Category Archives: Creative

June 01

It’s always time for a new old school marketing model

As a marketing practitioner, I owe a great deal to all those who went before me and nailed their thoughts to the flagpole (cliche by design) at risk of getting shot down by the trolls. Those brave souls who made it through the process, end up with their name attached to a marketing model that […]

June 12

The creative brief has lost too much mojo

99 times out of 100, the creative brief isn’t really creative enough to inform and inspire great thinking.

April 13

How I long to be more like you Marketing Automation bot – I think

is your boss a bit botty? In my early career the thought of coming to work to knock out yet another knockout brand ad campaign for a client… made sleeping over in the agency seem worth it. Now, at the age of 59, hardly a day goes by when I feel there is more to working […]

BREAKING-BAD May 23

The agency model is breaking bad

All good things come to an end Advertising, direct marketing and digital agencies have played a pivotal role in turning marketing into a $600 billion a year industry. The memorable ads, mailshots and digital campaigns have done more than simply help advertisers to create brands, sell products and develop ongoing relationships with customers, they have […]

Rise of the micro marketing machine February 03

The RISE of the micro marketing machine

The past makes me confused about the future of marketing The Bellwether report for January 2015, found that the “fragile nature of the economy has knocked the confidence of marketers and forced many to adopt “cost-efficient” online strategies to reign in their advertising spend.” It then went on to state that, “Despite the slowdown in advertising spend in […]

Sir Martin Sorrell thinking about the future December 16

Laughing time is almost over for the agency as we know it

In two minds about the future of advertising and marketing Sir Martin Sorrel himself admits if he was starting out again he wouldn’t build the kind of mega agency he runs today. He is busy looking towards China, digital and customer insight to maintain momentum while wondering, like the rest of us, is there a better […]

Kenco coffee v gangs October 26

Ganging up on gangs in the coffee business

Go ahead make my day Kenco I’ve been looking for a campaign to support last November’s post; The World belongs to Creative Thinkers: an article inspired by Philip Kotler’s book, Marketing 3.0 in which he urges us to make marketing a force for long-term good and not just short-term sales. For me, the approach that […]

digital finger print July 15

Time for direct marketing to get in touch with reality

Sensory marketing makes sense There is one thing that direct mail can do that no other channel can: activate all five of your senses. Touch. Taste. Smell. Vision. Hearing. All can be stimulated at the same time. Clients with the right kinds of products (exotic perfumes, confections and holidays for example), need to invest more in creating greater […]

TNT viral drama ad February 10

A viral campaign that really pushes my button

You are walking down the street when you spot a big red button sitting in the middle of the square where nothing ever happens. You walk over and in a fit of idle curiosity you push the button. What follows is nothing short of mind-blowing… What this viral ad proves is that the TV station […]

insight infoholic January 22

Hi my name is Mike and I am an insight infoholic.

How well do you know your customers? Developing deep, actionable insight into the world of customers is fraught with difficulty for small businesses. Those huge databases chock full of accurate, well classified and richly segmented collations of relevant data sets will forever be in our hearts but not within reach of our budgets. So do […]

January 17

Great creative meets customer service meets content meets shock and awesome

It’s a minor miracle. Mind blowing creativity that took the whole business and a plane load of customers to deliver the big idea. Right up there with Avis We try Harder in my books. I read a covering article in which the marketing pundit asked, “It’s all very well, but will it sell seats?” You […]

Start anything you want with an RFID chip January 06

Strongbow has the bottle to use an RFID chip

In think Strongbow’s Earn it Campaign is great – I wish I had the bottle for the Stand Up Challenge – but this idea to use the bottle cap to trigger events in their new “Starter’ campaign that is rolling out across Europe is a great example of the way the physical and digital worlds […]

VW logo December 22

From one way traffic to interpersonal traffic with VW

I love this linear commercial for VW.  It’s called 30 years in the making and it shows the changing life of the manufacturers working on the car’s design and production over the lifespan of the car. It’s a perfect example of linear communication. The brand speaks. Tells us a brand-centric story about it’s own narrative […]

December 18

It’s briefing Jim but not as we know it

In search of a little mojo I was recently tasked with the job of helping a major mobile phone company rediscover their briefing mojo.  The core of this kind of mission is not to underestimate, berate or patronise the group you are working with. Most clients and agencies still work on the basis of … “If […]

November 29

Too young to write briefs for an ageing population

A new twist on an old problem. When I see client and agency teams struggling to get a brief together or push work out the door that is actually irrelevant to the target audience, I am reminded that I too was once young. While a lack of audience segmentation is often at the root of poor […]

November 15

Out of the comfort zone and into the event horizon

Feel the fear and read it anyway There are many points of fear and enlightenment on the road to gaining an academic qualification  in digital marketing. As a lead tutor on the IDM’s world class Diploma in Digital course, I watch professionals with considerable experience leafing through Dave Chaffey and Fiona Ellis-Chadwick’s brilliant reference work, […]