You can leave your tie on: Sunrise poll inspires dress code for Adelaide marketers

January 31, 2010

In what is likely to be a world first, Adelaide-based sales and marketing consultancy, Patrick Baker and Associates, will institute a new business dress code, effective this Monday, in which clients will formally be asked to decide whether ties are welcome or required when meetings are held with their marketing consultant.

Senior Consultant, Steve Davis, says the issue has been discussed internally for some months but was brought to a head by a national phone poll on Channel Seven's Sunrise program on Friday (29 January 2010).

"Public opinion was divided on the issue but it appears two thirds of Australians voted to see Sunrise co-host, David Koch, relegate his ties to the history books," says Mr Davis.

"While the audience that voted in the poll was a broader cross section of the community than our narrow target market of business owners, senior managers and board members, it is important that we stay in touch with community standards.

"We have decided the most authentic, marketing-based response for us to take is to ask each client independently to choose whether or not they want their consultant to wear a tie when meeting with them," he says.

In the Channel Seven program, Darwin Lord Mayor, Graeme Sawyer, was interviewed on the topic and stated that ties are spurned in the Top End as much for the cultural insignificance as for their clash with the climate.

"Graeme's comments rang true because I recall consulting to the NT government last year, and to small business through the Business Enterprise Centre NT, and was advised to leave my ties at home, which, thankfully, I did," comments Steve Davis.

"This trend towards open neck business shirts seems to be more advanced in Melbourne and Sydney, has been longstanding in tropical and regional areas, and is beginning to emerge in the more conservative Adelaide market.

"However, in marketing it's the consumer who calls the shots and for us that means our clients," he says.

ENDS

For more information, email Patrick Baker at patrick@patrickbaker.com.au.