The guests cars were valet parked, we were signed in and driving credentials checked.   After a very elegant buffet lunch in a massive showroom with several cars on display and many Jaguar staff to serve refreshments, we (I was with the MD of a hotel group and David Parkin from TheBusinessDesk.com) started to notice a few celebs dotted around the room of 40 or so people.  Soon we were ushered into a very slick video and live presentation on the day ahead in a cinema style darkened room, and then paired with professional racing drivers (mine was a British Touring Car Championship driver) and before you could say ‘no cameras allowed’ we were cruising around the Aston Martin/Jaguar/Land Rover test track at 140mph! 

The thrill of the day was driving a 500 bhp XKR (I have a better memory for car information than anything else on earth) at 170mph down the 2 mile straight a few times, and screeching around sweeping bends at over 100mph with no fear of Plod appearing in my rear view mirror. 

The day was amazing as a motorsport and driving fan, but it was the commitment to a brand strategy that I was impressed with overall.  The company has launched three very exciting cars in the past 5 years with the aim of making the brand younger, cooler, more desirable and vital.  The designers have cracked it in my opinion (and that of many car journos too) but having a great product isn’t enough, they had the problem of a legacy image to deal with. 

The confidence to keep investing heavily in marketing at a time when sales dropped off a cliff last year though must have been tough, even with such a cracking product.  They realised they needed to have people experience the product, touch it, sit in it, feel the interiors and that is expensive, compared to simply putting adverts in front of people.  

Jaguar have have stuck to their guns and thrown millions at getting potential current or future customers to have another look at a brand that had become tied to figures like Arthur Daly, John Prescott and retired golf club secretary types. 

They have cooler/more glamorous customers now, some I dare say on freebies but some paying customers.  Trevor Nelson, GMTV’s Andrew Castle  and Carol Vorderman were all there on the day I attended, OK, they aren’t exactly A listers like George Clooney  or Lily Allen, but they are younger and more attractive than the pipe smoker I used to think drove the cars.

Their approach to cultivating strong envoys will I am sure pay off.  I have waxed lyrical about the cars I drove since Tuesday as I am sure have 100 or so other people lucky enough to be invited that day, and the hundreds more throughout the week. 

At a time when the parent company is facing well-publicised problems, it is heartening to see long term thinking and some confidence in the power of marketing, as these types of well-conceived and delivered experience marketing activities are what will deliver business in 2010 and beyond.  Some ballsy marketers have fought their corners within Jaguar, persuaded FDs and others that the way to keep growing the value of the Jaguar brand that has seen so much production investment in the past decade is to make sure people know how good their product now is.  With that determination and the foresight to invest in excellent marketing they deserve to succeed, and I am now a very big fan of the brand.

Now all they need is some government help.  We need policy makers in Westminster incentivise police forces to buy British cars.  A number of police authorities are trialling Jags again like in the 60’s instead of Volvos, BMWs, Subarus and other foreign vehicles. 

From my experience, not much would get away from them, we would all know how fast they now were, UK jobs would be created building then and we’d almost be proud when we got a ticket!

Like many businesses our sales fell in the first half of this year, but we have increased our marketing spend, placed adverts with key media, networked through our client base, invested in training and new skills, revamped our website and added this blog, and they are paying off. 

We are back to pre recession levels of income thanks to wins for JCT600, Monument Investments, Ambitemp, Whittakers Chocolates and Purely Nutrition.  All good Yorkshire business with the confidence to look ahead, beyond the recession.

Even more promisingly our new business pipelines have never been better.

Somoene once told me that if you are looking behind cant move forward, but look far ahead and you can run fast.  That has always made sense to me, but never more so now. 

This is the time when businesses that are not crippled by the current markets should be looking to the future and planning for a time when the negative trends have stopped.  It is a time to look beyond the recession, invest in initiatives and take advantage of the opportunities thrown up by the turmoil.

Smart management of PR and marketing budgets this year could deliver more return than ever before as markets thin out and there is less competition for your messages.  Even maintaining a reduced marketing or PR spend could deliver significant increases in share of profile as the more short-sighted cut budgets and lose momentum. 

With firms reviewing almost every expense and renegotiating with suppliers, it’s vital that you give yourself the best chance to be considered for new work and make pitch lists.  Refresh your key messages; keep your name prominent in the media; smarten up your internet presence; network subtly through existing clients and in new circles.

Shrewd businesses are using the current situation to best advantage by differentiating themselves from the competition and making the most of the positives.  As much of the regional media has turned its attention to highlighting success and celebrating businesses that grow, and with fewer voices competing to be heard, despite the challenges, now is the time to invest in your profile.

It’s never been truer that cash is king but confidence is definitely next in line to the throne.

Many clients we work for are doing a great deal of business too, and we have recently written a number of stories that prove that corporate banks are starting, just starting to lend money again.   But there is a phrase that’s a real no-no, like the mentioning the war at Faulty Towers, words that we just can’t use – green shoots of recovery. 

Its a cliche political soundbite that was coined by Norman Lamont, and worked in 1991, but that seems wrong in the post banking meltdown Noughties, and was prematurely revived by Baroness Vadera at the start of the year to much hoo haa, but we need to say something, because its good news that there is even a glimmer of hope, and hope becomes optimism and then confidence. 

In the first quarter a lawyer client I worked with said we were ‘bumping along the bottom’, that describes well the little ups and downs we have been seeing for some time, but what about something more positive now that we seem to have seen the worst of the fallout- something that sums up a little of the optimism and front foot business we are seeing in the past month or so? 

I heard another client last week say that we didn’t have green shoots yet, but ‘there were signs that the seed was germinating!’  Very descriptive, but a little too technical to ever be adopted as a new turn of phrase. 

I have been trying to sum it up for a few weeks, and ended up saying that it looks like people are ‘coming out from under their beds’ but this still doesnt capture the mood.  I think we need a new phrase, something we are allowed to say that sums up the positive glimmers we are seeing, and stops the rot on this 18 month period of media gloom…

Any suggestions?