Marketing Advisory Group Meeting Minutes
Tuesday 27th January 10-11.30 - Committee Room 1, The Guildhall
Attedees:
Becky Burrell, Cambridge BID; Philippa Artus, Cambridge BID; Sarah Ingram, John Lewis; Kelly
Blades, Heart FM; Nicola Foley, Cambridge Edition; Kelly, Conference Cambridge; Nicky Shepherd,
Cambridge Style Week; Becky Churms, Visit Cambridge; Tim Jones, Cambridge City Council; Bill
Brogan, St Johns College; Dane Comerford, University of Cambridge; Michaela Middleton, The
Grafton; Jason Buckley, Cambridge BID; Helen Hames, Cambridge BID; Luis Navarro, Nanna Mexico;
Lisa Dickson, Cambridge Corn Exchange; Tim Shattock, Hobbs Sports; Amanda Mills & Mandy
Hopgood, Keylime PR & Marketing; Sarah French, Cambridge City Council Parking Services
1. Review of delivered projects:
Mystery Shop and Awards
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Mystery Shopping programme and the awards ceremony have happened
Over 70 businesses were involved and the awards were held at Robinson College
Training sessions held in January - customer service training and retail sales training.
Positive feedback from all businesses involved and interest in continuing project.
Test Town
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Cambridge BID partnered with the Carnegie Trust and invited young entrepreneurs to trade
in Cambridge in empty units.
We had 8 young business people trading and they made over £40,000.
Plans for the future may include regional/city based heats but we are waiting for
confirmation from Carnegie Trust.
Christmas
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Switch On happened in November with Thom Evans as the celebrity guest.
We had a weekend of activities – Grafton on Sat and Grand Arcade & Lion Yard on Sun.
Christmas magazine will be delivered again in 2015 in conjunction with Cambridge News.
Plans for 2015 - Switch On weekend will be on 14th and 15th November.
A selection of new lights were put in place this year.
There were technical issues this year but they were dealt with as soon as they could be.
2. Forthcoming projects
Cambridge Style Week
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Cambridge BID is sponsoring Cambridge Style Week and we have offered 14 BID businesses
the opportunity to display their items at the fashion shows.
We have organised a variety of fringe events throughout the Cambridge area. These will be
either in-store events or competitions, or online campaigns.
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We have a range of models walking through Cambridge promoting the shows and also all of
the free events.
A brochure and A5 flyers have been printed with a 10,000 print run.
Additional Mystery Shop Programme
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Second wave of mystery shopping programme introduced.
Cambridge BID will now be running two sessions – March and august.
The awards will be happening in September/October and if businesses are involved in both
sessions then they can be put forward for the awards in September.
Training will be happening in January 2016 – the sessions will be decided by the feedback
given by the businesses involved in the sessions.
ACTION POINT – sign up businesses for the March Mystery Shopping Programme next week.
Pint of Science
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‘Pint of Science’ is a science festival running across the UK in over 60 pubs and then also
throughout the rest of the world from 18th – 20th May 2015.
There will be 6 pubs participating over three nights and we have worked with Pint of Science
to ensure that the majority of these are BID businesses.
o Cambridge Brew House, King Street
o Maypole, Park Street
o Baroosh, Market Passage
o Architect, Castle Street
o Panton Arms, Panton Street
o Boathouse, Chesterton Road
The festival aims to bring the best academic scientists to local pubs so that they can explain
their latest research to the public over the space of the 3 days.
In previous years Cambridge has been their most successful city – last year they sold out 2
weeks prior to the event.
On the 21st May Cambridge will be the only city to hold a unique event, Creative Reactions an exhibition of artwork produced by local artists especially for Pint of Science.
Valentines Promotion
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We are working on a calendar of activities for the events throughout the year – valentines,
mothers, father’s day etc.
This Valentine’s Day promotion will be happening from the 4th to the 15th February and we
have got 15 businesses involved to have a letter in their window so consumers can around to
each venue and work out what the phrase spells out.
We are keen to get more consumers to our website and increase the footfall to the city
throughout that time, in the run up to Valentine’s Day.
Independents Month
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A national campaign we have been involved in over the last few years.
Keen to get more businesses involved for 2015
We have had feedback that July is an inconvenient time to have Independents month.
We want people to ‘shop local’ and promote the independent businesses within Cambridge
through a brochure, radio adverts and website banner adverts.
3. Welcoming & Vibrant Projects
City Ambassadors
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Introduction of Jason Buckley, new Operations Manager at Cambridge BID.
City Ambassadors welcomed over 48,000 visitors, went to see over 5,300 business for
business visits, have noted down over 9500 commercial waste issues over the past year.
We attended the Cambridge News Jobs Fair last week and had a successful day talking to
locals about potentially working with the team.
We have recruited 4 new city ambassadors.
We will be looking into a volunteer scheme with the city ambassadors
Pop Up-Shops
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City Ambassadors go around the city looking for empty units and note this on the Dashboard
Jason Buckley & Edward Quigley be meeting with local agents to try and work with them for
future projects.
4. Ongoing communication
Quarterly e-newsletter (b2b)
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We have previously had printed editions of the quarterly newsletters and this year will now
be produced electronically.
All information will be published on our website through our business pages. These pages
will be updated with BID events, projects, issues and anything we feel that would be
relevant for BID businesses to look at.
Monthly e-shot (b2b)
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Our PR agency send out a monthly e-shot which focusses on one topic relevant to businesses
Consumer e-shots
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We have a database of consumers and we send them a monthly newsletter with 4 topic
sections. February to include Valentine’s Day, Style Week, Grand Arcade Parking &
Cambridge History Festival.
Great response – 41.23% open rate and 14.37% click through rate.
Website
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We have a new interactive website where visitors to Cambridge can find out about events,
latest news, places to go when they arrive, transport options, etc.
Login and passwords for people to be able to login and update profiles will be sent out soon.
Currently have 150 businesses listed in our business directory.
City Commandments
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This has come as a result of feedback from the mystery shopper programme.
Results indicated that one area that businesses fell back on was their local knowledge when
consumers came to ask where different locations were.
We will be having these printed and they will be distributed to businesses through our city
ambassadors.
5. Projects outside Marketing & Events and Welcoming and Vibrant:
Cost Reduction
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We have been working with a business called Meercat to help identify the relevant savings
that can be made by businesses within Cambridge.
We will be working with Meercat until June and have some great opportunities ahead for
businesses to save as much money as possible.
Enhanced Cleansing
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We have organised to have 30 streets deep cleaned ahead of the targeted response and
scheduled cleaning contract.
The contract will be finalised before the end of March
Cleaning will begin on the 1st April.
CAMBAC
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We are working with CAMBAC to put on a ‘Rehydrate’ project.
This allows revellers of the night time economy the option to have chilled drinking water
without going to the bar.
This project has plans to involve night time businesses in the BID area – TBC.
Cambridge BID plans to continue supporting the Street Pastors and Taxi Marshalls
throughout 2015.
6. AOB
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‘Love your local market’ campaign happening at the end of May.
Science Festival will be happening on the 9th to the 22nd March and it is expected that 30,000
visitors will come to Cambridge especially for this festival.
Cambridge History Festival will be happening on the 25 th February until the 8th March at the
Museum of Cambridge. All the events are booked through the museum website.
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National Heritage Open Cambridge Weekend from the 9th September. If any businesses have
a story they would like to share as a business in Cambridge.
E-Luminate festival is not being financially supported by Cambridge BID this year; however,
we will be supporting it by promoting it through our various platforms. This is the festival of
light and displays lights throughout various locations in Cambridge.
Date of Next Meeting
5th May 2015 – Venue TBC
29th September 2015 – Venue TBC