Compare and contrast... A new technological innovation is able to make judgements about people's emotional state, and target advertising to them as a result. An estate agency monitors Facebook accounts to target potential new customers in their area when statuses change from "Married" to "Single". A supermarket constructs long waiting lines at checkouts and then … Continue reading Influencing emotions
Category: Marketing
The BBC has released a new tranche of data about the use of its iPlayer services (full report here: http://downloads.bbc.co.uk/mediacentre/iplayer/iplayer-performance-oct13.pdf) and whilst the headlines (like this one http://thenextweb.com/uk/2013/12/02/bbc-iplayer-mobile-tablet-use-almost-caught-desktop/) will no doubt focus on the continuing narrative about the death of the PC, there is something far more interesting (not) happening from my perspective. Whilst the consumption … Continue reading The television will not be revolutionized…
At the core of Nicholas Lovell's book The Curve is a central assumption: if the costs of reproducing and distributing a product drop to as near as dammit zero, then the price of those products will inevitably drop to zero. If you have a business that's model is based on a markup percentage on … Continue reading Bookshelf: The Curve
I'm speaking at the European HRO Today Forum in London this morning. You can find my slides (and notes embedded) here. You can find the full #socialCEO report here: http://bit.ly/socialCEOReport
The best thing, without a doubt, of my current madcap adventure with stamp London is that it is giving me good reason to go and spend time talking with loads of fascinating people. Last week I was lucky to grab a coffee with Andy Law, something of an ad land legend, and a terribly nice chap … Continue reading Three lines
At the weekend I listened to a long conversation between my wife and a friend talking about the buying of a birthday present for a mutual friend. It struck me that the rapid pace of digitisation has significantly changed the way in which we give "meaningful" gifts. First off, let's get this clear - very … Continue reading Meaningful presents
The news that Burberry's Angela Ahrendts is to join Apple as their new head of retailing operations brings into stark relief one of the strangest appointments in recent corporate history. Why on earth did Apple bring Dixon's Group chief John Browett in to head their consumer selling arm last year? Browett was Tim Cook's first … Continue reading The John Browett mystery
I've just seen a billboard advertising Lloyd's Bank, proudly proclaiming that they are "lending millions to first time house buyers every week". That sounds good, doesn't it? Well, let's unpick that number a bit. According to the BBC, the current average UK house price is running at about £242,000. First time house buyers wouldn't necessarily … Continue reading Big numbers, tiny numbers
I picked up on a Forbes article that ran earlier in the year yesterday about the marketing organisation of the future, which reported on the Marketing2020 research initiative from the American Association of National Advertisers, together with the World Federation of Advertisers and EffectiveBrands. There doesn't appear to be much being published publicly on the findings, but the … Continue reading Spokes, silos and the challenges of change
I had a fascinating few hours of conversation with some folk from various parts of the media industry last week, and it got me thinking about how there is so much talk at the moment about the role of data in marketing, and particularly the use of data to be able to specifically target … Continue reading How personalisation is the media industries’ worst nightmare
mmitII 