It amazes me that the marketing and communication industry still think that effective marketing or communication is all about “creativity” and “big ideas”. Certainly, both are important to attracting attention, engaging people and communicating a message. Ultimately however, we are surely in the business of “behaviour management” or more specifically getting people to do something [...]
National Broadband Network – Great for Marketing – Great for Everyone
Like everyone else, I have heard a lot of criticism of the National Broadband Network and the costs involved in establishing it. I suspect our forefathers also heard a lot of criticism of the Snowy Mountain Scheme and the East West Railway Line. One of the things that occurs to me about Australia is we [...]
Google Researches Holiday Season in US
In 2011, Google researched online sales over the holiday season in the United States. Following are some interesting statistics: E-commerce grew 15% over the 2010 year 76% of consumers researched online prior to purchasing during the holiday season 4% of online visits to retailers websites were from mobile devices 9% of online sales were [...]
Pathetic Headlines
I have just had cause to flick through the “New Homes” supplement in The West Australia on Saturday, 28 April 2012. I am amazed by some of the headlines. Consider: • “Take your new home to another level” – how banal a pun can one think of for an ad for a two storey home [...]
The Importance of Personal Branding
Whether they like it or not, everyone has (or is) a brand. Whether we like it or not, we make judgments about each and every person we meet. The fact is, we can’t help it – it’s human nature. The facts upon which we make our judgments about individuals are many and range from the [...]
Branding – When Being Distinctive is Not Enough
In my view, nowhere near enough effort is put in to ensuring that brands are distinctive. There are far too many me too brands on the market. What’s more, very often marketing communication firms concentrate more on communicating in a distinctive way than they do on making the brand distinctive. Certainly, they fail to embrace [...]
Why “like” a business on a facebook
When I was walking along the street the other day, I noted a sign in a retail shop window which read “like us on facebook”. Two questions immediately sprung to mind: 1 Do they expect me to remember this until I get home or do they think I am going to go on my mobile [...]
Simple Messages Work
The marketing and advertising industry can be as critical as it likes to be at retail advertising, but the fact is, it often works. Furthermore, I have maintained that one of the key reasons it works is that it is simple and to the point. It lacks spin and all the bullshit the marketing and [...]
Customer Services – The Ignored Solution
I have written about service previously. I haven’t got a lot to add except to sight this article end of the line and to note that in many instances, service is the ignored solution to falling revenue. So many businesses seem to want to drop their prices, quite a number want to increase their level [...]
Fear of Online Retailing
Just about every time you hear a discussion of retailing, there is talk of the impact of online shopping on traditional bricks and mortar shopping. The fact is of course, whilst this having some effect, it is certainly not the major cause of the problems in the retail sector at this time. Whilst 85% of [...]