Meeting Peeps in the NQ and Ancoats
Today was a good day, despite having a horrid cold with hacking cough, as I ventured by tram from Ashton into central Manchester to catch up with three old advertising comrades for a natter over coffee. Very productive and well met with people I have known for years.
The first person was met at a prompt 9.30am, but in fact I was 10-15 minutes late due to underestimating the tram journey to see the very unique Mark Varley. We met at Foundation on Lever Street and it was interesting to see Manchester’s Northern Quarter still resembling a Costa Del Sol building site. The coffee was very strong, but nice, and drove some good nattering between a pair of individuals who started their careers together in London a few moons back.
In fact we are both so prehistoric that we can remember using dial up modems and the Mosaic Browser. And it was Mark who introduced me to a sh*t new search engine that had no content or advertising called Google.
It was interesting to hear that the advertising market is flat at the moment and will probably remain so until two elections happen. One here, one across the pond, and may the Lord have mercy on our souls.
Mark and I had a good chat over consulting, an area we work in and one we are looking to develop, both mulling over working together again. And we both are lucky to have straddled offline and online media and so can add a certain something when working with companies at senior level. And we’ve held a number of board positions previously and gained a lot of useful experience, not to mention having the privilege of working with some clever people.
Next was a quick walk into Ancoats to catch up with someone who can only be described as a character. This being Simon Wharton of PushON, the established eCommerce consultancy and a company I rate and well led by the front of house Simon. Interestingly it was good to catch up with him having recently referred a Shopify build from a large luxury car dealership brand.
It was nice of Simon when being photographed to pose with his legendary resting bitch face.
Simon kindly brought me up to speed with the eComm’ market including platforms such as Magento, and it was interesting to hear how PushOn does not just advise on eCommerce and tech, but has a razor sharp marketing team that specialises in eComm’ executions - certainly worth bearing in mind, and why I recommend PushOn.
We chatted as to family and friends in the beautiful Beehive Mill in Ancoats, before I moved onto the next meeting.
The next catch up was with the wonderful Heidi Kenyon-Smith at Another Heart to Feed on Hilton Street back in the Northern Quarter. I’ve known Heidi for a number of years and originally helped her move from client side to agency, and she has now moved back to client side as General Manager of the female brand Simply Be, where she excels.
We chatted family especially her two children, Betty and Ralph, and my heading up to the Isle of Mull to be with Claire later in the year. Heidi was clearly saddened at the number of redundancies at Dentsu where she worked previously; which in my opinion is so short sighted and will have extreme consequences for the UK business. Yet again, London always seems to know best about the regions when it comes to the advertising business and time will tell.
We only had an hour before I had to head to Piccadilly for a train for another meeting, spluttering with a cough as I went.
It was a good day. That’s it. A good day with nice genuine people.