A quick hello and a client update from us.

We've had a busy start to the Spring at MH&P with some great client stories to tell you about.  Not least was the launch of brand new auction house Silverstone Auctions who will be based at the recently launched Wing at Silverstone Race Circuit in Northampton.  We've been working with them for the best part of a year now to get the brand up and running, producing catalogues, stages, photographs and advertising. We were all present at the launch which saw some huge Motorsport names take to the track including Valentino Rossi and Mark Webber.

You can have a look at the lots for the forthcoming auction here and - right - at one of the stars of the show, the awesome MV Agusta Superbike.

We've seen the launch of the Nick Whale Marine website which looks after boat charter and sales in the Balearics including three big boat brands, Grand Banks, NuMarine and Humber Ribs.  You can have a look at some of the stunning machinery available here. 

Finally, our most local client has launched their shop in central Stratford on Avon this week providing hand and feet fish pedicures in their funky new premises in Bell Court.  MH&P have seen Peditank from an idea right through to the opening of their first branch, the first of many we have no doubt.

Finally, we've linked up with a brilliant online solutions company in the last few weeks and we're in the throes of putting together some very handy tools which will make everyone's online life a whole lot brighter.

Spring Is In The Air. Let's Get Busy.

Get in Touch for a Coffee.

Check out our latest flyer.  

Shooting The Elephant: A New PR Phrase Is Born.

We've had a busy week  meeting new clients and developing a number of large websites which I'll show you in one of the next couple of blog posts.  Suffice to say the content is dreamy and inspirational, if a little beyond most of the population's means!

As part of web development projects we usually advise clients to look seriously at running a parallel offline media campaign too, to reinforce the brand and help with traffic; Offline media isn't the powerhouse it once was but it is still very important for reaching your target audience and directing them to your online collateral.  While I'm sat in front of a blank InDesign template pondering new hooks for a client, a million ideas run through my head, most of them bad, some obscure but all aimed squarely at getting people talking about the brand.  This led me into thinking about the thin line between good and bad publicity and whether it really matters anyway.

We're all familiar with the "Ratners effect" - ie: you can get away with a lot in terms of negative press but never rubbish your own products. Ever! But what about the latest one?  For those of you who haven't yet seen the video, you can watch it here but essentially it contains the CEO of GoDaddy hosting services, Bob Parsons shooting an elephant.  His spin on the video (which he posted on his own blog)  is that 'problem' bull elephants in Zimbabwe ruin crops, SO.. he shoots elephant, crops are saved and villagers eat. That's all well and good you might think, but the whole thing smacks of justification, arrogance and short-sightedness, as though someone somewhere in the PR team has said "if we don't put this out there ourselves, it will come out anyway and you'll look even worse".  That said, far be it from me to tell Parsons how to court controversy and move the game forward with riske adverts, the man's a master.

It's not  in the same league as shooting elephants but this week while I was photographing for a client (large international car club) I came across an issue which we managed to turn on its head.  We produced a clothing catalogue and photography for a them for which they struggled to find a model, so I stepped in.  

The only issue was that some of the clothes I had been sent were a certain size and the model I had at my disposal, erm, was a different one.  Still we did the shoot  and prepared the catalogue accordingly.  Post design, after much deliberation and to-ing and fro-ing from the club's board about whether to publish it, in the end the man in charge decided to take a punt and run with the images.  The result?  Well most of the Car Club's members are men and there are about eight thousand of them world-wide.  Such has been the impact of the catalogue that there's now a thread in the club's user forum online dedicated to it.  I'd say that was a result.

Whichever way you look at it, our accidental approach to getting products seen has worked a treat.  I'll let you know the impact it has on sales and whether or not they adopt the new policy permanently!  

And so I concluded that yes potentially risky publicity can work.  I've accessed more information about GoDaddy this week than at any time in the past and I'm sure I'm not alone.  Whether I agree or not with what he did is immaterial; his name and the traffic associated with it will have gone through the roof.  The moral is BE CAREFUL.  If you're thinking about strategies, stick with the tried and tested unless you can afford to take the potential hit.  Here's a few pages from the catalogue in the mean time..

It's Good Evening From Him..

Hi - first an introduction.  I'm Tom Threadgill and I've recently joined the brilliant MH & Partners in Stratford-upon-Avon.  I'll spare you the lyrical waxing about Shakespeare and swans, but I'm very excited about having joined such a dynamic (and happy) team of design pros.  I'll be taking care of the blog and social media so I'm the guy to get in touch with if you'd like some help on that front.

On other fronts we're constantly developing our services and in my first few weeks it's interesting to see that wherever you ply your trade, client needs remain the same.  A client asked me today if they "needed" to do any SEO when the site we'd designed them looked so good.  I then had lunch with an SEO friend of mine who began by bemoaning the many cowboys who have a go and ruin it for the rest of them, but then on the toil in helping clients to understand exactly what it is and why they should be taking note.  As a design and marketing agency it's essential for us to recognise where our key skills lie and where we need to engage the services of professionals.

By doing this we now produce great looking sites with built in user functionality which, importantly are getting seen by the people they're aimed at.  MH & Partners are delighted to announce a brand new SEO tie up with a variety of specialists who are there to enable us to help you get your website seen.  For more information, get in touch with me and we'll take you through our process of delivering tangible results to your business.

Elsewhere in the office this week we've been developing a major new brand which takes advantage of these little fellows and their penchant for your dead foot skin.  Sound revolting? I think that was my initial reaction too but on further investigation, and a bit of education from our uber-knowledgeable client I quite fancy it now!  I'll wait until they have their new premises secured before I reveal all, but suffice to say if you're in Warwickshire, having your feet made beautiful by fish is just around the corner. (Now there's a sentence I never thought I'd write).

The team launched a major new website this week for a fantastic client.  Silverstone Auctions is the newest kid on the block in the sale of prestigious motor cars and their paraphernalia, which hit the market early this month with a bang.  The team's combined knowledge of the industry amazed even me, a self-confessed car nut, and they've housed themselves within the suitably stunning new wing at Silverstone Race Circuit in Northants.  You can visit them here for details of upcoming auctions.