Insight from Lord Coe on tackling big challenges

Its unlikely any of us will ever have to face a challenge as big as putting on the Olympics. But as Lord Coe showed last night, at the Marketing Society Annual Lecture, there is still much to learn for the rest of us, whether our challenges be about transforming brands, launching new products, or building our teams. He walked…

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Apple and WWF: Both brands of desire. A lesson for other NGOs?

Indeed, they are both proven to be desirable brands – strong brands that encourage consumers to Think, Feel and Act differently. The new Brand Desire 2012 research from Clear, shows that Apple is in the top 3 in the world in all 3 areas, and WWF is a winner in making people Feel differently. Interesting, because if you ask…

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Oi Marketing! We need better segmentation and targeting not none!

I’m taking issue with Marketing magazine last week – 18th Jan. They’ve fallen into the media trap of sensationalist headlines that throw the baby out with the bathwater… ‘Shift’ (p19) gave a timely reminder that we all need to think about consumers in a multi-dimensional way, as any consumer segment is full of contradictions. But it’s certainly not true…

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Now That’s What I Call Great Marketing? Back to basics!

Thanks to the Marketing Society for an interesting evening – a combination of ‘what makes great marketing’ and ‘how to win a marketing society award’. For those of us not entering, we were there to hear any gems from the 4 esteemed speakers – Fiona McAnena of BUPA, Chris Macleod of TfL, Sarah Speake of Google, Ian Armstrong of…

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Between the lines of the Unilever brand story

At last week’s Marketing Society Conference – a day of Global Leadership discussions – we were treated to a very well put together and powerfully delivered talk from Keith Weed, CMO at Unilever. The headlines, reported succintly in today’s Marketing magazine (7 Dec), focus on how they are embedding sustainability in the business, not having separate CSR, and how…

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Why brands get drunk on social media

It occured to me in discussions with a client yesterday that social media, that big scary/cool exciting world (depending how far along you are with embracing it for your brand), is currently the brand equivalent of discovering alcohol as a teenager. It makes you feel like you are the coolest dancer at the party. It’s not until much much…

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Reuse’ revisited… a vital marketing innovation challenge

We all know the mantra ‘reduce, reuse, recycle’…. What this is meant to mean is firstly reduce your materials and impacts by changing your product/service, then try reusing your finished products (straight reuse or value added upcycling) then when all else fails, recycle into something else. Somedays it seems folks only think about the last one, but sadly we’re…

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