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Why delivering and delighting is a must in this business

July 5, 2010 9:31 AM | By Louise Frosell
“Your call is valuable to us, please continue to hold and a customer representative will be with you as soon as possible”..... I heard this phrase 36 times this morning (yes I counted) whilst on the phone to my insurance company and I can tell you I did not feel very valued when they did finally put me through to someone.  So what could this company have done differently? If the recorded message had told me how long I was going to have to wait to speak to someone then I could have made a judgement on whether or not...
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Green is innovation's new frontier

June 14, 2010 12:06 PM | By Guest Blogger
Guest blog by Steve Hewson, marketing director of Toshiba TEC Imaging Systems   Once it was a minority interest. Today, it’s the mainstream. Green issues are undisputedly at the top of the business agenda. What was once the provenance only of single-interest groups is now embraced by almost all. There’s a science to prove climate change is real. A standing intergovernmental conference to fix it. And, for the first time, a UK MP elected to promote change. Green is good. If you think the business world hasn’t clocked that, just look at the number of organisations that now explicitly promote...
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Not another World Cup blog

June 14, 2010 12:00 PM | By Francesca Brosan
Anyone who’s listened to 'You and Yours' recently may have heard their spot on ‘the worst World Cup marketing ploys’, in which they read out press releases from unsuspecting PRs.  Hilarious.  My favourite so far is the law firm offering advice about how not to infringe copyright laws in their use of World Cup and FIFA promotional materials.  Masterful.  I can really see our local publican giving a stuff,  but perhaps there is someone in the local council with the specific responsibility of monitoring World Cup copyright infringements.  Or perhaps, given the state of the public purse, that’s one of...
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Where’s the waste?

May 24, 2010 10:39 AM | By Francesca Brosan
So George Osborne is in the act of cutting £6bn of ‘waste’ out of the economy.  I like the idea that civil servants will have to give up 1st class rail travel (some of us did that long ago).  I like the idea that David Cameron is walking places rather than using his official car.  Until I wondered what that meant for the official car hire company.  Have they have taken a drop in earnings?  Is his official driver out of a job?   And there’s the rub.  What’s waste to some people is employment to others.  I read (over someone’s shoulder...
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A new era of coalition?

May 20, 2010 10:17 AM | By Guest Blogger
Guest blog by James Trezona, managing director at technology marketing agency Mason Zimbler You have to admit, don’t you, that the new coalition government is a great thing for UK marketers. I’m sure I do.  I think it will inspire marketers and marketing agencies to form their own coalitions.  As with politics, so with business, and the B2B marketing world is now mature enough to change the way of working. Agencies that currently work in a vacuum will have more confidence to form alliances with their competitors, and the overriding perspective will change from threat to opportunity for mutual benefit. In...
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Marketing to the 'well hung' electorate

May 7, 2010 10:53 AM | By Guest Blogger
Guest blog by Paul Maher, director, Positive Marketing Today’s UK election fudge, with no clear leader for the country at least this weekend, has been widely described as a ‘mess’. From a marketing perspective, one could say it was a failure. When the two competing messages were ‘stability’ and ‘change’, the UK electorate said ‘Er…. We’ll think about it’. So, in marketing terms is this failure? That is not so easy to answer. If a consumer walks into a store and does not express a definite preference for one brand over another, this could be seen as failure, or alternatively,...
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Twitter = "The Emperor's New Clothes"

April 28, 2010 12:06 PM | By Edward Weatherall
I am talking serious B2B here, you know when we have face-to-face meetings before deals are done. I am talking deals of five figures upwards, no shopping baskets in sight. I’m talking multiple meetings, wining and dining, a round of golf or tickets to lady’s day at Ascot. I’m talking months to do a deal not minutes. Now let’s look at what is currently going on in a lot of marketing teams – Twitter account set up, why? Facebook page done, why? LinkedIn profile and connections created, why? What I see is a parable based on the emperor’s new clothes....
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What’s the role of an agency in social media?

April 27, 2010 5:24 PM | By Francesca Brosan
'Disintermediation' is a term normally applied to the Financial Services industry when people talk about the demise of the IFA (greatly exaggerated in my view).  But last week I heard it applied to agencies.  The argument goes that if social media is taking over from traditional media as the marketing channel of choice, and it’s something that clients themselves are keen to manage internally, why do they need agencies? Typically, it's believed that the best people to blog are the customer service department or the CEO and the best people to Tweet are the marketing department or the logistics company. ...
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Innovation in business - making CRM work even better

March 10, 2010 11:40 AM | By David Beard
The idea of creativity in business has been swirling around in my mind. The current economic conditions are driving our customers to think more about WHAT they sell - what are the top products, what else could we sell to existing customers, etc. Trouble is, that thinking really only operates from an internal perspective.  It's much better to ask why customers buy, how & where they do this, what are their expectations of the service wraparound, etc. In essence, you need to think creatively, albeit Inside the Box of your chosen business environment. Isn't this obvious?Now I know this sounds...
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Market research: A survey or crystal ball?

March 4, 2010 1:46 PM | By Andrew Dalglish
My friends say I’m odd. It’s unusual, they say, to become animated when talking about business. It was with a resigned sigh that they accepted my invitation for an ‘end of recession’ drink. There was also grumbling at the last minute nature of the invite. A sensible precaution I thought. The October celebration was hastily repositioned as a commiseration drink when figures failed to back up economists’ estimates of an early exit from recession. I suspect you are also starting to think I’m a little odd so I’ll cut to the chase. At this celebration I was asked: Can a...
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