Each Friday in Points North, one of the North’s leading media personalities will be giving us their take on the news covered by Prolific North over the last seven days.
This week it’s the turn of Rose Marley, COO of The Sharp Project and The Space Project.
Did you vote? As the national media began the week picking through the aftermath of the European elections and the resulting implications for our voice in Europe, I was left pondering what any of this means for creative digital businesses in the North.
Manchester has a wealth of export prospects in the global market and plenty of opportunities to shout about what’s going on in the region.
Home to some of the best football clubs in the world, earlier in the week Manchester City’s brand value was reported to have now reached over £300million, with increased sponsorship opportunities playing a significant part and through them the potential to even exceed Manchester United’s value in the coming years.
The BBC’s output at MediaCity continues to serve as a valuable beacon in broadcasting, with barely a week passing without fresh news from our friends on the quays adding to the region’s creative worth and our ability to market the North West outside the region.
This week it was news that the BAFTA award-winning Mark Rylance will be taking on his first ever children’s role in the new CBeebies animation, Bing. This was on the back of last week’s announcement about our own exciting collaboration with the BBC on a new children’s drama format to be based at Manchester’s newest TV asset, The Space Project.
But although we have a talent for creating and developing opportunities here in the North, can the same always be said about the ability to seize the opportunity to take the North overseas?
With that in mind I was impressed by news this week of Manchester agency Bliss’s bold move to open up shop in Amsterdam. Digital agencies often talk about the threat of other cities taking our talent, so it was great to see Bliss taking the bull by the horns and making a smart move to seek out opportunities to tap into an overseas talent base.
So how do we capitalise on the European opportunity to export more of our content and expertise to willing recipients on the continent? Theresa Griffin MEP visited The Sharp Project recently, with promises to shout loudly about Manchester’s strengths in the sector, but all of us in the North should be asking ourselves what more we can do to arm our European representatives with the ability to carve out a bigger slice of the Euro pie for the region.
So next time as a creative business community we come to consider our relationship with the continent, instead of asking what Europe can do for us, it might instead be worth asking what we can do for Europe, as we look to widen the corridor of opportunities through which we will all be able to benefit.
Rose Marley is COO of The Sharp Project and The Space Project.
