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...
Thinking “Lean” is instinctive.
It is amazing how people adopt to "lean" instinctively, without any planning, or knowledge of the cliches and tools spruiked by consultants (including myself). People are pretty sensible when left to themselves, they do not build waste into a system deliberately....
Social media as “chips”.
During the week, I did a short explanatory presentation on social media to a group of busy, skeptical SME operators whose typical age meant that they came to computers generally and social media in particular "a bit later" in their commercial lives. In other words,...
5 why’s of social media
"5 why's" is a tool that started life in the Lean Thinking toolbox, but in reality is simply common sense. In effect, make sure you understand the real cause of the problem facing you before you start deploying solutions, otherwise you risk treating the symptoms, not...