A Week in the Life of Orla Murphy Jewellery

We've had a pretty busy week in Orla Murphy Jewellery. It all started last week with a competition in Cork News which had a great response and I hope Jayne from Ovens will enjoy her new necklace. On Sunday I had the privilage of meeting Cork's new Lady Mayoress, Catherine O'Connell, who I am delighted to say will be wearing Orla Murphy Jewellery during her term of office. Word about the web site continues to spread - so exciting. Late this week Cork Independent featured a number of our pieces in their style pages and the response to that has been fantastic.

My personal favourite from the online store is featured above. J103 is a magnificent Diamante Drop Heart and Flower Necklace & Earring Set. It really is a fantastic piece and would look great whether you are looking for jewellery for a special occasion, or you just want to add a touch of glamour to an outfit for a night out.

Custom Key Chains: Cost-Effective Advertising Medium

If you are in fix about which unique custom promotional item to use, then it is always suggested to go for custom key chains, such as carabiner key chains. It is perfect way to advertise your brand amongst your target audiences.

Custom key chains can be given to business associates, existing clients and also to prospective customers and to in-house employees. One can use these custom key chains to promote their brand successfully at trade shows, business events, automobile exhibitions, product launch, corporate dinners, sales meets and annual conference.

In addition to being inexpensive and affordable, there are several other advantages of using the custom key chains for brand promotion. They are available in a variety of shapes, styles and design patterns. You can have these custom promotional items in metal, steel, wood, steel, plastic, leather and other substances in attractive shapes and designs.

Carabiner key chains make for great and unique gifts and some of the different varieties with promotional gift sellers include LED squeeze light carabiner key chains, designer LED flashlight carabiner key chains, bottle opener carabiner key chains and much more. Nowadays, you can also go for stylish carabiner key chains that have useful attachments.  

The true colors of successful branding strategies!

When you see an apple, do you recognize it by its shape or by its color? Never thought so profoundly before gobbling up the fruit, did you! According to an ingenious team of researchers from Vanderbilt University, apparently an area in our brain is divided in such a manner that it responds differently to different colors. This in turn defines how you discern a particular object. 

Go a step further and think branding strategies as you read this and you’ll have one of those ‘Oh why didn’t I think of it before’ moments like I did. Visualize Coca Cola and doesn’t ‘red’ flood your thoughts or ‘blue’ when you imagine Facebook? (This is apart from the shape, font etc.)

Take color seriously like the above brands did, and you’ll find brand identity and recall baby steps away. Find out why some colors work and how can you use them:

Blue – It represents calmness, integrity and stability. No wonder then its the most popular color preferred by businesses. Use it in your business cards, office décor, brochures to convey the ‘you can trust us’ message.

Red – It represents the color of danger, excitement, and passion. Use this color to imprint your logo on the promotional items and rest assured, it will keep drawing attention to your brand.

Orange – It represents enthusiasm and its vibrancy is guaranteed to enhance your brand identity. Use it for your banners and your marketing message will be communicated loud and clear.

Green – It represents prosperity or money. Sending mailers about how your low prices facilitate savings, write it in green. Want to portray your company as eco-friendly? Give your office, office stationery, promotional items a green tone.

White – It represents peace and simplicity. Pick this color while gifting promotional shirts or assigning uniforms to your employees, and not only will they use it as formal wear, your logo will look the brightest too.

Black – It represents seriousness and no-nonsense boldness and is the preferred color while stating facts. Use it while writing your website or brochure content and the readers will believe in you and your services. If in white, they convey simplicity, promotional shirts in black convey style.

So there! Why stick to drabness when you can add a dash of color to your branding strategies, right?

To view a large variety of branding products for business promotion, please visit our website at www.promodirect.com

Event Planning

So far, we have looked at the questions to ask, some of the process of planning an event, and now it is the tools, those administrative reports that become the building blocks of your event plan. Do you always need every one of these? Not necessarily, as it is event dependant but these are a good base.

1. Cover Sheet / Title page - the basics
1. Location
2. Date
3. Sponsoring Organization
4. Name of the event
2. Organizational Chart - "who's who in the zoo"
3. Mission statement / goals
1. Why, the benefits of attending
4. Evaluation - what is measured, how, when, who, expectations of ROI
5. Program overview grid - outlining all activities, events, locations
6. Creative brief / participant experience overview
7. Budget
8. Critical path
9. Reporting plan - what is needed / expected when
10. Your team
1. who supports this internally at client organization
2. who supports which functions within your organization
3. vendors who will provide the necessary supporting elements (florals to production and everything in between)
4. communication with team
11. Marketing plan
1. sponsors (recruitment)
2. exhibitors (recruitment / sales)
3. donors (recruitment)
4. speakers / abstract / poster presenters (paying vs. paid)
5. registration / ticket sales
6. media / PR / press releases
7. website / print or other collateral
8. social media strategy
12. Production schedule
1. floor plans
2. time schedules - literally minute-by-minute from load in to strike
3. vendors and team members

Is this just the beginning? If you are producing an event of any size, from a wedding to a multiple day conference or anything inbetween, you need to have an understanding of many, many components and their inter-relations and then can get on to the "fun" - creating the experience. Then developing the budgets to go with this. and so it goes...