Business Link revamp (again):
The sad and sorry Business Link brand continues to wend its way down to the invevitable scrap heap. The switch to running it via local Chambers of Commerce hasn’t been a success, so Advantage West Midlands are breaking with the “one size fits all” area-based approach and are to move to a sector-by-sector business advice service from 2007. Which we can only hope will be an improvement. It’ll be interesting to see what the creative industries service looks like. It’ll be sad for those very few area-based Business Links that actually do have a strong reputation, but let’s hope the changes work. But somehow I doubt it. Latest research shows that only 33 per cent of companies are able to simply identify the Business Link brand, despite large taxpayer-funded advertising campaigns. The whole brand, and the assumptions it carries with it, needs putting out of its misery.