UPDATE AUTUMN 2011
Re-Branding GAMAA
At the biennial GAMAA Retreat in November last year it was decided by the membership to look at the GAMAA brand and what it means in 2011.
The first step in the re-branding process was the Branding Workshop held with the Executive in February. GAMAA’s PR Consultant Alison Stieven-Taylor of Reality & Illusion took the group through a four-hour workshop which focused on defining GAMAA’s core brand.
“The existing core brand— INSPIRE CREATE INVEST—reflected the Association’s values around the education programme and creating leaders for tomorrow. With shifts in the industry, and the reassessment of GAMAA’s education programme it was deemed necessary to also review the values of GAMAA as a brand,” said Alison.
The outcome? GAMAA’s core brand in 2011—ENGAGED PASSIONATE RELEVANT.
“These three words reflect the future directions of the Association in its commitment to work with the industry towards a sustainable future, to demonstrate leadership and to ensure relevance in its activities. We will now take this core brand essence and feed it into all communications, both internal and external, for the Association,” she said.
Next Step in the re-branding process will be to review the GAMAA logo. It is anticipated concepts for a new logo will be presented to the GAMAA Quarterly meeting in June.
New Directions
Currently Karen Goldsmith, Executive Director, and Alison Stieven-Taylor are working on a range of activities that were discussed at the Retreat. These include:
GAMAA and social media—is there an opportunity for the Association in this space?
GAMAA Grants—exploring the options to institute a range of GAMAA Grants that are designed to provide the industry with timely research into a range of topics including market trends, sustainability and innovation...watch this space.
PrintEx11 is around the corner
With one month to go PrintEx11 is shaping up to be another not-to-be-missed trade show co-presented by GAMAA. For more information www.printex.net.au
GAMAA SPEAKER PROGRAMME KICKS OFF
At the March Quarterly meeting GAMAA launched the 2011 GAMAA Speaker Programme. Below is an abridged version of the press release issued post-event:
Sahil Merchant, founder of the successful magazine outlet chain, Mag Nation, and today a marketing consultant to B2B and consumer brands, spoke about the impact of social media and how companies are using this medium to brand build and communicate with customers.
In his presentation Sahil (pictured right) touched on some key points including the statistic that 40 percent of those 34 years and under check Facebook first thing in the morning, often from bed. But the fastest growing demographic on Facebook are females over 50 years.
He said social media was “neither a fad or a revolution. It is just a different way of communicating. It is like TV - when it was launched it was something new and exciting, today it is part of life”.
And social media is becoming a valuable communication tool for leading brands. When Ford released the latest incarnation of the Explorer in the US it did so via Facebook generating more test drive requests than it was able to procure at the US Motor Show. And for far less outlay.
Sahil talked about how inexpensive, in terms of dollar investment, social media is. What it does cost is time – time to Tweet, to update Facebook, to keep your blog current. But it doesn’t have to take hours. Sahil Tweets for ten minutes a day. He said there are multiple uses for social media including recruitment, CRM and product launches and that companies across all industries are taking the social media world seriously. He cited Deloitte’s as an example. This major financial consultancy has employed ‘reverse mentoring’ where junior staffers work with senior partners to bring them into the digital age.
David Minnett, is the Managing Director of Group Momentum, a company that has transformed from a pre-press house to be one of the leading digital communications companies in Australia – a Marketing Service Provider (MSP) as opposed to a Print Service Provider (PSP).
David spoke of the transition from PSP to MSP and the importance in growing knowledge in the areas that are of interest to your own clients in order to move up the value chain. “Making the shift to MSP forced us to look at everything we do – branding, company profile, the language of marketing versus a production platform. It took us two years to evolve from a PSP to an MSP, to build up the credentials, to talk the talk”.
A pivotal moment, said David, was winning the AAPT account. “We pitched an idea to them, ran a trial and after a month they moved all their direct marketing and EDM (electronic direct marketing) to Group Momentum”. From there the company hasn’t looked back.
Ian Martin President of GAMAA said the purpose of the speaker programme was to “broaden the opportunity for GAMAA members to gain insights into trends in our industry. As suppliers it is important that we understand what is happening in the market place, not just in our own backyard, and use that intelligence to value add to our customers to help them grow their businesses”.