Archive for June, 2009

Households have more money but are too scared to spend it

Tuesday, June 30th, 2009

The headlines from the High Street are still grim.  Sales in retail stores in May fell backwards by 1.6% year on year according to ONS.  And while the pace of online consumer spending is still upwards, growth is now single digit rather than over 30% as it was last year, according to the BBC News.

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Media buying and selling is set for a fundamental revolution

Tuesday, June 23rd, 2009

It is time radically to rethink the very basis of media buying and selling.

For decades the trading currency for most media has been based on consumer media patterns measured by a non overlapping set of “industry” research metrics.

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Fun and innovative product branding can pay dividends

Tuesday, June 16th, 2009

According to Kelvin MacKenzie writing in The Sun, OXO have produced a special edition black and white cube to mark Newcastle United’s football season called “Laughing Stock”.  Even with my limited interest in the ups and downs of football clubs I sense that this is a joke, however it is an interesting spoof of the re-branding that household products now use as a marketing tool.

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Tuesday, June 9th, 2009

I have never been to Cannes and therefore felt a bit inexperienced at the briefing session for the Guardian Young Lions winners.  I have judged in the UK but I have no experience of the fabulous festival of advertising and media that has been running for years in the South of France following the more famous film festival.  No sooner however have the red carpets been cleared of the likes of Brangelina and Paris Hilton then the hotels and yachts prepare for the crème de la crème of advertising.

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Tuesday, June 2nd, 2009

As discussed last week Google’s 2009 Zeitgeist conference was interesting and inspiring.  It was also in one particular respect for me, humbling.

The two days raised lots of questions for today and the future.  And there were far more questions than answers – about business, about media and about the future of the planet.

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