Paradox of marketing automation.
We are rushing headlong towards automating the marketing process, everything from the call centre systems to advanced automation like Marketo and others. However, we are social animals, and no matter how much we set out to automate, you simply cannot replace the...
Transformation to “Social”
Question: How do you know when your enterprise has become "Social" Answer: When it evolves from a vertical, and functionally oriented enterprise with power emanating from the position descriptions, to one that is cross functional and project oriented, and power comes...
Warrnambool Cheese being sliced off Australia.
Canadian dairy processor Saputo looks set to take control of Warrnambool Cheese and Butter (WCB) with a $7 a share offer valuing the company at $370 million, which trumps an existing cash and shares offer from Bega Cheese which values WCB at 320 million. $7 a share...
Marketing defined, again.
Definitions of marketing abound. A bit like a scratch in the morning, everybody has one! The lament of President Roosevelt that if you had 7 economists in a room, you had 8 opinions, is equally true for marketers, except that to date, most have used smoke and mirrors...
Quality of life: A context sensitive idea.
Some years ago my Dad had a stroke, a nasty one that had a profound impact on his physical capability. We were assured by physicians that with intensive therapy and rehabilitation, he would regain a "quality of life." Compared to the prognosis without the therapy,...
Media: social, earned, or fish-wrapper.
There has been lots of conversation about the value of social media, very sensibly proposing the case that simply getting a "like" is useless, you can buy them if you want them. The measure of success should be how much earned media you generate, how much of what...
Customer driven demand chain rebirth
It is pretty trite to point out, again, that the reason businesses survive is to satisfy customers. In fresh produce markets, this has been pretty much forgotten as the share of the consumers dollar that ends up in the farmers pockets has progressively dropped over...
Cheap Housebrand or guarantors of quality
Consumers make purchase choices for a whole range of reasons, quality, size, experience, brand, price, freshness, produce provenance, and so on. Supermarkets in Europe have for years been marketing their housebrands as much more than cheapo versions of branded...
The client made me do it!
People instinctively like consistency and predictability, it allows them to be comfortable, and make judgments without too much risk of being wrong because the status quo has been maintained. Helping out with a competitive pitch recently I was shown a list of the...
6 trends shaping semi urban agriculture
A couple of days ago I did a presentation at the University of Western Sydney to a group of academics, farming advocates and farmers. The presentation addressed the challenges of agriculture in Australia close to the major cities, specifically Sydney. Peri-urban...