Upheavals

Inevitable for most

New addition to my notebook of favourite quotes - this statement by Bill Taylor: If your customers can live without you, eventually they will. Read on

category: Dilemmas | posted: 21/06/2010

What happens when communications agencies lose the creative monopoly?

It’s interesting what captures your eye. Right at the bottom of this article about Google’s plans to launch an ad campaign to promote its apps to the business world was a para that has disquietening overtones for communications agencies around the world. It was the fact that the creative part of the campaign had been designed in-house by Google’s own Creative Lab team led by former Ogilvy & Mather executive Andy Berndt. Read on

category: Dilemmas | posted: 20/10/2009

What’s really fair?

Two interesting dilemmas in this piece about the politics and commercialisation of fair trading. Read on

category: Dilemmas | posted: 27/09/2009

What’s really being bailed out at GM?

Can’t help wondering whether the American Government’s decision to take over ownership of GM is not dissimilar to the last Commander-in-Chief’s famous cry of “mission accomplished”. Read on

category: Dilemmas | posted: 10/06/2009

Do social media negate the need for advertising standards?

Now that consumers have the means to voice their support or condemnation globally for whatever happens in the public arena via social media, I wonder whether Twitter, Facebook, Bebo et al are eclipsing the need for advertising standards. Read on

category: Dilemmas | posted: 19/05/2009

How far would you go?

In Christchurch recently for a workshop, I noticed an interesting article in the local paper sourced from the Washington Post (sorry, I don’t have a link). Seems that rising fuel prices are having such an effect on the “China price” – the huge price advantage that Chinese producers have been able to offer – that more and more US companies are turning tail and bringing their production back inside the States. Read on

category: Dilemmas | posted: 24/09/2008

Brands in the house

I was intrigued to read about the rise and rise of house brands in the United States as more and more people shift to a recessionary mindset. Read on

category: Dilemmas | posted: 4/08/2008

Starbucked?

It’s far too easy to confuse expansion with momentum. But as this article on Starbuck’s growing dilemma shows, the reason why the coffee chain is contracting at its current rate is that it has expanded its way out of the high-end and into the middle ground – and there it has suffered the fate of many a middle market player – it has stagnated. Read on

category: Dilemmas | posted: 3/07/2008

It’s advertising. It must be true.

Friday at Freakonomics, Stephen Dubner asked Which industry makes the most misleading ads? . His personal opinion was the companies that advertise closets. As he says, they always seem to be pieces of furniture that are bathed in sunlight, and that are owned by people who have three pairs of identical and very clean pants or skirts, but never anything unshapely like an accordion, or hockey stick. (A bit like those layouts in “Have a more organised life” books!) Read on

category: Dilemmas | posted: 16/06/2008

A loop or a noose?

First, it was Yahoo getting into trouble over turning down the Microsoft deal. Now, IAG’s hit a similar problem in Australia over a takeover bid by rival QBE insurance – and it’s a decision that has cost the Chief Executive his job. Read on

category: Dilemmas | posted: 27/05/2008

What will you label them? Food for thought.

In the crowded, hyper-competitive world of FMCG, food brands live and die on their perceptions of trust and truth. After all these are products we feed to ourselves and our families. And with so many brands flogging the fact that they are fat free, sugar free, glutin free or contain added vitamins and minerals, we’ve been conditioned as consumers to include label-gazing as part of our purchase routines. Conditioned and convinced. Read on

category: Dilemmas | posted: 13/05/2008

Is Microsoft the next Starbucks?

According to two analysts from Gartner, Microsoft’s position is untenable and Windows is collapsing. Strong language indeed, underlined by a message that the software giant needs to make radical changes to its operating system or risk becoming a has-been. Read on

category: Dilemmas | posted: 21/04/2008

The Delta/Northwest merger – what’s the real message here?

Very early start this morning as I head out of town – but couldn’t board a plane without commenting on the latest mega-merger to hit the US airline industry. Read on

category: Dilemmas | posted: 18/04/2008

Wellbucks?

One of the most worrying signs of a company veering off strategy is when they start talking up the opportunities for entering a completely unrelated market, perhaps on the grounds that they see untapped potential there. So news that Starbucks is planning to diversify into new categories such as health and wellness strikes me as very concerning. Read on

category: Dilemmas | posted: 20/03/2008

Swan or turkey?

Reading about the woes of various financial institutions in the States after years of prosperity, I’m reminded of that great story about the turkey in Nassim Nicholas Taleb’s book The Black Swan. Read on

category: Dilemmas | posted: 18/03/2008

Reporting on annual reports

On her blog recently, content specialist Rachel McAlpine pointed to the fact that, according to the New Zealand Securities Commission, annual reports have only a 30% pass rate. According to an article in the Dominion Post 20 of the 30 annual reports sampled by the Commission in recent times had problems. Read on

category: Dilemmas | posted: 10/03/2008

The delay dilemma

So the long running battle is over. Blu-Ray has out-gunned, outcharmed and out-marketed HD-DVD to become the next generation DVD format. Read on

category: Dilemmas | posted: 21/02/2008

For whom does the warning bell toll?

Every time one pivotal group (or even a member of that group) within an industry says they’re not happy with the current arrangements, that’s a dilemma in the making. It may not happen then. It may not happen for many years. But it will happen. Read on

category: Dilemmas | posted: 9/01/2008

The online dilemma that won’t be settled by sorry

The Facebook dilemma over Beacon that finally saw Mark Zuckerberg apologising this week is only going to become more acute I reckon. Read on

category: Dilemmas | posted: 7/12/2007

Does today mark the beginning of the end of international trade?

It’s easy to dismiss bird flu as the Y2K of medicine. But, as every marketer knows, the reality of anything is nowhere near as compelling as the perception. Read on

category: Dilemmas | posted: 3/12/2007

Challenge vs dilemma (deckchair, anyone?)

Yesterday at Fast Company, Donna Karlin was blogging about the fact that humans seem to have this tendency to wait for crises to occur before we consider changing our ways of being. Read on

category: Dilemmas | posted: 30/11/2007

Picking off dots on the fadar …

The business section of your bookstore is now no different from your supermarket. – packed with product that for the most part is a comet or a meteorite. It’s either an idea that’s been here before but has now come back, or one that came out of nowhere, will burn bright and then die well before it hits paydirt … Read on

category: Dilemmas | posted: 7/11/2007

For the record … or not

Those of you who’ve come to my “Making money in the new middle” presentation will recall my statement that in a world where everyone wants to go direct, distribution alone is a dying business model for many – because it’s increasingly unjustifiable as a raison d’etre. Read on

category: Dilemmas | posted: 4/10/2007

Bean there, done that

Good on Howard Schultz for coming out and telling his people that success was putting Starbucks at risk of becoming complacent. Read on

category: Dilemmas | posted: 1/03/2007