This post was inspired by a conversation with my 8 year old daughter. Those of you who have children will be familiar with how frequently they come out with surprising, entertaining or shocking statements. Those of you who don’t have children, will just have to...
For years, shopping centres & department stores have used themed events as clever marketing tools to attract customers who then spend money they otherwise wouldn’t have. We’ve all seen the stampede for Santa’s Grotto, the celebrity chef book signing or X-Factor auditions. Now another category...
Whilst it’s easy to occasionally poke fun at the self-help industry, it is now worth upwards of $12bn in the US alone. People who buy into the category are often repeat purchasers, buying multiple products and services – sometimes referred to as therapy-junkies. It’s a burgeoning...
According to recent research conducted by the Harvard Business Revenue, 80% of CEOs don’t trust or are unimpressed with their CMOs. If that wasn’t shocking enough, it appears as though the frustrations are mutual, with 74% of CMOs stating they believe their jobs do not...
A recent global survey of 35 multi-billion-dollar advertisers found that 65% of them have improved their internal media capabilities over the last 12 months. Improvements such as hiring programmatic experts & building ad inventory trading desks, investing in resource & systems to tackle ad fraud,...
A recent study by Northwestern University has some stunning findings. Their research focused on how owned and paid media pertain to growing and declining brands. They segmented brands by their sales growth success across a 5 year period, which revealed remarkable (and consistent) differences in...
Joseph Pilates originally called his work "Contrology" before the world decided to name the exercises after their founder. As businesspeople, we like to control as much as we can and the six principles of Contrology can be applied to achieve greater success: Concentration: If you...
What a ridiculous headline – to “own empathy” goes against the very essence of empathy. But this headline was purposeful. You see, I was being empathetic to you, because marketers like to “own” things, so the headline makes it easier for you to click and...
Faced with what the CEO calls “a softening casual dining market”, London’s 50-year icon Pizza Express has re-invented itself as a place to eat and be entertained. The food hasn’t deviated from the successful formula but they have found a way to differentiate from a...
A recent Gartner Research CMO study highlighted that the marketers who were increasing their budgets were the ones who demonstrated accountability and assumed more risk. Notice that this is about the person, not the business. The marketer, not the brand. So, what’s the key to...