Is there a new division amongst media owners between whether they’re locked into the traditional trading and adversarial relationships with agencies and clients or whether they’re open to more of a partnership based approach?  There’s lots of signs of it.  This division is usually linked into how integrated their commercial and business approach is with…

What is a brand ? This might seem a simple question to answer but rival definitions of the meaning of a brand created a storm at MediaCom’s offices recently.  Jonathan Salem Baskin, author of the dimbulb blog and of the book “Branding only works on cattle” caused controversy at a recent conference by challenging what…

How many followers have you got on Twitter? Dave Trott – legendary creative director has 800,  Rory Sutherland, IPA President has 3,000 and the Guardian’s Technology Team has over 1million.  It may be hard to compete with this or with Oprah Winfrey who has 2 million.

September is the month for serious media awards judging.  The Oscars of the industry – the Media Week Awards are entering the final phase when shortlisted entries, agencies and media owners are turned into Silver and Gold (or runners up).

When was the last time you saw an ad once and it instantly made you want to go out and buy the product ? This happened to me last month when I caught sight of a poster for Dorito’s promotion “Doritos id3 – Guess the Mystery Flavour”.  What a fabulous idea.  You can win £20,000…

There was much of interest in the 6th annual Ofcom Communications Market Report issued earlier this month.  Highlights include that “Communications spend appears relatively robust when compared to alternative claims on disposable income” ie meals and nights out.  Mobile usage has overtaken landlines for the first time in the UK in the first half of…

The recession is over according to Newsweek.  And not only is the recession over, the magazine goes on to assert in an August issue, also the US will emerge on top.  Now following the old saying when America sneezes the world catches cold, if America perks up we should all feel the benefit.

A couple of weeks ago I had two brushes with celebrity.  The first was a visit to a regular haunt in Marlow called the Hare and Hounds.  This rather lovely pub/restaurant has now been taken over by the winners of the BBC2 reality show starring Raymond Blanc “The Restaurant”.  Michelle and Russell from Essex have…

Do you remember back to the days when alphabetical order was everything when you were looking for a plumber or local tradesperson ?  Your pipes would burst, your ceiling would cave in and you would rush to the reassuringly thick Yellow Pages and turn to the relevant section where you would be bombarded by business…

All kinds of people are arguing about free stuff at the moment There was a recent debate in these very pages about whether free media are seen as a lesser communication tool by media planners.  Surely those days are long gone. (If indeed that point of view was ever more than a negotiation tactic).  No-one…

The Guardian Activate Summit at the beginning of July was a brilliant example of the publication becoming an event.  Everyone present seemed very very Guardian-esque, from speakers to delegates.

The last days of June provided an opportunity for radio stations to come into their own as the best place to celebrate and to mourn the death of the King of Pop.  On the Friday morning Smooth FM excelled itself by abandoning all playlists and simply running back to back Michael Jackson hits interspersed with…