Category Consumer behaviour

January 23, 2014,  Consumer behaviour, Guru in a Bottle, High Impact Marketing that Gets Results, Sales practice, The Art of Influencing and Selling  No comments

There was a time when global brand owners thought all that mattered was their own brand. Coca-Cola led the way in showing how powerful the monolithic brand of its eponymous carbonated drink can be around the world. And of course the same could also be said of other great global brands like McDonalds, KFC, Levis and Microsoft.

However, the assumptions about power of brands and the way they need to be built in emerging markets are being turned on their head.

Let’s take the humble cup of coffee and what US-giant Starbucks is doing in India right now to get Indian consumers to drink more coffee rather than just tea...

January 16, 2014,  Consumer behaviour, Essential Law for Marketers, High Impact Marketing that Gets Results, Social marketing practice, The Art of Influencing and Selling  No comments

Mobile device adoption is growing exponentially and if you look at almost any industry metric the trajectory for mobile growth over the next five years is stratospheric.

In fact, it’s so ubiquitous it’s hard to image a time when there wasn’t a cacophony of cheesy ringtones chirping happily away in the pockets and handbags of its owners signalling another email, text message or in-coming call.

Along with the growth of the mobile platform has been a lot of hot air and nonsense about mobile marketing or what it’s now more frequently referred to as m-marketing.

Myth #1: To do mobile marketing you need an app

This is the biggest myth and a few years’ ago a bunch of devel...

January 12, 2014,  Consumer behaviour, Essential Law for Marketers, Legal update, News, Social marketing practice  No comments

One of the most engaging and powerful aspects of B2C and B2B customer marketing and communications is prize promotions, competitions, promotions and incentives.

And they are also some of the most difficult things to get right, requiring an understanding of a complex web of competition, data protection, and media laws and regulations as discussed in Essential Law for Marketers.

However, given the appetite of regulators to want to tighten data protection across a number of areas including sales and marketing practices, the use of prize promotions, competitions, promotions and incentives as a way of lead generation is the latest to fall victim of new controls.

As I discussed a ...

January 9, 2014,  Consumer behaviour, Guru in a Bottle, High Impact Marketing that Gets Results, Marketing practice  No comments

As technology continues to evolve and re-shape sales and marketing practice you may be forgiven in thinking that traditional print media is a thing of the past.

In fact, the print industry is having a boom time on both sides of the Atlantic and flipping the perception on its head print sales and marketing looks likely to grow in 2014 thanks to technological advances that allow for more freedom in the way it’s deployed.

According to researchers in the US, direct mail (DM) continues to be used heavily with a 43% share of total local retail advertising and around 76% of small businesses reporting that their preferred sales and marketing strategy is a combination of both print ...

January 7, 2014,  Consumer behaviour, High Impact Marketing that Gets Results, Marketing practice, Social marketing practice  No comments

As more consumers are engaging with brands on social platforms, it’s essential that brands start to develop their own online personalities depending on the digital platform in order to help build lasting relationships with their desired customer, client and supporter segments.

This ‘personality transplant’ that brands undertake often involves using brief snippets of conversation and humor to engage with their desired audiences in much the same way as Guru in a Bottle does!

And this isn’t as silly as it sounds.

According to a report from strategy consultants Bain & Company, consumers who engage with businesses through social media channels are likely to spend 20-40% more mo...

December 28, 2013,  Consumer behaviour, Essential Law for Marketers, Guru in a Bottle, Legal update, News, Sales practice  No comments

Indian consumers could soon be shopping in hypermarkets partly owned and managed by Western retailers as a result of the relaxation in Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) regulations see a surge of business interest and investment from European brand owners in 2014.

For example, it’s just been announced that British supermarket chain Tesco is the first international retailer to have its plan to invest USD 10m (GBP 67m) approved by India’s Commerce and Trade Ministry. The deal paves the way for Tesco in partnership with a Tata subsidiary to open multi-brand stores across India by taking a 50% stake in Trent Hypermarkets, which in turn operates Star Bazaar stores in the sta...