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Halifax FM? Now you're REALLY having a laugh

July 16, 2010 2:49 PM | By Joel Harrison
Has there ever been a worse marketing campaign than the current one for Halifax, featuring ‘wacky’ radio station Halifax FM? Each time I’m unfortunate enough to watch it, I’m aghast at the cringe-worthy dialogue and the ham-handedness with which the actors, posing as DJs at the bank’s radio station, josh with each other in fake bonhomie, and then clumsily plug one of the bank’s products (“Isa, Isa baby.”) It’s a car-crash marketing moment. For the Halifax, it’s just the latest in a long line of truly awful ads – remember Howard the singing bank manager? Or worse, the X-Factor-lite dancing...
5 comments | Full story

BT: bloody terrible

July 16, 2010 2:30 PM | By Joel Harrison
Personally I’m not a fan of journalists using their lofty positions to vent personal grievances. However, I’m going to except myself from my own rule based on my recent experience with BT. The only way to describe it is ‘Bloody Terrible’. I know that BT spends a lot of money on marketing, particularly to businesses, which it is trying to convince that it is a credible service provider. However, it’s wasted effort and investment when the service that it offers is so abysmal. I should qualify this: the individuals my colleagues and I have met have always been scrupulously polite...
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BP is beyond the pail, says Greenpeace

June 8, 2010 11:46 AM | By Joel Harrison
As a marketer, you will undoubtedly have had criticisms of high-profile brands and their marketing from time to time, and you’ve probably thought that you could do a better job. Last month, Greenpeace provided a rare opportunity to do just that for BP in the aftermath of the Gulf of Mexico oil rig disaster. The environmental pressure group’s campaign entitled ‘Behind the logo’ asked “designers and industry experts” to “redesign BP’s logo to better reflect its attitudes abroad”… particularly those with negative environmental consequences. It was launched by Greenpeace using its typical guerrilla marketing style publicity stunt (including masked me...
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Business travel loses its lustre

June 7, 2010 2:45 PM | By Joel Harrison
 If the last 18 months has taught us anything, it is that the world is a lot less of a certain and safe place than we thought it was. We’ve gone from a world in which the Prime Minister hailed the end of boom and bust, and a happy-ever-after financial future for us all, to one where his replacement has had to make swingeing cuts as part of an emergency budget. The removal of certainty has also been evident in the business world. Decision makers have come to take for granted the availability of frequent, efficient and reasonably low-cost...
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SMEs: the great disenfranchised audience of 2010?

April 27, 2010 10:06 AM | By Joel Harrison
Regardless of who ultimately wins (won) the election, as co-owner of a small business, I’m frankly shocked by the fact that none of the political parties seemed to make any attempt to communicate with me as such. Sure, I got the usual literature through my front door, caught some of the debates on TV and got thoroughly bored by the never ending parade of polls and pollsters, all claiming a new insight. But no-one seemed interested in promoting themselves as being particularly pro-small business. I find this particularly bizarre given the growing level of appreciation of SMEs as the...
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Social Media: right here right now, or one for the future?

April 14, 2010 8:36 AM | By Joel Harrison
Social media is the big opportunity in the B2B space right now – very few people would even question that statement. The potential that it offers decision makers and influencers to by-pass traditional vendor driven product and service information and gather views, opinions and attitudes direct from contemporaries promises to fundamentally change how must B2B brands conduct marketing, and how they communicate with their audiences. But potential is one thing: what about the reality? How much impact is social media really having right now on the decision making process at every stage? Remember, requirements and consequently usage will change significantly...
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Time to give Second Life a second chance?

April 6, 2010 5:49 PM | By Joel Harrison
If there’s a universal list of inventions that were billed to change the world, but which have spectacularly failed to do so, Second Life is surely on it. Back in 2006 the virtual world platform Second Life was a massive deal. It was everywhere – even on the cover of the Sunday Times Magazine, which was a massive coup. It was going to change everything: within a matter of months, we’d be spending all our time flying around this new world with our avatars, ‘meeting’ new ‘people’ from around the globe and even doing business. Real life, by comparison, suddenly...
3 comments | Full story

How deep is your love?

March 1, 2010 9:42 AM | By Joel Harrison
We all need to feel appreciated; to feel like those out there care about us. And that’s not just as people, but as customers. There are various ways to describe the kind of marketing that’s designed to do this (loyalty, retention etc.) but ultimately it’s about love. So what better opportunity to show your customers how you feel than Valentine’s Day? It never ceases to amaze me how rarely B2B marketers use this annual kitsch-fest as an opportunity to talk to their customers. After all, Valentine’s day has massive marketing potential. Unlike Christmas and Easter, it’s applicable regardless of race,...
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Tarzan swings in to champion B2B

February 26, 2010 3:15 PM | By Joel Harrison
I couldn't resist a dig. Lord Heseltine (nicknamed Tarzan) spoke brilliantly and masterfully at the Gyro HSR 'Brand versus Demand' event on Tuesday 23rd, but for me there was a certain irony to his appearance.Here was a man whose company Haymarket Publishing is largely B2B in focus but through its individual publications (think Campaign and Marketing) had arguably done more to sideline and marginalise B2B Marketing than anyone else in the UK over the past 20 years.If you'd read those august titles (and fine publications they are, I genuinely believe) you'd think B2B did not exist. And despite the mass...
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Brand ahead of demand? Are you crazy?!

February 24, 2010 8:35 AM | By Joel Harrison
Brand or demand? That was the question posed by Gyro HSR at its half day conference on February 23rd, held in the gothic splendor of Manchester Town Hall. The global B2B agency had assembled an impressive range of speakers from its varied client portfolio, all focused around where marketers should be focusing their attention: building their brand or generating demand.Personally, I thought the premise for the event was excellent, and the speakers offered some genuine insight and elaboration on the theme. Gyro HSR even managed to get Lord Heseltine (B2B by association of his involvement with Haymarket Publishing) to do...
2 comments | Full story
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