The Strategy Blog.
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Who cares what Ian from Congleton thinks?
There is a massive poster on my way to work now that shows a bloke called Ian from Congleton who says he’s going to vote Conservative for the first time in the next election. Hands up if you know where Congleton is. As a southerner born and bred I had…
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Converted to Kindle
I’ve just come back from a week away at half term fully converted to the concept of the e-reader. I am a voracious reader. The fairly long journey to New York and back, allowed me to really get used to and appreciate the Kindle I was given at Christmas. For…
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Alternatively Funded Content paves the way for new communication solutions
The business models for funding content are fundamentally shifting, and this shift will deliver a new paradigm in communication planning. The traditional models for funding quality journalism via advertising seem under irrevocable strain especially in newspapers. Programme makers on TV are for the first time beginning to whole heartedly welcome…
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Do career dads make bad ads?
Glad January is over – cold, dark, not that inspiring. My first day back at work was January 4th, and I nearly turned round and went home after I caught sight of the OAA campaign emblazed on a busside: “Career women make bad mothers”. It was my first awareness of…
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Blame it on the Gorilla – Can we blame the Gorilla for Kraft’s take-over of Cadbury?
Mixed feelings abound as far as this particular corporate story goes. Warren Buffet’s disapproval must be off putting even to such a successful business leader as Kraft’s CEO Irene Rosenfeld. Buffet’s comments on Kraft’s bid for Cadbury were typically frank. “If I had the chance to vote on this I’d…
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Amateur or Professional?
This blog has just turned amateur. Most of the pieces you can view at this website were weekly pieces commissioned by Media Week with a strict brief and deadline, and at least 3 highly trained and experienced editors and sub-editors monitoring them before publication. From now on it’s just me…
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Dream Guardians
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…
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Search for Brand Saliency
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…
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If you build it, they won't necessarily come
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…
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Don’t forget your guests while toiling in the kitchen
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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Grasping each other's needs is vital to good teamwork
It is a truth which is universally acknowledged that the best teams consist of team players rather than talented individuals trying to beat each other (ie others on the same team). Less universally acknowledged however is that team-work is by no means a natural innate skill, nor is it particularly…
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Old television trading model is now past it's sell-by-date
The storm caused by the recent publication of the IAB web ad revenue figures, their claim this time that the figures have overtaken TV and TV’s refutation of their claims because they’re based on total revenue (including Search) and not just display (as TV’s published revenue figures are) is resonating…
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