Hat Will Do Nicely

After shoes at the top end of Hungerford High Street, Morgan PR switched to hats at the other end of town when we spent some time with Jane Corbett today, to offer advice about PR and marketing.

Jane runs a beautiful shop in Hungerford, Jane Corbett Millinery, packed with beautiful, hand made hats and headdresses. The shop is a real treat for the eyes, as each place you look you see more of her gorgeous, unique pieces. The walls are decorated with hand painted designs and it has the feel of a decedent boudoir; the rush and traffic of the high street outside seems to fade away.

Delightfully, Jane herself takes pride in offering a bespoke service to each client. She explores their needs and can dye silks, straw and feathers to exactly match outfits and meet requirements. A visit to her would make any lady feel truly pampered.

Jane has plans to develop her business, which are under wraps until spring next year (you'll notice we avoided the 'keeping it under our hats' pun!). Suffice to say that there will be even more reasons to visit!

Public Relations in Hungerford

Morgan PR offers public relations throughout West Berkshire and the Thames Valley, still, it is always nice to serve clients much closer to home - and this morning we were with Hungerford shoe magnate Ellie Dickins.

We have written about Ellie many times in the past and taken photographs too, so it was nice to be taking it to the next level and we will be working with her across her two shops and three brands: Ellie Dickins, Dickins for Men and Diddy Dickins and using the range of services we can provide; from public relations and marketing through to web marketing and search engine optimisation and graphic design.

Ellie already enjoys a strong market presence and a reputation that goes far beyond the market town where she is based.

We will be working with her to capitalise on this to improve brand awareness and ultimately increase sales; sometimes public relations is done for its own sake, but mostly it will always be about increasing sales and that is something that Morgan PR fully understands.

So look forward to hearing more about the work we are doing with Ellie Dickins very soon.

Start Spreading the News... It's Graham's Birthday Today

After a day yomping up and down the strip and marvelling at the host of clever marketing ploys that are designed to part a fool and his money in the briefest of time frames, we headed to New York, New York for a celebration...

Graham Chapple, of Garden4You, notched up a birthday here in Las Vegas and with his focus set on a juicy steak we headed for New York, New York where we correctly surmised you could probably find a convincing facsimile of a New York steakhouse - this is the casino with a third size Statue of Liberty outside - alongside the Brooklyn Bridge and Coney Island roller coaster!

However, blissfully there was a wait for a table at Gallagher's Steakhouse (a good sign on a Tuesday in a city as accommodating as Las Vegas!) so we looked for alternative entertainment... and stumbled into perhaps my favourite place in this crazy place: The Bar at Times Square - or more specifically that should be The Piano Bar at Times Square!

For this is the home of the globally renown duelling pianos. I first saw them in 1998 and it was fabulous to see that the pianos were still duelling, the crowd still whooping and a host of crowd pleasing tunes were belted out.

You can nominate tunes with a crisp dollar or five and they will encourage more people to chip in before the chosen tune is played - however if you step up with a $20 they will do pretty much anything - such as help Graham celebrate his birthday.

More specifically they invited him up to sit on the piano while they improvised a smutty ditty to the tune of Itsy Witsy Teeny Weeny Little Polka Dot Bikini! Graham was a good sport, the crowd loved it and a complete stranger bought him a beer. Gotta love this city!

Once at Gallagher's were were positively drooling over the menu and were quite dehydrated by time the food eventually came; and then we were left stunned! I had a sirloin steak that would have fed our family for Sunday lunch! However Graham had a monster hunk of meet that was possibly a fairly mature calf going on size alone. The flavours were fabulous by I was defeated by mine, although the birthday boy did his real justice!

Here we are at the optimistic part of the meal:

Good Food at The Ibex in Chaddleworth

Regular readers will recall Morgan PR's productive working lunch last month with Lucy Venables from marketing company Red Prosper at The Ibex in Chaddleworth. You can read about that visit to The Ibex here

Well with more business to discuss it seemed foolish to try and pick another mutually convenient pub and risk not being served the delicious dishes that this Downlands venue has a burgeoning reputation for. And that was the right decision and Landlord Andy did us proud once more.

Among the range of business discussed was a rather exciting project for the Federation of Small Businesses. We are going to be offering a 'One Minute Masterclass' next month for networkers wanting to polish that essential 60 second pitch that helps others understand your business and what you can do to

A (not so hard) Working Lunch at The Ibex

Morgan PR first wrote about The Ibex back in May last year, and rather poorly it has taken until today to actually get back to the Chaddleworth pub, which is run by Andy Jones and his wife Julia and has truly become the centre of the village, taking over as the Post Office and the village shop. Just think, a loaf of bread, some stamps and a pint of something other than milk!

Anyway I digress, I was actually meeting with Lucy Venables, erstwhile marketing guru and sometime chef from Red Prosper. Regular readers will recall I subbed for her at a recent BNI meeting. Anyway, The Ibex was determined to be the most equidistant venue for a lunch to explore the synergy between us and our respective businesses.

Focusing was tough though; the landlord Andy, is also a chef and was in the kitchen and we went with his recommendations for lunch and for me that was a mouth-watering and thoroughly meaty steak pie. A simple dish, but so easily abused, Andy had got it spot on.

Good food aside I am sure we shall be working together; some people blur PR and marketing and in some respects they are simply different locations on the same journey. However, there are serious if sometimes subtle differences which mean I hope Morgan PR can use Red Prosper sometime soon, and vice versa.

Incidentally, as a pub name The Ibex is unique and rumours abound over how it go its name, from escaped circus acts through to the landlord's favourite, that a local once had an Ibex as a pet. Even more intriguing, the website Berkshire History records:

There is a curious legal custom in Chaddleworth parish. If a copyholder’s widow remarried, she forfeited her rights to her husband’s lands. However, if she rode into court backwards on the back of a large black ram repeating certain ludicrous lines that end in a petition to give back her lands, the manor steward would be obliged to return them.

How bizarre?

Less surprising is my suspicion that Red Prosper and Morgan PR will find the need for another business meeting again soon, and most likely back at The Ibex.