Upheavals

Success: plates versus profits

Congratulations to Jason Fried of 37 Signals for this insight from a great article on how he likes to work: Read on

category: Attitude | posted: 20/11/2009

Voting with chocolate

Cadbury’s decision to stop using palm oil in its dairy milk chocolate points to far more than just the ability of public opinion to sway an international brand. What’s significant here is the reason people were up in arms - their view that using palm oil instead of cocoa butter constituted an environmental slip-up on the part of Cadbury’s that warranted direct action. Read on

category: Attitude | posted: 18/08/2009

Why most advertising doesn’t wash

The outrageously scary washing machine for sale seems to have the whole country in its grip. It even featured on the national news tonight. Gorgeous writing. And if you have the time, the questions and answers are an absolute scream. Read on

category: Attitude | posted: 12/06/2009

Cooking up a controversy?

When Gordon Ramsay insults an Australian TV reporter, is he hurting or helping his brand? And when the Australian Prime Minister, no less, expresses outrage at his antics, does that help or hinder public perceptions of the celebrity chef? How far is too far when your whole brand is built on being notorious? And does it even matter if you’re serious or not? Read on

category: Attitude | posted: 10/06/2009

Painting

Isn’t it interesting how the simplest sounding things are so much more complex when you think about them a little more? Yesterday,when I asked him what we would do if something didn’t go to plan, Paul glibly suggested that we would have to “paint our way out of the corner we are in”. Read on

category: Attitude | posted: 27/05/2009

The power of inconvenient questions

Watched Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room for the first time recently. A huge reminder of how easy it is to assume; that the massive confidence of some readily inspires the trust of many. Read on

category: Attitude | posted: 7/05/2009

Be careful what you ask for

OK, here’s a left-fielder. Setting goals may be bad for your company’s health. New research shows setting ambitious targets often encourages poor performance. This is of course anathema to conventional management theory which has preached for some time that pushing people to excel brings out the best in them. Read on

category: Attitude | posted: 23/02/2009

Be careful what you signpost.

If you’re part of a company with a large customer base, it’s easy to convince yourself that you understand your customers so well that you can actually apply labels to them on signage. You can, in effect, identify them on your terms, and still firmly believe that you are absolutely doing the right thing. You may even believe you’re being helpful. Read on

category: Attitude | posted: 18/11/2008

Don’t bank on your brand

Media Post has this thought provoking piece that highlights another danger in numbers – this time in relation to brand valuations. As reported in the article, John Gerzema and Ed Lebar’s book The Brand Bubble: The Looming Crisis in Brand Value and How to Avoid It contends that we are indeed in the middle of a “brand bubble”, with consumer opinion on the value of brands falling at the same time as corporations continue to attribute those brands with increasing balance sheet value. Read on

category: Attitude | posted: 30/10/2008

You say Apple and I say PC

Very good piece today by Jeff Sexton on what he believes was Apple’s pre-prepared strategy to draw Microsoft into answering them back. According to Sexton, the gizzumph was already good to go. Read on

category: Attitude | posted: 28/10/2008

An unnatural state of work

Home at last – after what feels like an eternity out on the road. Read on

category: Attitude | posted: 25/08/2008

If you’re no longer great, were you ever?

I’m going to throw my 50c of opinion in on Steven Levitt’s post recently about Good to Great. Read on

category: Attitude | posted: 31/07/2008

Redundant excellence

Earlier this week at a conference in Christchurch, I introduced the concept of redundant excellence – the danger of focusing on improving products and services that in fact have been, or are in the process of being, surpassed, either by new technology or shifting consumer attitudes. Read on

category: Attitude | posted: 30/07/2008

Suing with silence

Alright, I admit it. I did grin when I read this piece from Freakonomics about the lawyer who is suing a newspaper because he doesn’t believe it is now worth the money he paid to renew his subscription. Stephen Dubner’s question is who would you like to take on? Read on

category: Attitude | posted: 18/07/2008

The good oil

Here’s an interesting twist. Shareholders at ExxonMobil are up in arms - not over profits, but over the fact that the company is not living up to its social responsibilities. They’re so miffed about it in fact that they’ve lodged a series of proposals for the AGM. You could dismiss this as more troublemaking from the activist brigade, but for the fact that the actions have support from the heavyweights - major institutional investors as well as the Rockefeller family. Read on

category: Attitude | posted: 28/05/2008

Closing the ultimate sale – a salute to Paul Potts

Watched a documentary on Paul Potts last night. I still think the clip of his performance is one of the most inspiring and uplifting pieces I have ever seen. I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve watched it, and yet every time, it’s absolutely magic. Say what you like about his recital technically, the point is that from the point of view of sheer emotional impact it’s incredibly hard to beat. Read on

category: Attitude | posted: 26/05/2008

Ethics vs patronage

A follow on from yesterday in some ways. Read on

category: Attitude | posted: 21/05/2008

Making a decent profit

A recent article in the Wall Street Journal Online examines the business of social responsibility and asks what’s the financial payback for generating all this goodwill. Read on

category: Attitude | posted: 20/05/2008

Never do nice work.

Yesterday after a Board meeting, Graham and I went for coffee, as we always do. He reminded me of a piece of work that we had both been involved with that had been deemed so outrageous at the time internally that a petition had been circulated to have the project stopped dead in its tracks. Read on

category: Attitude | posted: 15/05/2008

Right now, Yahoo has the wrong value attitude for Microsoft

Is there a take-out for Yahoo in Microsoft’s decision to walk away? Time will tell. There is a lesson though in the decision for all of us – and that is, that in the end what you think you are worth counts for nothing to anyone else. It’s just your opinion. Read on

category: Attitude | posted: 5/05/2008

Pinning the cause on the market

In a great post today, Stephen Dubner asks The Stock Market Surged Yesterday Because … Why? Read on

category: Attitude | posted: 3/04/2008

Problem or placebo? Actually it doesn't matter.

Interesting article in the Wall Street journal about whether generic drugs are better or worse than their brand-name counterparts. Apparently, there’s a few people questioning the FDA’s position that generics are interchangeable with the original medicines, citing examples that, they claim, show that shifting to a generic is not the same as staying on the original drug. Read on

category: Attitude | posted: 19/03/2008

Looking for Mr Goodbook

Over at Brand Autopsy, John Moore’s post about Borders’ decision to test a front-facing display strategy sets up some interesting questions about the nature of competition generally. Read on

category: Attitude | posted: 14/03/2008

Shedding the strategy skin

The interesting thing about being involved with strategy is that it has a built-in contempt phase. Read on

category: Attitude | posted: 12/03/2008

What will you see when the tide goes out?

Lance Wiggs includes this quote from Warren Buffett in a recent post Read on

category: Attitude | posted: 11/03/2008

Changing attitudes

I was intrigued to read that Penthouse is going public. That’s right, the magazine that sat in “that” part of the bookstore will go to Wall Street later this year looking to IPO for $250 million. (Should make for an interesting prospectus) Read on

category: Attitude | posted: 7/03/2008

The pushback pattern

Over in my consulting life, I’m working on two very ambitious projects this week. Read on

category: Attitude | posted: 6/03/2008

Sexy back

Excuse the pun, but a revealing article in The Wall Street Journal recently on Victoria’s Secret’s struggle to retain its growth. The brand, famous for its sexy attitudes, is now saying it might just be too sexy, or at least the wrong kind of sexy. Read on

category: Attitude | posted: 4/03/2008

Long time, no see. Thank God.

Some lessons I’ve learnt recently: Read on

category: Attitude | posted: 3/03/2008

Commoditising attitudes

It’s interesting what we get used to. Just seven short years ago, most of us walked freely through airport gates. Now we’re subconsciously taking our laptops out of their bags way ahead of the queue, and trying to remember whether this belt is one of the ones that trips the security. Read on

category: Attitude | posted: 26/02/2008

Apples and lemons

Today Agenda quoted Ron Johnson in an interview done late last year with Associated Press. Talking about what Apple was looking to achieve in its stores, the head of retail at Apple said, “We try to pattern the feeling to a five-star hotel. It’s not about selling. It’s about creating a place where you belong.” Read on

category: Attitude | posted: 15/02/2008

Happy Valentine’s Day …

Today as the restaurants are filled to capacity, flowers are on sale at a huge margin, shops clear out of chocolates, every type of stuffed toy imaginable has been cleaned off the shelves, the singing telegrams people have full books and lingerie sales spike remarkably – all for just one day - it’s time to remember why we increasingly talk about the power of th emotional economy. Read on

category: Attitude | posted: 14/02/2008

Is no bad news, good news?

I was intrigued to read recently that Ebay is changing its feedback system so that sellers aren’t allowed to leave negative comments about buyers. Read on

category: Attitude | posted: 12/02/2008

The power of adjuncts

Sometimes what happens alongside an event can be just as important as the occasion itself. The Superbowl is as much about the half-time entertainment and the ads as it is the game. Sevens’ rugby has a highly visible social element – evidenced by how many people actually watch what’s happening on the field compared with socialising on the concourse. Read on

category: Attitude | posted: 5/02/2008

Searching for a different way to compete with Google

So Microsoft and Yahoo are talking about the possibility of joining up. Great for the stock market, impressive, enormous, everything that scale demands … I’m just far from convinced that scale is the answer here. Read on

category: Attitude | posted: 4/02/2008

How much more money could you make if you slowed down?

Mounting fuel costs and increasing environmental awareness are driving new agendas in a whole range of industries. This article on shake-ups in the shipping industry proves just how effectively dilemmas can provoke open acceptance of ideas that a short time ago would have been considered heresy. Read on

category: Attitude | posted: 23/01/2008

The irony of research

Everyone wants the relevance that great research brings. They want products that fit with them, service that gels with them, ideas that excite them, attitudes that ring true … They want retailers and manufacturers to read their minds. Read on

category: Attitude | posted: 22/01/2008

If you can’t beat em, be just like them. Not.

Yum Brands, which operates Taco Bell, KFC and Pizza Hut in the States is looking to revive its business – and it has a remarkably simple strategy. Follow the competitor. Read on

category: Attitude | posted: 15/12/2007

Coffee to go

I walked into one of my favourite haunts yesterday. They were busy – OK, frantic. Waiting staff were running everywhere trying to get things done, serving people they didn’t know, trying to make a good impression. Read on

category: Attitude | posted: 14/12/2007

Wii bit of a dilemma (part 3 of 2)

The problem with traditional answers is that so often they look like they’re making a difference, even as they potentially continue to undermine your position in the one place you can’t really measure – the mind of the customer. Read on

category: Attitude | posted: 13/12/2007

Wii bit of a dilemma (Part 2 of 2)

Yesterday I talked about what I’d do if we were working for Nintendo and we had to pacify a whole lot of eager gamers about the fact that they might be in for a delay over getting hold of the much-in-demand Wii. Read on

category: Attitude | posted: 11/12/2007

Wii bit of a dilemma (Part 1 of 2)

News at the end of last week that Nintendo is looking seriously at stalling its advertising for Wii in the UK in the run up to Christmas because it quite literally can’t keep up with demand. Read on

category: Attitude | posted: 10/12/2007

What's so scary about an Asian Jaguar?

It takes a lot to take my breath away – but a group of Jaguar car dealers in the US have managed to do so. Read on

category: Attitude | posted: 8/12/2007

Brand communities - what makes them tick

Yesterday on his blog Robert Kozinets asked what makes a brand community-able? Read on

category: Attitude | posted: 6/12/2007

Playing your part

They’re preparing for an international soccer event in this part of the world … or rather, the whole of this part of the world is getting ready for David Beckham to turn up and kick a ball around. Read on

category: Attitude | posted: 26/11/2007

The fallacy of frantic

Being busy doesn’t make you invincible. It just makes you … busy, for now. Except of course being rude to your customers or not returning their calls or treating them like they’re expendable, or doing the one hundred other things we’re all tempted to do when we’re busy isn’t just a now thing. It’s a lot more permanent. Read on

category: Attitude | posted: 19/11/2007

"I’d like to register a complaint …"

Smart companies expect their customers to complain. Read on

category: Attitude | posted: 3/11/2007

Seeing what’s needed

Thousands of products we come into contact with set out to make us feel good in exchange for money. But how many actually make us feel that we have, in a moment of time, in a small small way, changed the world by interacting with them? Read on

category: Attitude | posted: 27/10/2007

Far, far away ...

Most organisations seem to structure their relationship attitudes around four degrees of customer separation: Read on

category: Attitude | posted: 20/10/2007

Defining your terms of brand

Most of us feel comfortable defining our terms of business, but how many of us are as assertive in defining our terms of brands? Read on

category: Attitude | posted: 19/10/2007

Anti-commerce is just another market position.

I’m always fascinated by the fact that even those who proclaim to be most against branding and marketing are more than happy to put those very same techniques to work when it comes to telling and selling their own message to the world … Read on

category: Attitude | posted: 11/10/2007

Running out of reason

I gaped when I spied an article in the NY Times recently talking about the fact that the major US carriers can’t agree on how many hours confined passengers have to wait inside a stranded plane before they can demand to be released. Read on

category: Attitude | posted: 2/10/2007

More on flat out ...

Further proof from Roger that "flat out" doesn't mean what it says. He comments: Read on

category: Attitude | posted: 6/08/2007

More from lunch with Paul

Another one of Paul's questions from yesterday: Read on

category: Attitude | posted: 27/07/2007

A closer look at must-see

Lunch with Paul today – and the usual freewheeling conversation spanning marketing and humanity. One of his comments really got to me. Read on

category: Attitude | posted: 26/07/2007

No wrinkles please, we’re recruiting …

Interesting to read via our friends at Agenda Inc an article from globeandmail.com in which big companies are now looking to recruit via channels like Facebook. Read on

category: Attitude | posted: 20/07/2007

Getting there may not be everything

Gosh, what a sandstorm this week in the media over our national carrier’s decision to ferry Australian troops to Kuwait on a chartered jet, on their way to Iraq. It just goes to show that effectively having politicians as your 75% shareholder can make for some interesting corporate responsibility discussions. Read on

category: Attitude | posted: 17/07/2007

Hold the money but pass the buck

Whatever leads some intermediaries in this day and age to believe that they have the right to hold down all-commission-and-no-responsibility jobs? Read on

category: Attitude | posted: 18/06/2007

Faith and truth

It’s occurred to me over the last few days that the interesting changes in customer attitude that accompany brands are not necessarily on the radar of enough companies. Consider this. Before we know them, our key concern as consumers with brands is truth. Can we trust them? Are they all they say they are? Why should we believe them? Most brand communicators get this bit. They know how to fashion a story that talks to our world view … well, sometimes. They know how to intrigue us. They can persuade us to call or to visit. They’ve learnt to hunt. Read on

category: Attitude | posted: 1/05/2006