Marks & Spencer sent me an email this week announcing their new TV advert that was about to launch. I barely watch TV ads so this would surely have passed me by but did they really need to tell me? Well, I’m an existing customer so this wasn’t about acquisition but it may inspire repeat […]
It’s rare that I’m in front of the TV as much as I have been this evening and I don’t mean to be a humbug but a couple of things have struck me under the bombardment of advertising: – Many would argue the marketers have appropriated Christmas. On the face of tonight’s TV advertising they’d […]
Modern marketers (whatever they are) might well say TV advertising is dead, that it’s a bygone era. I’m not sure I agree. The communications group and advertising giant, WPP sells more than its fair share of TV ads and they’ve just had their best quarter for ten years. According to chief executive Sir Martin Sorrell, […]
Should every penny SMEs spend on marketing go on traffic initiatives that directly affect turnover? I know plenty of small business owners who’d say that branding is just for the big guys. They’re enraged with the anecdote that says, “half of all marketing is junk, and half of it works, but you never know which […]
Rebranding is an ugly word. All too often it’s a euphemism for ‘we were rubbish but a cleaner logo and new strapline means you should forgive our history and buy into this new stuff.’ Perversely, not rebranding is one of the reasons Mr Brown is going to be punished so badly on Thursday. But I […]
As we increase our personal openness and honesty via social media, so too are we appraised more as data-mining never had the chance to go so deep. Californian data-mining company Rapleaf are at the bleeding edge of social media monitoring (SMM). Short version: they track everything about you online – every comment, every review, every […]
Plenty has been said about Dixons’ comparison ads lately. They’re a blatant come-on aimed squarely at John Lewis, Harrods and Selfridges. They invite consumers to research with their competitors and then convert to Dixons for stronger pricing. This is primarily a drive for Dixons’ website, with their retail sites only operating at airports. The strapline […]
I’m driving on the weekend with my three-year-old in the back of the car. “Where [are] we going, daddy?” I reply with, “B and Q.” From behind me comes the cutest singing voice, “You can do it when you B and Q it.” I was flabbergasted. The only TV she watches in any quantity is […]
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 […]
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 […]
Well, that’s my prediction. They’ll stop burning dollars acquiring paper mills and fork out $750+ million for Twitter. Twitter is the most popular and certainly the most talked about social media tool of the moment, yet there’s no clear indication on how they’ll monetise the whole shebang. They raised another $35 million in venture capital […]
Viral campaigns are an enigma. Word of mouth is, by definition, viral, but marketers want much more bang for their brand communicating buck. How can you spread your ‘message’ by engaging users (and potential clients) exponentially without devaluing your brand or using slapstick comedy? Few marketers can claim to have pulled this business magic trick […]
Is it me, or did an inordinate amount of the tech news from both sides of the pond seem to be about advertising last month? Not really surprising considering online is about the only area of advertising that’s going to grow this year. Here’s what I think are the more notable ones: – The ever-innovative […]