One tiny word to alter the carbon debate.
It seems to me that the carbon "debate" currently taking place fails on the most basic level of dealing with any of the facts. It is simply a political poop throwing contest, where the only success factor in either of the protagonists minds is the level of noise they...
Politicians God Complex and the carbon tax.
We all understand the "God Complex" the situation where someone proclaims their universal truth about a complex problem. My solution is the right one, no argument!. Problem is that complex problems are really, well, complex, hard to understand, and there is rarely a...
Explicit and tacit knowledge in the national accounts
I was struck last month by the blizzard of numbers and alternative views presented as a part of the release of the national accounts. The economy was down, but the floods in QLD and Vic had largely caused the problem and was it short term only, consumer spending was...
Socialising branding
Procter & Gamble is a huge branded consumer business, but seems to be able to maintain the agility and innovation capability of an SME. Supermarket retailers have to be nervous when they display a determination to build a direct business model for their brands,...
Branding evolution
There is a new boy on the block to match Colgate, P&G, and other international brand owners, but one who does not play fair, one who controls access to consumers, removing their options of choice. Tesco. A retailer with the clout of Tesco that comes from its...
Brands as patterns
Brands are not uniform things, they are an amalgam of all sorts of contributing factors, patterns of attraction, that together make up an experience. People recognise and relate to brands in a very personal way, and in the age of net communication, the opportunity to...
Facebook & Skype, the “twins of free” meet old economy
The fun and games predicted are starting! Facebook has added Skype to its services, in an expanding collaboration with Microsoft , and in response to the competitive threat of to Facebook by Google+ launched recently. This collaboration will not make the integration...
Social media will win the next election.
I'm thinking ahead here, to the next federal election, the one Tony thinks is already on. I suspect the communication mix of this election will be different to those that have gone before, Social Media will play a significant role, perhaps even a deciding role given...
Tesco pushes e-media boundaries, again.
I have praised the way Tesco has adapted to the emergence of smartphones as a marketing tool, particularly in the UK by combining Loyalty card use, Dunnhumby data mining and smartphones. Sensibly Tesco are migrating this technology elsewhere in their growing global...
Switching costs and social warfare
Every marketer tries to build in switching costs into his product, something that makes the decision to change a bit more difficult. These switching costs have 2 elements: Real costs, like contract penalty clauses, loss of use of some useful feature that needs to be...