Seems appropriate to write this blog today, being a Friday! I wonder how many of our friends and suppliers and clients empathise with the sentiment here?
What does Friday mean to you? Anticipation of the weekend to come? The welcome end to a week of work? A big night out? A quiet night in? Or as a marketing director; brand manager or agency planner – Oh it’s Friday already and I haven’t thought about that research project we commissioned or have to commission!
As an Insight Consultancy we know our place in the pecking order for such decision makers – so many other things in product and service marketing move quicker and demand more of my time and intellect. Or, lets face it are more interesting and fun to think about! So it is then, that at The Buzzz, we come into the office on a Friday with all of those Friday feelings but that added anticipation that Friday is order day! I wonder is it the same with other marketing disciplines – do those same decision makers commission everything on a Friday? Does the media spend get signed off on a Friday? Does the new advertising agency get the phone call on a Friday? Does the marketing strategy document get signed off on a Friday? Maybe it does, but if it does, I bet it is done before lunchtime! Is it just research that is thought about at the end of the week or am I being characteristically (as a market research professional) pessimistic about our role in the grand scheme of all things marketing and brand related!??!
For us researchers our calls often come after 4.00pm. One of our valued client rings us when he gets to a specific junction on the M25 on his commute home because he knows he will be stationary for 15 minutes so that he can discuss with us the complex issue he has been wrestling with all week. Another client, who was usually too busy to engage in a conversation on the insights you have shared from that last project, suddenly has time to talk to you just as you press the shut down button on your computer screen.
Don’t get me wrong, we welcome those calls, but it does mean we have to be extra sharp right up to the end of the week because we are expected to have the answers, to be thinking about just that very issue at the time they ring, to have an answer so they can box off their week! So Fridays seem for us to be the day when we make real progress on projects and proposals, when we plant seeds and develop our thinking further. I would be very interested to hear from other friends in our industry and beyond to see if they get the same Friday feeling.
