Making flexible staff work for your brand
Q&A Matthew Williams – Mondelez’s UK chief marketer
Diageo believes in the power of design

Those familiar with my previous columns will know that I am passionate about brands having a rewarding relationship with consumers. I have talked about how this can be achieved through creating a real value exchange, or by the power of the personal touch; but one element that can never be overlooked is how brands can accomplish this through design and physical differentiation.
Mark Ritson: Why Procter & Gamble has to cull so many brands

It’s been a warm and wet Summer, even by English standards and my roses are out of control. Enormous, perfume-filled blooms have dominated the back garden for the past three months. But with the floral show now over, the CEO of Ritson Household plc has been dropping heavy hints that it’s time to “sort the roses”.
Roundtable in association with Mood Media
Neuroscience and marketing: what you need to know
Consumers continue to spend cautiously despite surge in confidence

View the full-size infographic.
Consumers can be persuaded to spend as confidence in the UK nears a seven-year high but the recession has taught people to better manage household budgets.
Making transparent deals
Guidelines and contractual restrictions don’t always resolve the practical issues in a brand’s and agency’s relationship. More brands are making deals with buying platforms directly while the agency manages the strategic and tactical executions – this provides the brand with transparency and accountability in pricing and performance as well as control over how its data […]
What the agency hears
Teenagers can provide some surprising media learnings

Being the summer, I have had more time to chat with my teenage kids. As they have got older, they have become (a little) more interested in what I do for a living – perhaps as it starts to dawn on them that one day they too will have to enter the deep dark world of employment, and it would be wise to avoid the jobs that their parents do, as it seems like hard work.