An open letter to Jewson

Please send a big thankyou to your delivery cretin, who, whilst driving along Manchester Road, Slaithwaite, Huddersfield at 9AM this morning, decided to use a conveniently large puddle to hose out most of the inside of my van, and give me an impromptu diesel-scented shower.

It's certainly saved me the effort of cleaning the van out, and I've always preferred the comfort afforded by wet muddy upholstery as opposed to the regular dry seating. I can now also spend most of the day drying out and smelling of derv, as presumably can the pedestrians he also generously showered. I'm sure we all hold the utmost gratitude as , due to the wideness of the road at that point, he must have gone out of his way to perform the favour. Keep up the considerate driving! Just think, if he hadn't committed this act of common courtesy in a wagon with your company name on the front of it in huge letters i'd have never been able to write and thank him.

Coming soon

We've all probably sat through a dreadful film realising we'd been sold a pup by the slick trailer that inspired us to go watch it. But how far could you go to misdirect an audience's expectations? Here are two examples of classic films with re-edited trailers.

First, family favourite Mary Poppins turns into a sinister thriller:



And here's The Shining turned into a feel good flick for all the family:

We're looking for freelance conceptual creatives

We're looking to add more conceptual art directors and writers to our pool of freelance talent. We need ideas people who aren't afraid of a business to business brief or direct mail. It's people who can get to the crux of a client's problem and create a different solution to the ordinary that we need from time to time.

If you think we could work together, send a couple of scamps of the work you're most proud of along with details of your rates to hello@pigsandbees.com.

Friday afternoon nonsense

Doom and gloom? Could be great news for your business

The end of the world is nigh. Or at least the dreaded economic R-word is, if you read the papers. Whether you’re a glass half full or glass half empty type of person, there’s no escaping the fact that many people are beginning to panic. Belts are being tightened and wallets are staying closed, ensuring the self-fulfilling prophecy of recession will probably be announced just in time for Christmas. Depressed? Don’t be. Pessimism can actually be good for you.

Psychologist Julie Norem has spent years researching why some people always seem to take the pessimistic view. What she found was that people who tend to dwell on potential problems are no less effective than people who see every event as a golden opportunity. Pessimism actually helps some people come up with strategies to avoid problems and achieve a more positive outcome. Norem calls this defensive pessimism. Another insight from her work is that when, in experiments, defensive pessimists were prevented from following their usual pessimistic strategy they were shown to be far less effective. It seems some people simply work better focusing on the problems (real or imagined) than focusing on the positive.

Research like that carried out by Norem has also shown that people of all dispositions manifest a greater attention to detail when the glass is half empty. In fact some scientists argue that without a pre-programmed state of dissatisfaction, evolution would never have happened. Our ancestors would have set up camp at the first comfy cave, confident that some food will turn up eventually and that hungry Brachiasaurus would never find them. So what does all this have to do with your business?

Use the mood of pessimism to look for opportunities. When everything is rosy it’s all too easy to overlook opportunities for change. We’re happy, why would we want to change anything? But now that everyone has one eye on the worst case scenario ask your staff for ideas. Ask them how their own spending habits have changed (if at all), what their immediate worries are, what the deciding factor is when they’re spending their own money. Your staff, family and friends are your very own free market research team. Take an interest in how the threat of recession is affecting them and you might just spot a competitive advantage.

Angry customers? Tell them to take a good look at themselves

New research in the Netherlands demonstrated that people exhibit less prejudice when they are in the presence of a mirror. Researchers manipulated participants' private awareness of themselves by having them scan a passage of text for pronouns such as 'I', 'me' or 'mine'. The presence of a mirror that the participants could see themselves in achieved the same self awareness but also raised their public self awareness, resulting in more appropriate behaviour than if the mirror where not present.

So, would having a mirrored 'complaints department' help pacify irate customers? We've no idea. But it would be interesting to find out.