Ryan MacMillan

We’re always advising our clients to take their message to their customers - not to bring their customers to their message.

Here’s a really nice example from my local coffee shop, Coffee Plant on Portobello Road. Plant has excellent FairTrade coffee, a very laid back vibe and some smart commercial marketing parnerships where a couple of local retailers have worked out that their customers are also buying coffee.

The flower stall on the corner of the Portobello Markets has a vase of flowers on the coffee shop’s counter with a little note telling you where they came from. Rough Trade records, which is just as good as your favourite record shop from your home town (mine was Rocking Horse in Brisbane), has a sign on the wall letting you know that the tunes played are from their shop, just around the corner.

It’s a bit like the Bulgari hotel partnership with the Ritz Carlton group - except that I can afford and actually need all three things these partners supply.