Cartoon Shorelines Art Like to start the week with a smile? Sign up for Shorelines weekly cartoon here >>>>>>>>>>>>>> British Manufacturing It’s commonly thought that British manufacturing is dying a perception brought about mainly by media coverage of large factory closures by large national businesses. Statistics show that the manufacturing sector has shrunk from 23% of UK economic output in 1990 to 14% in 2005, Jonathan Guthrie in the Financial Times reports the reason for these figures is not a reduction in manufacturing, more an increase in growth in the service sector. In actual terms manufacturing grew by 28% and technology based British manufacturing businesses now trade successfully around the world. Jonathan Guthrie says that senior managers in the sector ‘hanker after the hero worship that once attended Brunel’ instead of addressing an image problem that prevents talented school leavers and graduates entering the manufacturing sector. source The Financial Times Recycling Food waste recycling company the PDM group has adapted a power plant in Wales to generate power from waste sandwiches, pizzas and quiches. The waste food is collected from Asda, Morrison’s, Sainsbury’s and M & S and taken to the plant which generates enough power for 20,000 homes. The company have adapted the power station to take not only the food but packaging such as plastic, tins cans and glass. The company has one other working power plant in London and has recently purchased a further plant in the Midlands. Source The Grocer Web site News Why do you need a well laid out web site and how easy is it to achieve? It might seem obvious that a well laid out web site is essential for any business that wants to generate enquires and sales from their site but you only have to search the web see how many businesses fail to achieve this. Follow traditional web site conventions and your site will look clean, be easy to navigate and can still hold that valuable content to attract both visitors and search engines. Sacrifice these conventions in order to achieve an unusual or unique design and you risk site visitors leaving your site as quickly as they arrive and not returning. Better to stick with the basic conventions and build your design around it. But what are those conventions? State clearly what the site does on the top bar of the home page State clearly what the site visitor can do on the site Stick to common fonts Keep the colour of the fonts easy to read Keep backgrounds simple Make sure the font is an easy size to read not too small and not so big to be annoying Keep navigation to the top of the site and to the left hand side Keep search options and subscription requests to the right hand side
For an example of a simple style that fits the conventions then look at the newspaper style layout of the BBC www.bbc.co.uk and the Financial Times www.ft.com These sites might not set the world on fire but they fulfil web site conventions and receive large numbers of visitors. There are any number of styles and designs that you can build around the conventions and still have a unique web site. Make sure that your web site design and layout reflects your business. For example www.amazon.co.uk, www.harrods.com and www.asos.com. Once you have your web site in good order then you can start to include the valuable and original web content as part of your web site marketing strategy that will showcase both your knowledge and expertise and the products and services your business sells. Back to the Top Popular brands go healthy A survey conducted by TNS Worldpanel and Marketing magazine has shown that brands producing healthier options are experiencing growth. Consumer demand for healthier food options has resulted in big brands developing new products and benefiting as a result. Kellogg's, the most popular brand bought in the UK have introduced healthier cereal options and as a result grew by 4% to £550m. Walkers crisps who also introduced healthier variations of their products, grew by 5% to £49m. The survey also revealed that Bernard Matthews sales fell by 17%, due to concerns over bird flu and the effects of Jamie Oliver's campaign against turkey twizzlers. Source BBC news Back to the top and....................... Dorset cereals Dorset cereals are based in Poundbury in Dorset the village created from an idea by Prince Charles. The company has recently launched its range of breakfast cereals into America. It is a relatively short time since the cereals could only be found in smaller supermarkets and health food shops. Now thanks to distinctively designed multi-coloured packaging and a well planned marketing campaign aimed at both increasing consumer awareness of their cereals and of emphasising the quality of the product Dorset Cereals can be found on the largest supermarket shelves. The company philosophy is simple quality food full of the nuts seeds and fruit they advocate. They've won awards too. Dorset cereals were highly commended by the Marketing Society in June 2007 and they won best new packaging at the Natural and Organic awards in April 2007. . Back to the Top And finally .... Wine Boutiques Wine sellers in New York are increasingly specialising and at the same time upgrading their stores into boutique like emporiums that offer regular tasting sessions. The new style boutiques are specialising to suit the neighbourhoods they are situated in. Specialisms include organic, Kosher, and artisan wines and wines produced from sustainable agriculture. Stores are also bucking traditions of presentation and present wines in a variety of different ways. Some wines are arranged for example alphabetically by country and wine type and others by 'fizzy', 'fresh', 'soft' and luscious'. You can even visit wine boutiques that classified wines according to the food they should be served with for example 'beef', 'fish', and 'game' and 'Chinese'. Source Decanter Back to the Top If you enjoyed reading this newsletter please E mail it to a friend Return toTop of Page | 