Provocations
Brand respsonse - a case of having your cake and eating it

Brand respsonse – a case of having your cake and eating it

Image courtesy of Blake E. Marquis. Eddie Izzard has a standup routine about how useless the Church of England would have been at the Spanish Inquisition, because everyone appearing before it would have been given the option of cake or death. Naturally most people end up choosing the cake option.
How come Sainsbury's is doing so well and Tesco isn't?

How come Sainsbury’s is doing so well and Tesco isn’t?

Image courtesy of avlxyz. I love Facebook. But its not often I stumble across a real revelation there. Not so a couple of weeks ago when a feed from Paul Mcenany’s excellent blog heehawmarketing popped up between the updates on the previous evenings inebriations and indiscretions.
Calling time on digital's cult of accountability

Calling time on digital’s cult of accountability

Great ideas can come from anywhere, my arse

Great ideas can come from anywhere, my arse

Image courtesy of Markus Nielsen There are many terrible cliches that lurk like sewer rats in the daily effluent of the advertising industry. And much like sewer rats they are always close to the surface, wholly unpleasant and bloody difficult to eradicate. By far the most pernicious and destructive is the now widely held belief...

Welcome back America – we missed you

Telephone research must stop. Full stop.

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Image courtesy of Old Telephones

Let's agree this now everyone. There are some things marketing and communications should steer well clear of and the telephone is one of them. So lets have no more telemarketing spam, lets have no more political parties ringing people up with an automated message and...

Problems wanted

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Mad Men, a simpler time of real men, real problems and lots of sex on mid century design classics. Image courtesy of Slate.

Unfortunately much advertising is self indulgent nonsense that simply serves to waste the client’s money and the consumer’s time.

As I please – Time to change tack on tobacco

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The definition of irony. A British Red Cross ambulance paid for by the workers of the Bristol cigarette manufacturers WD & HO Wills 1914-18. Image courtesy of brizzle born and bred.

As a life long non-smoker and rabid anti-smoker, no one has appreciated and enjoyed the progressive decline in smokers’...

The work fights back

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It is time to get unreasonable in support of truly great work. Image courtesy of Antar.Ellis

Returning to the world of advertising after a short break, I am reminded of the fundamental truth of our business. To paraphrase the advice given to Bill Clinton during the 1992 Presidential Campaign, it’s...

Are our start ups a let down?

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Image courtesy of Fiat Luxe

The start up plays an almost mythical role in the world of advertising. Start ups are not simply an outlet for the professional and material ambitions of the best in the business, they are absolutely essential to the health and vitality of the industry. If...

Loyalty my arse

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Image courtesy of Simon Lord

Every morning as I meander to work in Charlotte Street I fortify myself for the day ahead at the Caffe Nero on Tottenham Court Road.

And every morning as I hand over the cash they parrot the same old question ‘do you have a loyalty card’....

The death of serendipity

Serendipity is not only a beautiful word it is a very beautiful thing.

One of the great delights of life, serendipity ploughs a furrow between co-incidence on the one hand and fate on the other while being part of neither.

But I’m rather afraid that it is progressively disappearing from our lives, collateral damage in the quest...