Be nice

I’ve just returned home from a week’s break in Berlin – my first visit to the city since 1990, shortly after the Wall came down and when there were street vendors selling fragments of it (I have a piece somewhere). I saw many great things, ate some good food and drank some even better beer. [...]

Treating respondents as commodities

Treating respondents as commodities – don’t do it, kids. Yet it happens, particularly with online surveys. I recently had a sales call with a provider who said that their panel was no better or worse than any competitor; they sought to differentiate themselves via client management and survey aesthetics. This experience is backed up by [...]

Customer retention shouldn’t be inferior to business development

New business development is obviously an important part of business. But client retention is integral. It is far more important than new business development in terms of sustainable growth, yet doesn’t always have the prominence necessary to achieve this. In some respects, it is a false comparison since client retention is a form of business [...]

Bigger isn’t always better

As part of my ongoing Diploma, I have to write several assignments based on the company I work for. This is pretty good in that it means my studying ultimately has some practical benefit. But the reading literature isn’t making it easy. Leaving aside the fact I’m not a marketer (and that Essential doesn’t even [...]

Orange Wednesday

Orange Wednesday is a great example of a marketing initiative adding value for mutual benefit The customer gets (essentially) half-price cinema tickets The cinema gets to use up spare capacity on what was probably the quietest day of the week (the day before the new releases) The brand gets the advertising, and the associations The [...]

Three lessons from ATP: Explosions in the Sky

Lesson #1: Pick the right environment The environment is a hugely important factor in consumer enjoyment. Design, location, time and atmosphere all affect our consumption and they should be managed as closely as possible to maximise the experience.  Good practice: Scheduling Jens Lekman‘s sunny, infectious indie-pop to open the afternoon on a glorious day (admittedly, the weather can’t be [...]

Links – 31st April 2008

Quite a lot of links this week (I had a quiet weekend) but the highest quality update so far. Some really excellent articles in here – well worth a bookmark! Blog-related: Clay Shirkey’s widely blogged-about speech on social surplus NB: I have left comments on several blogs about this. I agree with his underlying point [...]

Water and mobile phones

 For those that can’t read it, this grainy image says “No please, no thank you, no water”.  It is from a music venue/pub I visited in North London last night. Posting it has two purposes: I mean, really? Manners are important, but I’m pretty sure they don’t form part of the legal requirement of providing water. And what [...]