Madcomments - a platform to comment on the marketing, advertising and design communities.

Social media has been causing a storm over the last few weeks with many surprising and often contradictory stories.
Social networking worked for Cadbury’s, as the imminent re-launch of the Wispa bar shows, but can it really help brands turn around their fortunes? Can it be true that ads on sites with user generated content [...]

Banner Blindness

The most prominent result from Jakob Nielsen’s new eyetracking studies is not actually new. He simply confirmed for the umpteenth time that banner blindness is real. As I have always thought, users almost never look at anything that looks like an advertisement - whether or not it’s actually an ad.
Remarkable.
According to Nielsen’s findings, [...]

Good news for UK based B2B marketers

The Direct Marketing Association (DMA) has teamed up with six other trade bodies, including the Internet Advertising Bureau (IAB) and the Institute of Sales Promotion (ISP), to raise the profile and standard of business-to-business marketing communications in the UK.
The joint initiative, to be called the B2B Best Practice Alliance, will cover 14 areas of B2B [...]

Business owner to employee: Agency-side to Client Side

This week I took the role of Chief Marketing Officer at Salmon, an IT Services company headquartered in Watford, England.
The blog will continue.  Long live the blog.
Just thought you should know.

10 Tips for Becoming a Great Corporate Blogger

According to Scoutblogging, successful blogging is not just about being the best writer on the web or even the most prolific. Phew!
Being a successful blogger is about “creating a connection with an audience by providing relevant content, nurturing that relationship with comments and links [...]

Remarkable

These are remarkable.
I am not an iPhone fan based on what I have seen to date.
But I am very jealous that my phone doesn’t have a wooden cover add-on.

2007 Logos

I’ve discussed web 2.0 logo’s in the past, but what has been hot logo-wise in 2007?  Hadn’t you better find out?

Mr. and Mrs. Average

See how you compare with the UK’s IT and Business Decision makers in these Silicon.com surveys.
Do you think a business blog can be a good way for companies to communicate with their customers?
View Results
What is the biggest expenses claim you’ve ever made?
View Results
When you are on holiday, how often do you check your work [...]

Everywhere you go, you always take the weather with you

Ok I lied.
Advertising is like thunder. People hear it, but broadly ignore it. Nearby it can go completely un-noticed.
Good marketing is like lightening. It is theatre, people observe it, take it in, marvel in its wonder. Take notice.
Spam is like winter. It leaves you cold.
But marketers should be concerned with [...]

Now available as an email

By popular request, you can now subscribe to this blog by email. Powered by Feedburner,  an email simply shows up in your inbox once a day. It is the same low, low price as the regular blog,  but a bit more convenient for the easily forgetful, or the very busy marketing or technology executive.

Social Media for Business

It is about time the UK had a decent Social Media conference and now we do. The Social Media for Business conference programme is now online. See which experts will join Yahoo! to guide you through the pitfalls and opportunities of social media.
Don’t miss this opportunity to learn how you can [...]

Aug. 7, 1991: Ladies and Gentlemen, the World Wide Web

Perhaps it is time to pause and think today. This is from Wired:
This day in History……1991: The world wide web becomes publicly available on the internet for the first time.
The web has changed a lot since Tim Berners-Lee posted, on this day in 1991, the first web pages summarising his World Wide Web project, [...]

Integrity in marketing is not optional

One last post about the truth in marketing, this time from Advertising Age (US Edition)
While marketers grapple with the usual challenges — competition, accountability, wrangling new technologies - perhaps they should be more concerned with a far more powerful phenomenon: informed skepticism.
In a world where buyers are continuously in touch with other buyers and claims [...]

You may say I’m a dreamer

Imagine there’s no heaven
It’s easy if you try.
No hell below us,
above us only sky.
Imagine all the people
living for today.
Imagine there’s no countries.
It isn’t hard to do.
Nothing to kill or die for
and no religion, too.
Imagine all the people
living life in peace.
You may say I’m a dreamer.
But I’m not the only one.
I hope someday you’ll join us
and [...]

13 British dotcoms to watch

Britain is experiencing another internet surge - I hesitate to use the word ‘boom’ - but which web companies are best placed to take advantage? According to the Guardian its this set of 10. Hmmm. I think there are a few missing……
Here is the original 10.
Zubka Recruitment 2.0
Zopa Bringing the betting exchange model [...]