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March 7, 2014,  Guru in a Bottle, Innovation, Thought Leadership  No comments

Well, obviously you’ll see yourself as a ‘thought leader’, don’t you?

But actually, what does that mean? And can you make money out of being a thought leader?

Thought leadership means a lot of different things to a lot of people and for some it boils down to the creation or adaptation of an innovative concept for direct or indirect business advantage.

If you happen to work in a marketing or PR agency, the value of your time can be measured directly in proportion to the quality of your intellectual and creative output and the outcomes you deliver for the client. On that basis, thought leadership can be very profitable indeed.

But you don’t have to work in an agency to...

February 9, 2014,  High Impact Marketing that Gets Results, Marketing practice, News  One comment

Over the past eight years the South Korean giant has gone from being a virtual unknown on the high street to one that’s on the cusp of becoming Britain’s ‘most loved brand’ and has come up with a brand marketing platform that’s as good as anything its rival Apple could’ve dreamt up.

‘Launching People’ is an advertising funded programme (AFP) series to be broadcast in Spring 2014 where stars from film, music, photography and cooking mentor promising new talent on the back of a nationwide competition.

It’s a neat way for Samsung to humanise its brand rather than constantly rely on technological innovation to get people talking as the product gap between itself a...

November 22, 2013,  Guru in a Bottle, News  No comments

Since the Millennium, social media has grown from teenage fad into an essential communication platform at such unprecedented speed that it’s left the development of privacy laws and regulations in its wake.

A new report by India-based analysts Avendus puts this into context on a global perspective.

There are now over 2.4 billion internet users in the world of which 1.5 billion access the internet through their mobile devices either as a primary or a supplementary device; the penetration of smartphones are expected to grow at a CAGR of 20% to reach 2...

November 14, 2013,  Guru in a Bottle, News  No comments

From a very young age we are taught it’s good to share – whether it’s a favourite toy, crayons or bag of potato chips.

It’s something that we see as a positive influence on a child’s development. As a society we want to encourage it throughout adulthood. The desire to share also makes us less selfish and more connected with our environment and those around us.

However, there are occasions when sharing – or rather ‘oversharing’ – can be a bad or negative thing for both the brands we represent and our own, personal brands.

Consciously or not, we are all sharing far more information online than ever before – there are 571 new websites created every minute; Face...

November 6, 2013,  Events, News  No comments

The trends were identified at the Mobile and Tablet Gaming Summit in London, UK where Facebook and Twitter executives said social networks were the “glue” combining TV audiences and mobile users.

Tarquin Henderson, EMEA head of Facebook gaming sales explained how it was using its enhanced targeting service Custom Audiences to let gambling firms offer real m...

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...

August 31, 2013,  Guru in a Bottle, News  No comments

That line came from the Hollywood movie The Social Network and gave credence to the view that the old interruption model of brand communication doesn’t work anymore.

And by that I mean advertising.

Check the stats. The average consumer is exposed to a minimum of 3,500 marketing messages in a day and 99% of these ads fail to have any impact.

It’s marketing overload and marketing clutter. Consumers’ brains are now programmed to screen out – not screen in – messages. It’s a nightmare if you still continue to cling to ‘high decibel’ marketing techniques.

Old style media owners got fat by selling mass audiences to advertisers...

August 8, 2013,  Guru in a Bottle, News  No comments

AK: What marketing trends have you seen on both sides of the Atlantic?

JB: If you’d asked me this question 25 years ago when I was working in the UK in the pharmaceutical industry, I would’ve said there was a distinct cultural approach to how we marketed products in the US versus the UK.

Fast forward 25 years and it’s amazing to see the cultural divide has basically evaporated which I would attribute to globalisation of the economy and I don’t think you can avoid the impact of the internet has had on markets and competition.

I think it’s interesting to note that the changes in marketing we’ve witnessed over the last five years have trumped the changes that have taken...

July 8, 2013,  Guru in a Bottle  No comments

It’s often very difficult to know what makes a news release work and what doesn’t if you haven’t been doing it for that long. For those of us who do it for a living, we’ve witnessed some major changes in the art and craft of getting the message across to desired audience and customer segments. Today, PR is a very different business to what it was even a couple of years’ ago.

For me it comes down to taking a hard-nosed approach and increasingly that means understanding what we’re trying to achieve with using PR as a business tool rather than leaving it to chance and Lady Luck.

PR used to be about what I call the “transmit” mode of communication...