Yemm bares all in scheme to lure clients
The Diary would like to introduce a daring, trailblazing and stark staring mad company you will definitely be hearing more of in the future: Yemm Associates.
Yemm, a design consultancy from Birmingham, has volunteered for a fly-on-the-wall, or rather fly-on-the-Diary-page, marketing experiment.
After nine years hard graft, Yemm has fashioned a high-risk business strategy: regular warts ‘n’ all updates on a campaign to market itself to new clients that will appear on these very pages. So here’s the story so far.
A focus group at the local pub revealed that no one knew what Yemm did – “Changing Rooms, innit?” (tractor driver); “Feng Shui” (car salesperson); “Poofters” (policeman). Yemm sets out to tell people what it does with a “We do”/”We don’t do” bookmark (cost to produce: &£100) that gets mailed to 108 potential clients (including Richard Branson, in its own words: “For a laugh”).
The offices are redecorated, complete with “impressive multifunctional board table” (ie a pool table), ready for the stampede of new clients.
A “no publicity is bad publicity” plan is communicated through “controversial letters”, one of which the Dairy can’t resist, always being happy to let others drop themselves in it in public.
The first mailshot response arrives from “nice people” at Carphone Warehouse, which hasn’t given Yemm a large slice of business, but will keep its info on file. Boo hoo.
So, can Yemm pull in lots of lovely new business with its shameless publicity-seeking tactics and new pool table? Or is it destined for obscurity?
Find out in the next instalment when more mailshot replies are received (or not), more “controversial letters” are sent out and Yemm’s portfolio gets a makeover.
