ICM - Leeds Design Agency

Traditionally businesses have sold their products to make profit and grow their company. (Sounds obvious right?) In the early days of IT and software these same principles applied. Then in the late ’90s the rules seemed to change. Companies would sell their products as cheaply as possible in order to increase their market share and, hopefully, one day make a profit. Of course it all went horribly wrong and resulted in the dotcom crash.

So what did modern internet companies learn from this? Most ecommerce sites are now are much more sensibly managed and sustainable. Amazon have year on year profits since 2001/2 and other big players like play.com have followed their lead.

The new contenders for ridiculous business plans of the year are the social networking sites, the pioneers of web 2.0. While they have changed the way in which we use the internet and bought the world closer together, they’ve done it without ever making a profit. Youtube, for example, have completely revolutionised the use of video online. All of the site’s content is user generated and their main source of income is advertising. When they were bought by Google in 2006 everyone thought that the internet giant would be able to finally create a profit making giant. At $1.65 billion Google really needed to make Youtube work, but 3 years later and the site has yet to make any money and Google have found themselves bankrolling the site.

So if a company isn’t making any profit and is running at a huge loss, how is it worth so much money? It is the potential of the site that people are actually paying for. The site’s creators don’t need to worry about making a profit as long as people perceive the site to be worth millions of dollars. A larger corporation will take the risk believing that they are people that will be able to fulfil the potential. The original creators laugh all the way to the bank while everyone else watches in fascination as the company continues to lose money.

Twitter is much like Youtube. They are pioneering a new form of communication. They have a massive audience for potential advertisers and they’re hoping someone will buy them for a massively inflated price and make millions.

And this is the Age of Twitter – where companies are valued on their perceived potential. It’s just a question of time before this new bubble bursts…

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Over the next couple of months we will be pitting two teams of students against ourselves in a competition which re-creates the pitch scenario undertaken in industry.

Each brief is presented in the same way as real-life competitive tenders and assessed by us. Teams are scored for their creativity, presentation skills, original thinking and business acumen – with the results used to form a league table.

The scheme began as a part of our in-house training and development programme and managing director Ian, a Governor of the college, decided to extend the initiative to include students.

Caroline, account director leading the scheme, said: “All too often I hear managers criticising graduates who lack business acumen, without proposing any solutions. This scheme will give students a real understanding of how business is won and how innovative pitches are created and managed – invaluable experience for when they are looking for jobs.”

“We passionately believe in keeping the best talent in the region. Initiatives like this demonstrate to students you don’t need to go to London for a rewarding and exciting career in design and marketing.”

As well as learning first hand about the pitch process, the students will receive detailed feedback and discuss their ideas with everyone here at ICM.

Fred Bates, graphic design programme leader at Leeds College of Art, added: “As an industry focused degree programme we aim to develop a studio of informed and highly skilled designers who understand Graphic Design as a profession. Our involvement with the ICM Creative Challenge is an exciting opportunity that will offer our 3rd year design teams the experience of a professional design environment in preparation for their future careers.” …

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Having been subjected to yet another depressing news item of how we are going to hell in a handcart due to the dreaded ‘R word’, I thought I’d put pen to paper or fingers to keys and share the views of a thoroughly Yorkshire lass.

Why can’t we all work together during these gloomy times? Very ‘Dunkirk spirit’ I know, but I believe it’s very important to show our humanity towards others. While there’s all this doom and gloom about, I believe if we all work together and support each other in different ways, whether it be emotionally, with advice, or financially etc. we can all help each other through these times and come out of it fitter and stronger.

Us ‘Yorkshire folk’ can start the ball rolling with a “We’re proud to be supporting Yorkshire campaign”. Strong businesses could help the weaker ones so that rather than letting good, viable businesses that have fallen on bad times go to the wall, give them a helping hand. It might just be some advice that they need to help them along, not necessarily financial. They might gain help from the more successful companies or from people like Business Link and Yorkshire Forward. I read YEPs Business Tuesday last week – the articles were fantastic, full of hope and certainly made me feel more optimistic. They spoke about all the things I have been saying about investing in training this year: the need for innovation and how Business Link and Yorkshire Forward can help.

We will get this campaign off the ground together, share our knowledge and our thoughts, create a brand which we would make readily available on our website for anyone to use at any time on their own literature or however they see fit. It would be like a rallying cry. Get everyone behind the idea of supporting each other but not at the exclusion of working with businesses outside the area – more a case of charity begins at home, we become stronger and share our successes. It will be like a ripple-effect with Yorkshire at the centre. Sorry for rambling a bit, I’m just very excited.

In these gloomy times we need some optimism and as we know, good stuff as well as bad can spread like wildfire. As Bernard Ginns at YPN said in his article last week ‘Look to the firms who refuse to take part in the recession’.
I say hear, hear and let’s share some good news for a change because people are getting heartily sick of hearing all the negative news. Let’s look for the opportunities out there. There is always some good to come out of bad.

So come on all you good Yorkshire folk (whether born and bred or just here because it’s a great place to live and work) let’s all pull together and lead the way into happier times….

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