Your offering is GREAT! But so what?
So, you think you have a pretty good product or service to offer? Bully for you! But now the bad news – this is almost certainly not enough to ensure success. These are tough times. Consumers expect...
View ArticleStories that sell – Canadian own goal?
At the end of a vacation in Western Canada I was walking through the main terminal of Vancouver Airport. Relieved to have returned my rental vehicle unscathed, searching for my departure desk, and...
View ArticleHow to sell icecream to Eskimos
I recently gave a talk at the Bath & Bristol Marketing network. I shared a few ideas on how to create demand for products in an overcrowded market full of disengaged consumers. My good friend Sam...
View ArticleCopywriting that gets to the heart of the matter
The marketing world has fragmented into numerous specialisms, disciplines and niches. Take copywriting. There’s writing for the web, B2B writing, content writing, direct mail writing, writing long...
View ArticleHappy New Year – wherever you are!
Thank you for visiting this blog. I started it about 18 months ago as a way of keeping myself sane while all about me the marketing industry was turning itself inside out and upside down. I figured...
View ArticleGood communication – vital if you want to create trust
Branding, so we are told, is all about creating trust. But it is so easy to make mistakes if we don’t communicate clearly. As this video demonstrates….
View ArticleSad Men
Pretentious, Moi? I’ve been trying to write a new website for myself – and struggling. It’s not just that writing about your own business is harder than writing about someone else’s. It’s that...
View ArticleWhat works best – softly, softly or pushy, pushy?
I’m puzzled. On the one hand we’re being told that content marketing is the way to win customers and influence people. Yet on the other we see big brands throwing millions into commercials that take...
View ArticleMeat mis-labelling latest
No comment Picture credit: http://wellthisiswhatithink.wordpress.com/2013/02/08/advertising-f-up-of-the-year-entry-number-2-for-2013/
View ArticleDumb & dumber. Where marketing is headed.
I recently received a flyer in the post from SouthernElectric. It’s a classic example of how, in recent years, a huge number of people in marketing, from the creatives to the clients, have utterly...
View ArticleFive books that plunge a dagger into the heart of the aspiring novelist
If I had £1 for every time someone said to me “You’re a copywriter…why don’t you write a novel?” I could probably afford to take the time off and do it. I’ve made a couple of attempts – who didn’t …...
View ArticlePast their best before date
I watched the Stones on TV last night (performing at the Glastonbury Festival). I love the Stones. They were one of the first bands I adopted as a teenager, and I still play my battered 40+ year old...
View ArticleWhy novels are essential business reading
Back in June I wrote a post about why I was sticking to the day job, rather than indulging my hankering to write a novel. Entitled “Five books that plunge a dagger into the heart of the aspiring...
View ArticleConfession of a copywriter
I have an admission to make. Unlike so many other copywriters, designers and people in marketing, I’m not passionate about what I do. Shock horror! You mean you don’t care? No, nothing could be...
View ArticleLean back if you want to get ahead
Two years ago I wrote a post, “Busyness and business – why the one is not always good for the other”, where I argued that people in marketing should spend more time thinking, and less time doing,...
View ArticlePhewww…what a stinker!
I’m embarrassed at how negative I’ve been – don’t I ever see a commercial that I like? So when I stumbled over this one I felt flushed with relief. Sheila, my wife, asked “is it a piss take?”. No, I...
View ArticleWant to make your marketing more effective? Don’t pin all your hopes on Big Data
I keep hearing the argument that Big Data creates more effective advertising and marketing. It goes like this – the more data you have about your customers the more closely you can target their needs...
View ArticleThere is something rotten in the state of Brand Land
Marketers have always been economical with the truth. But some brands are virtually ignoring it altogether. I received a brochure from my bank at the start of the summer. The headline on the front...
View ArticleHooray – at long last a commercial that says something meaningful about the...
How many ads or commercials do you see nowadays where you wonder what the heck it was all about? What was the product? What does it do? And why should I care? So well done Volvo for this simple and...
View ArticleThought for Movember
OK, I should have thought of this last month but four of the 20th century’s most evil dictators had distinctive ‘taches. Is there a connection? I need to know by next November…
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