Tuesday 28th February 2006, that was my first day at Alchemis.

I was nervous; unsure of what was expected of me and whether I could deliver.

What would the people be like? Would I get on with them? Would they like me?

I needn’t have worried, because Alchemis turned out to be better than I could ever have imagined.

The people were warm, my bosses were cool (almost like me) and they’d go out of their way to help you with any issues that you had. I could tell right away that they worked hard to create a comfortable, happy office environment where everyone wanted to do well and were well rewarded for it.

Actually, the support from my bosses and the team camaraderie is something that I will never forget about Alchemis and it’s what carried me through when I have been stressed or up against it.

I won’t lie to you - working for Alchemis can be challenging. You need to perform consistently and manage the needs of your clients, as well as deliver an effective campaign over the telephone that will win them new business. It can be stressful meeting your targets (especially when you have a day when everyone says “no”) but the sense of achievement that you get when you finally hit target is fantastic and you want to do it again and again.

In my 4 years and 9 months at Alchemis I have worked on a number of marketing services clients from PR and design right through to branding and eCommerce and what strikes me immediately is the shift from traditional marketing methods to online mediums. It literally seemed to happen overnight!

I’m thankful for the opportunity I had at Alchemis. Without it I would never have been able to take up my new job, working for a fashion eCommerce agency with international offices.

I’ll miss everyone –  the jokes, the laughter the support and the challenges.

Most of all, I’ll miss working with incredibly smart and talented people who I have go to know here.

Long live Alchemis, I’ll miss you…

From a customer’s point of view, I had a certain amount of satisfaction reading about the outcome of the “Pinocchiogate” court case this week. I’m sure you would have heard it in the news, but the topline is that Ryanair ran some advertising in the press featuring Stelios Haji-Ioannou with a long Pinocchio nose and implying that Easyjet flights are usually late which is why they had not updated the “flights arriving on time” statistics on their website.

Having suffered numerous delays and other perceived injustices at the hands of both of these airlines more times than I would care to remember, the publicity surrounding this case made me smile for the following reasons:

Firstly, Michael O’Leary had to apologise “unreservedly” to Stelios for the slander (and pay him £50K plus court costs). That must be the first time Mr O’Leary has said sorry to anyone who has been wronged by Ryanair without adding words to the effect of “we’re the cheapest airline and Europe, so like it or lump it”. Must have been pretty hard for him to get those words out of his throat without choking I would imagine.

Secondly, even though Stelios won the court case, there may be a certain amount of negative publicity generated by the whole affair with people thinking “no smoke without fire” concerning Easyjet’s punctuality. My personal experience with them is that if you get the first flight of the day at 6am you’re generally going to arrive at your destination on time. If you get a flight in the evening though, well that’s another matter.

I’m now eagerly awaiting the next stage of their public relations war with bated breath.

There were reports in the press recently that a Labour leaflet campaign was targeting cancer sufferers with a message that their lives could be at risk if a Tory government was to come into power using the strap line “are the Tories a change you can afford?”

Labour claims that they used publicly available social demographic data and the data management company Experian confirmed that both Labour and the Conservatives use its Mosaic database, which divides voters into 67 groups and identifies likely cancer patients using anonymised hospital statistics, including postcodes and the diagnoses of patients.

This throws up interesting questions about what customer information a brand should use in tailoring their communications.

The holy grail of all customer marketing is surely to get to a point where brands can treat their customers as individuals but if they are seen to be taking advantage of someone’s disadvantages to promote a product or service then this risks alienating the customer and potentially turning into a PR nightmare.

As a Business Development Manager I have the advantage of being able to react to information I receive during a conversation and amend my communications accordingly.

When I am making new business calls to marketing decision makers part of my job is to identify ‘pain points’ and highlight requirements that are not currently adequately provided by their internal resources or current suppliers. This gives me a great reason for them to meet my client. However I’m always very aware that identifying pain points is one thing, but overstating them is likely to turn the prospect off.

Quite often the questions I ask are designed to raise these areas in the prospect’s mind but sometimes ‘in their mind’ is enough and these ‘problems’ remain unspoken. If, in their mind they can see a problem that is currently unsolved and match that with a potential solution that my client has expertise in then I’m more than half way there.

In my experience there is such a thing as overselling your benefits and if that is on the back of excessively highlighting a prospective client’s (or for that matter voter’s) problems then you’re bound to risk appearing mercenary or as Phyllis Delik, 80, who received one of Labours leaflets described it “callous”.

What do you think the limit should be on marketers using sensitive data to target their customers, if any?