The Little Dog Story
Chapter Ten – The Lympic legacy burns bright at The Little Dog
The Little Dog Story. We’re back and ready to battle our way through 2013 after an Olympic inspired 2012.
With Danny Boyle’s Opening Ceremony filling our brains with admiration, pride and wonder; with the cheers for Mo and Jess still ringing in our ears and with the amazement of the Games-makers transforming London into a friendly, happy place, Team Little Dog now know that ANYTHING is possible.
2012 was definitely our year for personal development and training. Not on the athletics track but in front of the Applemac. Our lovely Mac-girl Ashley sadly said goodbye to concentrate on her own business forcing this computer design dinosaur to get up to speed and fast.
We also had to eat some humble pie and acknowledge the phenomenal power of social networking as a form of marketing and so the Little Dog joined Facebook and Twitter.
Being previous staunch advocates of keeping our lunch time consumption private, we are now tweeting, posting and blogging with the best of them and must admit to loving it! It is truly addictive and a great way to connect with people who like our work.
We launched our calendar competition via our website and Facebook page making the whole experience of producing twenty four new designs in just three weeks an absolute joy. It is time consuming and we are still pressing buttons which could be making small countries disappear but for feedback, inspiration and daily smiles, it’s brilliant.
The biggest challenge facing the Little Dog this year (I’m not even going to mention the economy, cash flow, childcare, storage or manpower) is that there are only twenty four hours in a day and you can’t work them all. Turns out sleep is fundamental for effective performance.
The NEC Autumn Fair made us face some realities which the brain already knew but the heart did not want to accept. Our previous strength of having a diversity of product was now becoming our weakness. Not enough design time, not enough manpower and not enough money to effectively run all three brands at the same time.
Our funny bunny, Rufus Rabbit has continued to hop from strength to strength and is creating the buzz that our dog range had done in the early days.
Our “little dog laughed” brand still enjoys a very strong and loyal fan base (thank you!) but now needed more time and development spent on it.
This meant that our Really Likes contemporary card brand was the weakest link.
We hadn’t promoted it within the greeting cards section of trade shows for years, relying solely on buyers to remember us as card designers. So the decision was made to freeze investment in Really Likes which would free up cash flow but more importantly give us the much needed space and time to continue with the development of the rabbit and mutts and moggs.
On a design level we will still continue to create new collections but with modern advancements in digital printing it is no longer necessary to commit to large print runs before securing orders. A few tears were silently shed but the right decision had been reached.
And that is about all that happened in 2012 other than the safe and happy arrival of Baby No.4, a jolly summer wedding, a new team member to head up marketing and promotions, our vintage treasure Douglas the Dog and the discovery of nutella with sliced banana in a warm tortilla wrap. Delicious, try it!
