Archive for November, 2009

Dream Guardians

Thursday, November 26th, 2009

Earlier this month a selection of the extremely glamorous (and me) met at the Banqueting House at Whitehall for the Cosmopolitan Ultimate Women of the Year awards.  Cosmopolitan magazine has been a part of female culture for decades now.  You might love it, you might disdain it, you might grow out of it, but you cannot disregard it as no longer relevant.  Together with other magazines of the same status including Vogue, Marie Claire, Elle and more, the publishers should be congratulated for sustaining such vibrancy over the last decade when so much about media consumption and business models has changed.

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Search for Brand Saliency

Tuesday, November 17th, 2009

The other day in a workshop about great challenger brands for one of our clients, a colleague put up the Bugaboo pushchair as his current favourite brand.  I left the world of kids buggies behind some years ago now, (my kids are in secondary school) but his glowing reports about the fabulous sense of independence the Bugaboo delivers to mums of young kids because of its versatility, flexible design and portability, almost made me think about having another baby.

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If you build it, they won't necessarily come

Tuesday, November 10th, 2009

In the 1989 movie Field of Dreams the hero, played by Kevin Costner, converts a corn field at his farm in Iowa into a baseball field.   He does this, despite needing the land to grow food since he’s on the verge of bankruptcy, because he has heard voices saying “Build it and they will come”.  Eventually, after a considerable period without enough corn, some mystical players do turn up and the movie has come to represent the triumph of hope over pragmatism and the power of dreams to change people’s lives.

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Don’t forget your guests while toiling in the kitchen

Tuesday, November 3rd, 2009

The big headlines around reality TV at the moment are of course all about XFactor and Strictly Come Dancing.  But in my view the best reality TV on offer is Come Dine with Me which has been a real treat running regularly but quietly over on Channel 4.

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