Category News

November 6, 2013,  News  No comments

Let’s suppose you’re sitting in a job interview to be the next director of communications for a large, well-known B2B brand.

The key aspect of the role is public relations and of course you’re well versed in the art of how to manage the flow of information.

After all, you’ve done it a zillion times before. So what’s new? Well, that’s kind of true. PR had its place in the marketing mix, was focused on creating awareness, grabbing headlines, engaging with the media and creating an environment where the sale was more likely to place as a result.

Control and timing was everything, wasn’t it? PR’s big brother marketing was a discipline that focused on the channels to m...

November 6, 2013,  News  No comments

Nestlé-owned Häagen-Dazs is one of the most iconic ice cream brands in the world and has successfully connected with female consumers for over half a century.

Earlier this year, the ice cream brand decided to go back to its marketing roots and develop a social media engagement strategy that would create word-of-mouth buzz around the brand as well as the launch of its new premium product in the UK.

A key outcome for its brand managers was to increase consumer engagement on its UK Facebook page and build awareness and bookings for its new Boudoir campaign as well as engage with brand advocates on Twitter.

The Boudoir was an exclusive ‘pop-up club’ that was developed as p...

October 17, 2013,  Events, News  One comment

This was one of the many profound insights shared with a global audience of PR and communication leaders from around the world that gathered a stone’s throw from the National Assembly and Saint-Germain-des-Prés in central Paris last week.

The subject of leadership dominated the two-day ICCO Summit and what was fascinating to observe was a growing consensus view of the recognition that clients need to be supported in understanding not just how their messages are being delivered but more importantly how they’re being received.

I was particularly impressed with Diana El-Azar, senior director responsible for media, entertainment and information industries at the World Economic...

October 13, 2013,  Guru in a Bottle, News  No comments

In business, it’s more important than ever to push the boundaries in order to achieve a competitive advantage. It’s about being brave. And doing things that your competitors can only dream about.

As the world shrinks smaller, the importance of pushing the boundaries and striving for greatness is at an all-time high. And this partly explains why the makers of Grand Theft Auto V (GTAV) – Rockstar – have become the titans of the video gaming industry.

There are very few industries outside of medical, technology, engineering or defence where a company can blow a cool $250m in research and development...

October 5, 2013,  News  No comments

I’m fascinated by real-life experiences of really bad customer service.

It’s not because I have some prurient interest in disasters or the bad luck to befall customers but I genuinely want to understand how marketing can be improved by learning from mistakes made by some of the biggest brands in the world.

It’s not the sort of content PR folk want to see in a blog of course so I’ve had to use social media to dig deep and uncover examples I’d like to share with you. Some appear in my latest book, High Impact Marketing That Gets Results.

The following has been kindly submitted by Barry Maher, a US-sales and marketing guru and author of Filling the Glass: The Sceptics...

October 4, 2013,  News  No comments

Global public relations, marketing practitioner and best-selling management author Ardi Kolah has been elected to serve as a member of the PRCA Council 2013-14.

The PRCA represents PR consultancies, in-house communications teams, PR freelancers and individuals. With over 300 agency members from around the world, including the majority of the top 150 UK consultancies and over 100 in-house communications teams from multi-nationals, UK charities and leading UK public sector organisations. It is the largest professional body of its kind in the UK.

More than 900 PRCA members participated in the voting process.

Ardi Kolah said: “It’s a real privilege to join the PRCA Council at a t...

September 26, 2013,  Guru in a Bottle, News  No comments

In the past, marketing managers used social media as just another channel for publishing content and listening to their community. However, to maximize the success of social marketing, you need to become adept at integrating social media into your existing marketing programs and strategies. In fact, you have to do more than social media. You have to do social marketing!

Increasingly, marketing managers are exploring new ways to use a variety of channels in order to reach audiences with compelling content...

September 19, 2013,  Guru in a Bottle, News  No comments

Last week I was in the audience for a debate at the Chartered Institute of Public Relations in the UK.

The panel discussion turned to the value of public relations and getting more bang from your PR buck. The discussion moved onto the best practice of PR framed by the Barcelona Principles: to measure PR success in terms of inputs, outputs and outcomes as discussed in my latest book, High Impact Marketing That Gets Results.

So let’s go through what this means in practice, and see how you can apply this if you are using an external agency for your PR and public affairs (PA) efforts.

Desired audience segments

This is an extremely important part of the PR process...

September 18, 2013,  Guru in a Bottle, News  One comment

No matter whether you work agency or client-side, each day or week brings new challenges in how you engage with customers, clients, supporters, members and volunteers.

In the past, social media was used as just another channel for publishing content that would engage with each of these audiences. But today, doing that alone just isn’t enough. To maximise the success of social marketing you need to become adept at integrating social media into your existing marketing programmes and strategies. In fact, you have to do more than social media. You have to do social marketing!

This FREE Vocus White Paper explores how to add social to every marketing activity in order to amplify ...

September 12, 2013,  Guru in a Bottle, News  No comments

In the modern world of marketing, it’s less “what you say” and more “what you do” that counts, a theme that runs through my latest book, High Impact Marketing That Gets Results.

This mantra has led organisations and companies to actively use customer collaboration as a marketing strategy.

Think open-source software, smartphone apps and customer reviews on TripAdvisor and Amazon. Consumers today are active – not passive – participants in just about every link of the value chain.

Thinking of consumers not as units of economic value to be unlocked for profit but as ‘fans of brands’ has a lot of mileage.

One of the best examples started long before the age of ...