an Award out there for writing award entries?  Perhaps that’s one for PR Week …

Trouble is, all too often, the public doesn’t buy it. It just doesn’t wash. And companies do too little to manage expectations or demonstrate to people that they are trying to cope. Their PR can be the disaster that follows the disaster.

Take the on again-off again relationship that the airlines and holiday companies have been having with that puffy Icelandic volcano. Yes, the clouds grounding flights across Europe have clearly been beyond their control and at first unforeseeable.

But the way they handled the aftermath was very much something they could get a grip on and the negative reaction to those that did little to help their customers could plainly have been predicted. But too many companies just left travellers stranded and only did the bare minimum to help their customers even once the threat of legal action seemed inescapable.

BP has been faced with a PR nightmare of mammoth proportions. The company may fairly claim that the massive oil leak off the coast of Louisiana was unforeseeable and is largely beyond its control – in the aftermath anyway – and we’ll see who gets blamed in the coming months and years.

Certainly there is widespread anger in the US at BP, which has been seen as arrogant, in denial, and more concerned about its share price than the catastrophic environmental damage the leak has caused. Whether this is fair or not isn’t the point. The company should have been prepared for this sort of reaction from the start – and managed expectations accordingly – but BP has instead seemed to be playing catch-up with the media reports and public outcry.

On the other hand, this week’s announcement by David Cameron that tough cuts in government spending will hit everyone and the accompanying “we face years of pain” headlines may just be the smartest move the media-savvy former PR man turned PM has made yet. While there has been a little blaming of the previous guys in charge – as there always is in politics – at least the coalition government is largely taking responsibility for the future and trying to create realistic expectations. There is little point in saying things will get better soon if no one is at all confident they will.

The only thing the new coalition government could have done better is to be a bit more realistic and up-front about the possibility of income tax rises. While the Cameron’s Tories certainly don’t want higher taxes, they could be a necessary evil if this government is to really succeed in bringing down the deficit – at least that’s the opinion a good many of our business leaders voiced in a recent survey we did of top financial mangers across the UK.

People will always play the blame game and those in a position to be blamed need to be ready face the flak. Yet, it never ceases to amaze me how often they don’t see it coming.

The theme of tinkering around the edges can also be applied to today’s marketers.  Look at the mirage that is e-marketing.  Sure, some works – and Linked-in communities provide a very good example of that.  Yet time after time, we find companies saving pennies on print and going totally online.  It just doesn’t work.  There is a substantial proportion of the business community – at least half by our reckoning – who say that they NEVER respond to online or email marketing pieces.  What utter twit would therefore save a couple of thousand on print and mail, in order to studiously ignore half their target market who might represent a potential market of several millions?  It just doesn’t make sense.

In business and in politics, it’s the people who can see the wood for the tress who succeed.

Ipex is an international print show – a once-every-four-years occasion that attracts all the industry big-hitters. Multi-million dollar marketing budgets are flexed as exhibitors jostle for the limelight amidst a fanfare of new launches.

Clearly, many months of planning had gone into some of the booth designs.  The sheer scale of many stands was impressive.  And yet, all too often, the on-stand messaging delivered nothing but bold, bland claims – ‘we do this; we do that; and oh, we do it very well!’ Yes – you and the rest of the hall. 

One exhibitor chose another route. Their stand featured larger-than-life cut-outs of their customers. Onto each cut-out was printed a quote explaining how the exhibitor had helped improve each of the customers’ operations.

Amidst all the corporate power-plays and self-eulogising how refreshing to see a company with the confidence to let their customers do the talking.

Content isn’t just about words on the page or on screen. Businesses must take care to find the right messages at every point of contact with customers or prospects.

What you say might be very similar to competitors. How you say it can give you the edge.

Measures to reduce the current public sector deficit will have to be of a scale and significance to make an appreciable dent in this figure, in a bid to put Britain back in the black.  In order to obtain an expert view on the issue, business analysts Lindsell Marketing canvassed the views of the private sector professionals who have to make such hard financial decisions every day of the week.  Over 1,000 UK company finance managers were surveyed between May 4^th and May 14^th 2010.  The sample of respondents provided representation of the national business community in terms of region, size and sector.

Overall, income tax must rise, according to British finance managers, as around two thirds firmly point government towards this unpalatable, but necessary priority.

In contrast, only a quarter of respondents thought that rises in VAT or the establishment of a £1m+ property owners tax would be moves worthy of priority government attention.  Making changes to National Insurance, or putting Inheritance Tax rates up were seen as a priority by even fewer finance managers, possibly respondents feel such initiatives to be essentially ‘unfair’, hitting the pockets of the least well-off in society in an indiscriminate approach.

In terms of the threshold for higher rate income tax, UK private sector finance professionals think that the current £150,000 threshold may be too high to have any meaningful effect.  A quarter of respondents recommended prioritising tax rises for £150k+ earners, but a further fifth thought this should be reduced to £100k+, and a further fifth felt the threshold should be just £50k.  Working from HMRC figures[1], the authors of this report have shown that an increase of 10% in income tax revenues from £150k+ earners would raise just a few hundred million pounds, whereas a 10% increase in income tax revenues from £100k+ earners would deliver several billion pounds into the exchequer.

In terms of spending cuts, finance professionals are advising the government to leave the Police, NHS and local government largely alone, and instead focus on cutting waste in central government departments and Quangos.  This key finding may suggest that finance managers believe health, law & order and local government to be ‘leaner’ than central government departments and quasi-autonomous non-governmental organisations, and that therefore these two categories hold the highest potential for cost savings.    An alternative interpretation may be that law & order, health service and local government spending should be retained for reasons of social responsibility, stability and cohesion.

Paul Lindsell, Managing Director of Lindsell Marketing, notes, “The new administration really needs to pay attention to the outcomes of this research.  Experienced finance professionals, who have to make hard decisions week in, week out, are telling the new boys on the block not to tinker around the edges, but to get straight down to the hard tack.  With the inter-party negotiations out of the way, the first hundred days of this government will be judged on one key issue – tackling the public sector deficit.  Dogma has to be thrown to the four winds, and the door opened to level-headed practicality.

“Income tax undoubtedly has to rise, with Britain’s finance managers saying that spending cuts – while necessary – are not enough.  Tinkering round the edges with insignificant tax revenue streams such as inheritance tax, capital gains or property taxes, is largely a waste of time.  Most important is to establish an income threshold for upper rate tax that brings in significant sums – and the findings of this report strongly suggest that this level should be around the £100,000+ mark.  This could raise several billion, while keeping that additional burden focused on the c.700,000 wealthiest taxpayers.”

For further press information, please contact:-

Lindsell Marketing on 0207 402 0510

Methodology

1,008 finance managers at British firms were interviewed between May 4^th and May 14^th 2010.  The sample of respondents provided representation of the UK business community, by company size, sector and region.  Respondents were asked, “At the time you answer this question, we will either be in the last run-up to the general election in the UK, on the day itself, or in the week following.  Whoever gets into power, they will have to deal urgently with the huge public deficit – currently around £160bn.  With this in mind, and regardless of the way you vote, which fiscal actions do you believe the incoming government should prioritise?”

If got right, the tagline can be an effective and memorable device that is a true reflection of what your company does and your brand values. If got wrong, it could be the business world’s equivalent of an awful bar-side chat-up line.

While a number of great consumer taglines spring to mind, it seems to be more of a challenge to get it right in the B2B environment and so easy to go off message. Take for example the tagline for IPEX 2010 – the international print exhibition that happens every four years:

Perfect time. Perfect place. One unique opportunity.

This is just a bit too cryptic. It doesn’t tell us what the event is all about. There’s no mention of print or communications anywhere here. One unique opportunity starts to say something but if you didn’t know what IPEX is all about then the audience is left thinking, “One unique opportunity for what …?”

In the B2B world, marketers have the challenge of competing with their consumer counterparts whose brands and products naturally lend themselves to more catchy, funny, or even ‘sexy’ lines. The B2B remit however is more complex and tone will most likely remain businesslike. Yet there’s so much scope for effective tagline creation.

Working with a specialist agency who understands the B2B and vertical landscape is important. A good tagline that reflects your core value proposition and cutting edge principles can often be a perfect springboard for consistent messaging across all your content. And as we all know, “content is king”.

What really helped make the campaign unique was the role of media – but the new-style media coverage did not unfold quite the way some observers thought it would. Early in the election contest, I wrote about the fact that many in the political class were expecting this to be the UK’s first real digital election – in the mould of Barack Obama’s victory in 2008 when online communications played an unprecedented role.

Well that wasn’t quite how it worked out, was it? Instead, this was the election in which good old television played a huge role – maybe a bigger role that ever – as the TV debates dominated the campaign. So, while new media may be interactive and speak more directly to the individual, it took a back seat while an old mass media made a massive impact on the campaign’s trajectory as the old-fashioned big broadcast event created an excitement that set the election apart from any other in recent history.

For the Liberal Democrats, the television debates provided an unprecedented platform to showcase their leader and air their views – with Nick Clegg emerging as a serious player and legitimate contender for prime minister. But it was also another old medium that may have knocked him back down, as many of the mainstream newspapers went on the attack with a series of withering – and in most cases unfair – attacks on the LibDem leader who seemed bemused at the idea of going from the new Churchill to a Nazi sympathiser in the space of a week.

So while old media, particularly newspapers, have struggled to maintain their relevance and influence in the digital age, they certainly demonstrated that they can still be wheeled out take centre stage – to in fact provide centre stage – when Britons want to watch the big event unfold en masse before they gather round the water cooler. Even in the election’s compelling aftermath.

In fact, there are two issues that the successful party or coalition must address immediately and seriously.  First is the economic black hole of the UK public deficit (expected to be around £70bn once the temporary bank prop-up allowance is removed).  The other is giving small and medium-sized businesses proper recognition and a strong representation to government.

I believe that the existing small business organisations are frankly ineffective in forcefully carrying the SME lobby to parliament.  There is plenty of wooing of large firms by political parties, but only token recognition really being given to the 1.5 million firms that produce half the country’s revenues.  The Conservatives have pledged that 25% of government contracts would be awarded to small businesses.  The LibDems say they will force banks to lend more to small businesses.  Labour says it will provide £4bn in new venture capital for growth businesses.

All this is very well, but what pressure group is going to scrutinise government and lobby for real delivery on these promises?  In my personal view, certainly not the feeble organisations that currently claim to represent SME interests.

So with a new government, we need a new representative organisation to drive through SME issues.  Any volunteers?