Category Brand marketing

February 12, 2018,  Brand marketing, EU General Data Protection Regulation, News, Thought Leadership  No comments

The Financial Times reports this morning (Monday 12 Feb 2018) that Unilever, the world’s second-largest advertiser has warned social media giants Google and Facebook that it will pull its advertising from their platforms if they continue to ‘’foster hate’’ or fail to act responsibly in the wake of the exponential increase in offensive and unlawful content that is posted on its platforms and represents a direct assault on the rights, freedoms and interests of millions of data subjects, including children.

The climate has turned and social media giants now find themselves in a media storm where sitting back and doing nothing is no longer an option...

December 6, 2017,  Brand marketing, data protection, EU General Data Protection Regulation, News, Thought Leadership  No comments

February 21, 2015,  Brand marketing, Innovation  No comments

Seasoned music and film executive producer Helen Gammons runs the highly acclaimed MBA programme for the music and creative industries at Henley Business School.

Now in its third year, its graduates are living proof that the sector is one that’s in a constant state of re-invention and change – perhaps more than any other.

“The industry is completely different to what it used to be and this has opened the door to a much wider range of opportunities for disruptive brands,” explains Helen Gammons who can lay claim to having attracted some of the best in the industry to the MBA programme including Faber Music, Disney, Sony Music, Peermusic and ISM to name a few.

The secto...

November 18, 2014,  Brand marketing, News  No comments

Back in 1989 I joined the BBC in London and was very fortunate to have met my beautiful wife Fenella who then worked as the executive assistant to the Head of BBC World Service Training.

I often tell friends that joining the BBC was the best thing I ever did in my life and I was incredibly lucky to have found someone as wonderful as Fenella who also turned out to be a Parsi! With a small community of around 5,000 in the UK and just 80,000 globally, the odds-on meeting the girl of my dreams who was also Parsi was not high, to say the least!

Years later, when I entered the PR agency world, it appeared that my impending marriage became a national news story here in the UK!

So it...

November 17, 2014,  Brand marketing, Consumer behaviour, Social marketing practice  No comments

My guess is you’ve never heard of PewDiePie, have you?

But what if I told you this Swedish vlogger who loves sharing the latest video games and slightly bonkers videos on YouTube is also the biggest star on YouTube himself with 32,222,075 subscribers and a whopping 6,753,075,673 views.

And he launched his channel in April 2010.

Closer to home, my daughter Zara loves this YouTube vlogger.

And by all accounts so do very many other teenager girls who follow her latest musings – if fact over 6.5m subscribers do.

The elf-like and sublimely charming 24 year-old fashion and beauty vlogger Zoella (real name Zoe Elizabeth Sugg) speaks for a new generation of TV viewers...

November 8, 2014,  Brand marketing, Consumer behaviour, Guru in a Bottle, Social marketing practice, Thought Leadership  No comments

Miracle Whip is a salad dressing similar to mayonnaise and is popular with American and Canadian consumers.

Not a subject that you think would stir strong emotions? Well, actually you’d be wrong!

When marketers at Kraft began researching consumer attitudes towards the product, they found surprisingly deep emotions.

It turns out that a substantial number of people love Miracle Whip. And many can’t stand the stuff!

Back in 2011, with this consumer insight, Kraft launched a high profile US ad campaign that made a virtue out of this schism, using celebrities like Paula D fromJersey Shore and the political pundit James Corville.

Some people in the ads praised Miracle Whip’s ...

October 17, 2014,  Brand marketing, Essential Law for Marketers, News  No comments

Last week the Committee of Advertising Practice (CAP) announced relaxed regulations for advertising e-cigarettes through television broadcasting.

From November 2014, e-cig brand owners (these tend to be the big tobacco manufacturers) will be able to use TV advertising having previously been banned from doing so.

The introduction of the new rules has largely been welcomed with many finding previous rules unclear and inconsistent.

Ant-tobacco charity Ash declared it was satisfied with this move as such products are deemed to be nicotine replacement therapy (NRT) but the science on whether such strategies actually lead to a significant decrease in the number of smokers is still ...

September 12, 2014,  Brand marketing, News  No comments

Unilever is the smartest advertiser on the planet according to research carried out by global marketing intelligence agency WARC.

The top five global advertisers on the WARC advertiser rankings:

The advertiser scores are derived from the brand owners’ performance in effectiveness and strategy in the previous 12 months.

However, the world’s leading individual brand is Coca-Cola, according to the rankings for individual brands:

In compiling the individual brand league table, WARC tracked more than 1700 winners in 75 different competitions...

September 10, 2014,  Brand marketing, Guru in a Bottle, Legal update, Marketing practice, News  No comments

In a spectacular volte-face, Coca-Cola has embraced the voluntary front of pack ‘traffic light’ system that alerts British consumers to the calorific value of the product in order for them to make informed choices about what they are ingesting and help move them towards having a more balanced diet and healthier lifestyle.

What’s disappointing is that the beverage giant didn’t have the foresight to embrace this opportunity last year when the voluntary labelling scheme was first introduced by the Government.

By missing this opportunity, Coca-Cola made it look like it had something to hide and this also reflected negatively on its reputation.

The result of this stance wa...

June 28, 2014,  Brand marketing, News, Public Relations practice, Sales practice, Social marketing practice, Sponsorship News  One comment

According to Nike, this year’s spike in sales of its merchandise can be attributed to its World Cup marketing platform ‘Risk Everything’ campaign that’s helped it achieve a 13% increase in sales to £4.34bn in the three months to 31 May.

Nike is not a sponsor of the FIFA World Cup and these rights are held by rival Adidas.

Nike ramped up its marketing spend in the period, spearheaded by ambassadors Wayne Rooney, Cristiano Ronaldo and Neymar Jr ahead of the start of the World Cup in Brazil.

The company didn’t strip out marketing spend but said that a 36% increase in ‘demand creation’ expenses was driven by marketing support...