Retailers and alcohol brands welcome cheap booze ban
Russell ParsonsSupermarkets and alcohol trade bodies have welcomed the Government’s ban on selling booze at below cost price.
Month: February 2014
Video: Nationwide customer contact chief on data overload
Josie AllchinNationwide head of customer contact strategy Andy Dellbridge says “you don’t need to stockpile lots of data” to glean useful insights.
Vauxhall chief leaves UK to take up US marketing role at Buick
Sarah VizardVauxhall’s chairman and managing director Duncan Aldred is leaving the UK to take up a US role as vice-president of marketing, sales and service for General Motors’ Buick brand.
Microsoft invests $15m in Foursquare
Lara O'ReillyMicrosoft has invested a $15m (£9.2m) stake in Foursquare, forming a strategic partnership between the two that will help the former company incorporate the location-based app’s data and recommendations into its Bing search and Windows Phone operating systems.
Deep discounting pulls shop prices down to record low
Russell ParsonsJanuary discounting at clothing, furniture and electrical retailers caused UK shop prices to fall for the ninth consecutive month to their lowest rate in at least seven years in December, according to figures from the British Retail Consortium (BRC).
Carlsberg shifts spend from TV to social content
Seb JosephCarlsberg is accelerating plans to redirect its marketing budget to social media content and away from traditional channels such as TV after declaring its ability to prove the effectiveness of content marketing is closer to becoming a reality.
Take career advice from Man Utd’s Moyes
Mark Ritson“I love pressure, to manage such a big club as Manchester United is very good.” Bold words but not, alas, quite correct. They were spoken by Manuel Pellegrini, manager of Manchester City, after his team won the Carling Cup at the weekend.
Do agency pitch teams need to be more gender balanced?
David CoveneyA couple of months ago I mentioned that I was going out to pitch for a new agency to join my creative roster. I received a few negative comments from Marketing Week readers at the time: that it was wrong of me to initially meet with 10 agencies, even though as I’d pointed out, these were ‘fireside chats’ – with five incumbent agencies and five ‘new’ agencies – as it was my intention to reduce the list to a two-agency roster (one I had pre-selected) from these 10. It seemed only fair to give all the incumbents a crack of the whip and I was also keen to see some fresh thinking – hence the larger number of chemistry meetings than I would normally hold in such a situation.
The secrets of being a happy brand
Lucy HandleyA new study reveals the UK’s happiest brands and how they instil an emotional connection with consumers.
What’s your World Cup marketing strategy?
Jonathan BaconBrands have the most sophisticated and hi-tech gameplans yet for the tournament.
Brand tracking: try it and you’ll never look back
Mark RitsonInteresting times for me at the moment. One of my longest standing clients has just hired a marketing director from a big FMCG company and I am helping to “settle her in” to the new role.
How you judge the hype cycle can make or break your brands
Ruth MortimerWhen should marketers take advantage of the hype about a new technology? Move too early and you’re the proud owner of a warehouse full of internet-enabled shoes while consumers are worried about leather soles. Move too slow and you may end up selling standard shoes when the rest of the world is using their footwear as a wireless hotspot.
Stop thinking like a marketer and let the value exchange guide you
Ruth MortimerMillennials “expect brands to live in the same world they live in, speak the same language about the same issues they care about, be humorous, or strike an emotional chord,” according to the Harvard Business Review. And it’s not just millennials – consumers aged between 18 and 34 – who feel that way. There is an increasing demand from all consumers for a genuine ‘value exchange’ between themselves and brands.
Fake vouchers and how to avoid fraud
Lucy HandleyVouchers and coupons give customers key incentives to develop their interest in a brand but as the appeal of the marketing lever rises so do the stakes around misuse, counterfeiting and scams.
When to believe the hype
Lucy TesserasBrands are starting to use the ‘hype cycle’ as a shortcut for expressing where new technologies are in their lifecycle and basing business decisions on what they find. How can marketers use this framework to help develop new products and services?