Trust truss

I’ve discussed trust a lot on this blog. Here, here, here, here, and here to list just a few occasions.
Whilst I’d like to think trust will become the biggest focus area for B2B technology marketers and their brand managers, the challenge we face is NOTHING compared to our counterparts in the sports business right [...]

Stock Photo Showdown

There is a lot of bad stock photography out there. But some great stuff too.
As users adopt user generated content sites like iStock in increasing numbers (at the expense of sites such as Corbis, Punchstock, Getty Images) the outlook for cheap stock photography looks bright. Or does it? Just how good is [...]

Changing definitions: The survival of the fittest

‘Survival of the Fittest‘ is a phrase which is shorthand for a concept relating to the ‘competition for survival‘ or ‘predominance‘. It is not a scientific description - for instance it is not generally used by biologists who almost exclusively prefer to use the phrase ‘natural selection‘ - and yet I don’t know many people [...]

Mac or PC?

Here’s something for your weekend viewing pleasure.

Hat tip to Miguel Umanzor from thewayiseetheworld.  What a great spoof.
With viewing figures down around their ankles, MTV might be better off playing the odd curveball video like this….

Working at big co. just got duller

How predictable. A big I.T. company is telling it’s employees how to behave online….
IBM has just released ‘employee guidelines‘ for virtual worlds. The seven-page .pdf outlines basic principles governing how employees should represent IBM in the virtual arena.
Rules like these make me feel sad. It seems that the bigger the company, [...]

The Power 150 (and the hangers on)

Yikes. This blog has been listed on The Power 150. Kind of.
Actually we are listed in the ‘honourable mentions’ list.
This blog is rated as the 297th best English language blog about marketing in the World. WOW.
And drilling a bit further we are the 22nd best UK marketing blog.
Time to have a sit [...]

Customer Managed Relationships

Seth’s low key post “CRM is dead” - has really touched a nerve with me. I’ve been thinking about it a lot since.
It might be more than just semantics says Godin. I think he was right. And some.
CMR is our version of CRM - just a slight nuance regarding our philosophy that our [...]

The scalability of Buzz and Viral marketing

…..Lots of Buzz and Viral marketing in my life today.
Although I have Sky TV, and have seen the entire first series of Heroes on the SciFi channel, mainstream BBC2 is getting the series starting tomorrow.  So everybody is talking about it, spreading content, ideas and adding to its momentum.
And if it isn’t Heroes, it’s global [...]

A Potted History of B2B High-Tech Marketing

A while ago, brands were communicated simply by ‘campaigns’. Blast a message out a gazillion times and the message would hopefully ’stick’, and hey presto…..more sales. A consistent monologue was established. In this era, messages and media were key. Communication was the order of the day. But times [...]

Web trend (tube) map

They have done it before: The 200 most successful websites on the web, ordered by category, proximity, success, popularity and perspective.
They have done it again – and better.
After popular demand – here is iA’s next Web Trend Map:

New Interactive Campaign for Toshiba.

Toshiba choose Mason Zimbler for their latest notebook campaign across Europe.
Targeting business and consumers across EMEA, this highly integrated campaign [...]

Priceless

Petrol for the Car: £52.00
Double shot Cafè Latte: £2.20
Croissant: £1.05
Arriving at the office at 7.12 a.m to think about a big marketing idea, focusing hard, but throwing it away because it’s a bad one: Priceless*
For completeness sake I suppose I should say;
“There are some things money can’t buy. For everything, else there’s Mastercard.”
* [...]

The customer is not ‘King’, merely a ‘Prince’…

It seems to me that nearly ALL high-tech organisations have got very messed up growth strategies. In my experience the vast majority are fixated with investing in ’selling’, and very few focus on ‘retention’ strategies.
Whilst banks are high profile culprits in the consumer space, the same stories exist in the b2b high-tech [...]

Top 50 Sites of 2007

From Photonhead.com to Cellswapper and FunnyorDie.com to Lastfm, Time Magazine (in partnership with CNN) have chosen their favorite sites of the year.  You can vote too.
Social bookmarking sites feature prominently, as do sites that focus on providing web services and information and news.
As Time Magazine is very US centric, it is fascinating to see the [...]

Weekend Round-up

I’ve played the role of ‘consumer’ this weekend - as opposed to thinking too much about life, marketing, and consequently dropping my thoughts down in posts.
Saturday was spent at a Children’s Food festival.
And today my family travelled into London to visit Star Wars Celebration Europe.  My four year old is 2 1/2 years into his [...]