Does your marketing smell like roses?

I’m in central Cambridge a lot at the moment, either visiting University clients or attending tasty little networking events, which means I get to walk through Rose Crescent and smile at the scaffolding.

I know. What idiot smiles at scaffolding?

Me. Because each metal pole is boxed in with pale green casing, around which is wrapped pretty pink flowers and vines. Cute.

And not only does it disguise a?potential eyesore, it gives you a pleasant experience in keeping with a gently curved historic street where you might happily spend a few quid in Neal’s Yard Remedies or one of the independent jewellery or clothing shops.

It brings to mind a relatively modern approach where renovation works are encased in huge mesh onto which is printed a picture of the building itself. The sort of thing you see on huge department stores, or back in the day, when I was trotting to ITV on Gray’s Inn Road each morning and passing the restoration of The Scala in Islington.?

Even while you’re closed, you’re open, aren’t you?

What message are you giving people if you leave a building site….looking like a building site for months on end?

You might be expecting a delighted gasp on the grand reopening day, whereas local residents have a list of complaints as long as your arm they can’t wait tell your customers about, either face to face or in 1-star reviews left online.

You can extend this to other touchpoints in?your communications. Automated messages when people sign up for information out of hours. Voicemail messages. Physical signage that has become tatty or points people in the wrong direction.

What else?can you wrap in (metaphorical) roses while you’re not there??

For she's a?jolly good Fellow

Happy to say that I've just become a Fellow of the CIM | The Chartered Institute of Marketing .

I confess I had a moment of hesitation about whether I'd earned sufficient stripes for this, having been so busy doing marketing for years that I haven't had time to build up loads of qualifications.

Then they asked if I had any testimonials and the PDF ran to 21 pages. Ah, OK! Fellow me up.

And it's good to be putting all this senior-level experience to good use through our revamped services: audits , strategy , consultancy and training . Talk to me about this, any time!

Curiosity, sparked

Read campaign analysis from Bootcamp attendees:?KitKat Have AI Break ,?Apple iPad Pro Crush .?Down Syndrome International ,?Nike Winning Isn't For Everyone

Excellent work from Saira A. Artiola Krasniqi Lea Milanini and Aman Dilhe (soon to join LinkedIn!)

Listen to frog calls, horror screams, and motorbikes revving in the?BBC Sound Effects Library archive , now digitised so you can listen to it in all its gruesome glory!

Ponder if you can ever have so much?good PR it wrecks your supply chain, as Ozempic are finding right now, discussed on?When It Hits the Fan

Now’s a Good Time To...

Get into the rhythm with your networking. These tips on building visibility from my session at the simply outstanding The Rising Network Festival should get you started.

Learn how to market to developers or anyone who likes finding solutions themselves, rather than being spoonfed information. Hat tip to Dave Fletcher from our client LeadDev for flagging that up to me - such an interesting read!

Use music to transform your visual content . What a lovely thought!?