Complacent and lazy marketers know people like to follow the crowd. There’s safety in numbers, right?
They play this card as often as possible with their marketing messages. The company mindset can be, ‘Why do we need to do any better when product X sells just fine?’ It strikes me that the banking and motor industries have entrenched their businesses in this attitude.
The brave ones break new ground and create a tribe.
At the back of every great fortune lies a great crime (Honoré de Balzac).
What’s remarkable is that the same candidate could be ideal for both positions, yet the view from both chairs couldn’t be more polarised.
MySpace is one of the great brands of the new millennium and the next CEO has a massive opportunity if he/she thinks big enough (could you put Facebook on the ropes?). ITV is a beacon of the past with largely outdated revenue models and the reality that its scale is shrinking.
Both are ‘big ask’ tenures as they’ll surely oversee the most challenging make-or-break, eat-or-be-eaten stuff either firm has encountered. Very exciting times.
Ship’s Biscuit points us to this stunning advert from Philips (by Tribal DDB Amsterdam and Stink Digital). It’s promoting the first Cinema 21:9 TV which has the same viewing dimensions as – you guessed, didn’t you – a cinema screen. That means no more adjusting the aspect ratio with black bars or cropping, just the movie as it was born to be watched.
Personally, I’ve had a pretty awful time with my Philips TV and DVDR combo and I’ve sworn never to buy the brand again, but I can’t deny salivating at this. Quality advertising indeed then. Check out the microsite.
Ignoring the small matter of legal and moral issues for a moment and putting a marketing hat on, you have to say that The Pirate Bay are riding on the crest of a PR wave.
The news yesterday that the owners of this gateway to free content now face jail and bankruptcy has taken their awareness from teens and geeks, to the living rooms of the masses.
The BBC’s technology correspondent, Rory Cellan-Jones was on last night’s 6pm news and actually demo’d how easy it was to download new blockbusters or the #1 album! (Not nearly as provocative as the Click show running its own botnet attack, though).
Surely The Pirate Bay’s visitor numbers will be spiking right now as even those without an iTunes account try to find out if they can get the latest fix of Brad or Angelina without paying for a cinema ticket? Considering they don’t plan on closing the site, one can presume this spike will become a step-change in future analytics.
It’s the age-old journalistic problem of news creating awareness, possibly creating demand. Trouble is, what’s the alternative?
Richard Branson recently launched PitchTV to help entrepreneurs find investors – a mini Dragons’ Den if you like.
The hopeful amongst you can upload a two minute video which gets voted online and the favourites will be broadcast on Virgin planes. Getting your ideas seen by business travellers would be a huge coo (for exposure if nothing else!).
The barrier to this is simply time. Don’t be thinking about spending your seed money on pucka cameras and an editing team. You can do the lot with a Flip and stopwatch for under £100 (honestly). Here’s the third example to be put online. You could’ve created something of equal quality last weekend if you’d wanted to.
For the audience, there’s the added benefit of not having to watch the Simon Cowell wannabies lash into the dreams of everyday passionate people in ‘the Den’. Oh yeah, there’s also an annual special prize from Sir B himself, and my bet is that’ll be some first-rate business support not recycled Christmas socks!
Watching the news it’s hard not feel empathy for workers in Visteon and elsewhere who have lost their jobs and almost certainly a huge chunk of their pensions. But as value is evaporating and the FTSE remains volatile, are we right to cease pension payments and avoid some of the heartache?
If you try it and you’ll probably be told something like, ‘You’re buying units at a lower price right now. When the market turns, these lower price units will have a potential benefit to your pension plan.’ Your financial advisor would call it ‘Pound Cost Averaging.’
Well, the house that Brown built is crumbling. People are hurting and businesses are under extreme pressure. Now that we all know this, what are we to do next? Join the Euro? Take to communism? Spend more and save less – or is it borrow less and save anywhere other than a bank?
As intolerably blame-ridden as Brown is (noticed how Blair has remained Teflon-protected throughout – luckily we’ve got Sir Fred to pin it ALL on, eh?), somehow I doubt voting for Cameron’s Blues is the magic wand we’d like. Regardless, he’s surely going to get a chance to show us all he’s not just the Yes Man we think he is in the next election when Labour will most likely lose by the same huge numbers that brought them into the driving seat in ‘97. Perhaps that’s when Pound Cost Averaging will pay off?
The second installment of The Apprentice airs tonight at 9pm. That’s another dose of entertainment for 8+ million viewers but a huge shot of pain for scores of real employees.
I know plenty who would say how the show appears to have a spell-binding influence on supervisors, managers and leaders across the country as they emulate the OTT attitude, ethos and aggression of Big Brother in suits.
If your boss’ only business coaching input is from this show and they believe life should be more like it, I feel for you. Tell ‘em to watch Mad Men instead.
Like The Apprentice it’s: contagious, on the beeb, equally outdated (set in 1960s), full of business daring-do, stars several of wrong-uns, and has plenty of out-of-hours issues.
It’s truer to its business theme, far less voyeuristic and much better all round.
Complacent and lazy marketers know people like to follow the crowd. There’s safety in numbers, right?
Two huge media companies are looking for new top dogs this week. MySpace chief executive and co-founder, 
Ignoring the small matter of legal and moral issues for a moment and putting a marketing hat on, you have to say that The Pirate Bay are riding on the crest of a PR wave.
Richard Branson recently 
Watching the news it’s hard not feel empathy for workers in Visteon and elsewhere who have lost their jobs and almost certainly a huge chunk of their pensions. But as value is evaporating and the FTSE remains volatile, are we right to cease pension payments and avoid some of the heartache?
The second installment of