The Glasgow Business Awards 2011 are on the horizon again, when top businesses and organisations have the opportunity to celebrate their achievements at this black tie extravaganza. It takes place in October at the Thistle Hotel, Glasgow and is sponsored by the Bank of Scotland. There are a record fourteen awards up for grabs this year and Dunning are delighted to be once again sponsoring our own special award for ‘The Best Use of Social Media’. We’ve also created the brand and designed all the presentations for the event, so it’s obviously going to be a top-notch, ‘do’.

Now you might think October is ages away however tickets are selling fast so don’t leave it too late, as last year was completely SOLD OUT.  There’s also time to enter your business for an award.  All bookings and entries for this “Oscars of the Business World” event can be made on the Glasgow Business Awards website.

On another note and ahead of the Business Awards we’ll also be getting involved in the International Social Media week taking place in Glasgow in September but more about that soon.

If you would like any help or wanted to chat about an event you’re thinking of having please drop us a line – Julian’s probably the best guy to ask for.

Scotch Whisky generates £109-every second for the UK Economy

Sales in ‘developing’ markets are absolutely soaring!

Last year, Brazil saw  a 12 per cent increase to £67million,  Russia went up 61 per cent, India up 46 per cent and China increased sales by 24 per cent, to £55million. These figures sound exciting, but what’s really exciting is that we’re only scratching the surface of these absolutely VAST markets, the biggest potential sales territories on Earth. The biggest ‘Whisky Live’ that takes place at the moment is in Taiwan. Last year, over 12,000 thirsty Asian, Scotch whisky-lovers turned up, ten times the amount that show up for the Glasgow event!

Come along to listen to Donald MacLellan, who is the International Business Development Executive for BenRiach & GlenDronach Distilleries. With his joint Islay and Australian heritage (including the accent),and years of International Marketing experience with some of Scotland’s most prestigious brands, Donald’s going to tell us why Scotch Malt Whisky has been so successful. We’ll learn:

• How the Scotch Whisky Industry created the World’s very first Brands and movie Advertising
• Why biodeversity, sustainability, craft and provenace are so important in making Scotch Whisky such a success
• How viral marketing is helping Scotch Whisky communicate with a huge and burgeoning global market
• 10 things which you definitely didn’t know about Scotch Whisky!
• How whisky is investing in Scotland’s future

With such a topic you could be forgiven for thinking that the 3^rd Communications Breakfast might have been a sedate affair; an event where everything was in order and all emotions were in check, the speaker delivering a pragmatic and informative presentation.

Well, it didn’t quite play out that way!  Yes, Paul Fletcher of Edinburgh University Business School delivered a pragmatic and informative presentation, of that there is no doubt.  However, he also demonstrated his wit, wisdom and depth of knowledge, he had the 150 strong audience laughing and left us with lots to ponder.

Paul provided us with some really valuable insights:

Did you know that a snail gathers memory in the same way humans do?

It was disappointing to hear that research shows that although Emotional Intelligence (EI) is being used it’s not that visible from a business perspective apart from a few leading brands such as M&S, Tesco and Honda.  Take a look at their advertising and it will be obvious that they resonate with their target audience – all due to their investment in EI!

So what can Emotional Intelligence actually deliver from a business perspective?  Paul asked us “Have you ever wondered what it would be like to measure:”

• Emotional content of your advertising
• Emotional impact of your advertising
• Staff pulse on a daily basis
• Brand value impact on specific audiences
• Staff morale deeply
• The contributors to stress
• Motivation pre and post change

How valuable would this information be, how far ahead of your competitors would you be?  Well, EI can do all this and a whole lot more to boot!  The key to making it effective for you is all about how you embrace EI as a workable concept, how you integrate it into your strategy.

Paul and his team are applying their model with a number of key clients, for example they are working with the SFA to determine what football team has the happiest fans.  They do this by monitoring Twitter, Blogs, websites etc. looking for specifics and pulling out emotions, in effect creating an emotional heat map.  From this they then aggregate all the data to define the happiest fans.  How powerful is this information?  Imagine if you were able to know and feel your target audience this intimately, what couldn’t you achieve?

Paul summarised by telling us all that:

• Emotion drives behaviour & not otherwise
• Emotion is dynamic
• Engagement is a major issue
• Emotion can be analysed at the atomic level now

Whatever problem you are trying to solve, Emotional Intelligence can help you.

Here are some of the tweets during and after this morning’s event:

@EntourageUK @DunningDesign good to meet you this morning @CommsBreakfast! Really enjoyed it & looking forward to the next one on 7th July!

@gilliandick @CommsBreakfast really enjoyed this mornings event. Only sorry I had to rush off! #quality

@Ironwood @CommsBreakfast It was a MOST enjoyable morning. Great when a speaker has a keen sense of humour!

@kirstiebirr A very interesting and entertaining talk @CommsBreakfast this morning given by Paul Fletcher – Measuring Emotional Intelligence

@revolverpr Morning! Great time @CommsBreakfast this morning – fantastic talk by Paul from @EBS_Global & a tasty breakfast in the Corinthian

@SCQFPartnership Just back from @CommsBreakfast at The Corinthian. Lovely breakfast, followed by some witty wisdom from Edinburgh University’s Paul Fletcher.

@CaledonianAKE @DunningDesign #commsbreakfast Paul fletcher calls for more emotional intelligence in marketing and business- think Honda and M&S

@IronwoodSays Goodness packed at @CommsBreakfast. Help ma boab.

@Fionaoutdoors @dunningdesign really interesting emotional intelligence brekkie thingie this morning. worth getting up for early morning cycle in drizzle

@NickCohen6 Great to catch up with some familiar faces and interesting talk at @CommsBreakfast thanks @DunningDesign looking forward to the next!

@alisyme @StowBusDev should get using that tag! RT @DunningDesign: We have emotions to keep us safe, attract a mate, keep a mate #CommsBreakfast

@gilliandick Julian from @DunningDesign AKA Austin Powers #CommsBreakfast