Powerful structures for product-driven organisations
(cartoon from Gaping Void) Editor of The Register, Andrew Orlowski (articles) is never short of some ascerbic observations on the state of the music industry in its attempt to deal with the digitisation of its product. And recently there's been no shortage of other opinion in that area either. With compact disc revenues falling 40% last year in… Continue reading The listeners are revolting
Interesting to read Simon Gill over at LBi Framfab Wheel Icon gushing about the Goodby Silverstein-generated 'Get the Glass' campaign (which just won a Gold at Cannes CyberLions) in the same week that Planning for Fun remembers the genius of the classic 80s Ian Rush advert by the UK Milk Marketing Board. If I could post… Continue reading Milking it
In yet another fascinating TED talks presentation, Seth Godin talks about the end of the TV-industrial complex and the need for relevant interestingness (or interesting relevantness) in products. His argument is that in a world with not very much media, getting attention was a matter of marketing dollars. In a world with far too much media, it's about… Continue reading Out of interest
Aside from the usual rubber chicken and three-inch-wide movies, most of my long flight yesterday, and a rather intimidating trip on the A-train into Manhattan, was taken up with reading Lewis P Carbone's Clued In. This amazing book provides a method for understanding customers, products and brands that not only fits the classic American hospitality… Continue reading On with the show
The people at Wolff Ollins must be kicking themselves. The 2012 logo seems likely to not just make them look like heartless corporate robber-barrons (where's our £400k guys?), but may be part of the deathnell for the entire "branding" industry. Russell Davies joins the cry for the end to the overuse of the term and… Continue reading We’ll let you know
I've been watching with interest the blog posts on Welcome to Optimism - Wieden + Kennedy's official blog out of London - about their progess on the Ikea pitch. They talked about the build up, the staff working the weekend to get it done, and now the fact that they've lost the pitch to BMB. What's the… Continue reading Being optimistic
One of the very first things I wrote about when starting this blog was viral marketing and what we could possibly mean by the term. Without wanting to get all Kant about this, I think there's only one thing wrong with viral marketing, and that is that it doesn't exist. I'm not saying that… Continue reading Pass it on
Like Dan at RMM London, I had to look at this logo about 10 times before I spotted that it was supposed to spell out 2012. I think I may have, however, uncovered it's true meaning. Close one eye and quint a bit and it looks like Paula Radcliffe in the famous marathon "toilet break"… Continue reading Brand on the run
As you're about to find out, I've been thinking a little too much about the concept of "digital strategy". You probably know the scenario. You're sitting in a meeting and someone says "What should our digital strategy be?" Everyone stares at the floor until, under the weight of expectation, someone with the 's word' in their… Continue reading I’ll be your digital strategist for the evening
A great video on Ted Talks from Sir Ken Robinson challenges the targets which we set for kids in school. He argues that modern teaching methods are virutally designed to hamper creativity, polarising right and wrong and setting a premium against exprimentation. A brilliantly witty presentation in its own right, this talk brings to bear some of the same thinking… Continue reading School’s out
Leading product 