Category Guru in a Bottle

August 13, 2014,  Guru in a Bottle, Public Relations practice  No comments

In the world of American basketball, John Wooden is a legend. He coached UCLA to win 10 NCAA national championships in just 12 seasons. And he achieved this feat because of his ability to constantly adapt to new players, new rivals and new styles of play.

In our own industry, marketers and PR professionals need to be open to learning from failure.

Business leaders are continually being faced with complex changes: an aging population, the rise of the middle class in emerging economies with a different attitudes and beliefs and constant technological advancement of the web and mobile technologies that disrupt well-established business models, to a name a few.

What we’ve learnt ...

August 12, 2014,  Guru in a Bottle, News  No comments

Men and women think differently. Ask my wife and she’ll explain this in some detail. But why we do think differently is another mystery.

Going back in time, one possible theory is that when we were hunter/gatherers different skills were required. The men spent time away from camp, tracking animals and fighting off intruders. Women needed social skills to bring up children.

Yet there are bound to be many other factors at work for this variation to survive into modern times.

The latest research suggests that living standards and access to education probably bear more responsibility for cognitive disparity between men and women than genes, nursery colours or the ability to cat...

August 12, 2014,  Events, Guru in a Bottle  No comments

It was just a few weeks’ ago that we were celebrating the 45th anniversary of the first moon landing in the Oval Office.

But according to the latest evidence, Americans have fallen out of love with space missions and that’s a terrible indictment on our thirst to further explore the boundaries of our tiny universe.

An 18-month enquiry by the National Research Council (NRC) has concluded that the project to put a man on Mars to be “unsafe, underfunded and doomed to fail” in its current form.

A real kick in the pants for NASA that must feel like it’s on the longest and loneliest spacewalk mission in history.

Apparently Americans were always ambivalent about reaching for ...

August 9, 2014,  Guru in a Bottle, News  No comments

On the 18 September 2014 the Scottish people (pop. just over 5m) will make an historic decision. They will vote whether to remain as part of the United Kingdom or to separate from the union that has bound us together since the Act of Union 1707.

Historical background to this important referendum

This is probably one of the most important decisions that the Scottish people have had to make in the last 700 years. To understand the importance of this historic vote, it’s helpful to take a look at the events that happened over 700 years ago and in particular the Battle of Bannockburn.

Today, the Scottish town of Bannockburn lies immediately south of Sterling...

August 5, 2014,  Guru in a Bottle, Sales practice, Social marketing practice  No comments

While most marketers and retailers are familiar with the online shopping concepts of “showrooming” and “webrooming”, new research by e-consultancy Red Snapper suggests that the majority of UK online consumers are now “boomerooming” which is the habit of researching online, visiting a physical store to check out the physical product and then returning online to make a purchase at a lower price.

By comparison, “showrooming” occurs when consumers examine products in-store and then go online to find a cheaper price, while “webrooming” is the practice of researching products online before buying them in a bricks and mortar store.

According to researchers, almost two-thirds...

July 30, 2014,  Guru in a Bottle, News, Public Relations practice  No comments

Ask most people in PR about the reputation of tobacco industry and you’re likely to get a wide variety of answers, most of which will border on the negative.

The tobacco companies have responded to the clampdown on the public sale of cigarettes through giant health warnings on packets and a steep rise in VAT by publicly talking about the need to find the “safer smoke” for its customers. And this has led to tobacco companies making massive investments in e-cigarettes.

But is this motivated by the desire to wean smokers off smoking or simply substitute one nicotine delivery system for another in order to protect market share and massive profits?

The discussions about e-ci...

July 29, 2014,  Guru in a Bottle, Public Relations practice, Social marketing practice  No comments

This is a filmed interview I gave last week to the GTC Group, a leading training and coaching organisation that works with senior executives from emerging and developing countries around the world. In this interview I answer questions about global best practice in marketing and PR, the art of effective audience segmentation as well as how communication professionals can improve the outcomes from their marketing and PR activities. Running time: 15 minutes

July 29, 2014,  Consumer behaviour, Guru in a Bottle, Thought Leadership  No comments

With British Muslims celebrating the festival of Eid al-Fitr over the coming days, new research suggests brand owners may be missing out on the sales opportunities presented by this and other cultural events. According to an online poll of 1,000 UK adults by creative agency Haygarth, nearly 30% of Asian or British Asian respondents intend to go shopping for Eid and Ramadan, the month of fasting that precedes it.This amounts to 3% of all UK consumers, leading Haygarth to warn that the retail calendar is becoming increasingly complex because of changing demographics, cultural trends and marketing techniques. It found another 3% of UK respondents intend to shop for the Jew...

July 19, 2014,  Guru in a Bottle, News  No comments

Earlier this month Transport for London (TfL) that runs London buses announced they’re no longer accepting cash. TfL said dwindling numbers of passengers using money to pay for their journeys had prompted the change.

Research shows that 99% of customers use Oyster, prepaid tickets, contact-less payment cards or concessionary tickets. TfL says the transition should be trouble free because passengers who have run out of credit on their Oyster card are now allowed to make one more journey.

Mike Weston, TfL’s director of buses, said: “The way our customers pay for goods and services is evolving, so we need to ensure our ticketing evolves too...

July 18, 2014,  Events, Guru in a Bottle  No comments

British PM David Cameron is an effective communicator although perhaps not in the same league as Tony Blair. However, Cameron did learn his trade whilst working within the public relations industry as director of communications for Michael Green at Carlton Communications. I remember it well. I once had a meeting with both men. So it’s probably fair to assume that Cameron recognised the PR challenge that was starring him in the face.

The fate of the Tories in winning the next General Election remains in the balance despite the resurgence in the fortunes of the UK economy as evidenced by a recent spate of research and statistics that show Britain’s economy is growing faste...