Supermarkets greening?
Trader Joes in the US is not a huge chain, but they are one of the ones to watch to see what the others will be doing in the future. Joes has a rich history of being different, and their customers love it. The latest move is to announce that they will be rapidly...
Web site optimisation
There are lots of web site optimisation tools around, including the free ones from Google which do a pretty good job, and there are many people around who will promise you the world by next Sunday. However, the tools are best used in selectively, conjunction with the...
Tour de brand
Building a brand is a "one bit at a time" exercise. Most aspiring brand managers look at Coke, Google, Microsoft, the local leader in their market, and think about how they can take them on, and win. The process is useful, but the reality is that you can't do it in...
Know your competitor
The only way to win is to attack, you can prevent being beaten by defense, but as any football coach knows, defense will not win. Same in business, you need to understand your strengths and weaknesses compared to the opposition, and exploit the strengths, whilst...
Busy is not the same as important
As a young bloke, I was given a "XY" graph that had "urgent, not urgent, important, not important" on the axes as a personal management tool. I was advised to concentrate my effort on the "Important, not urgent" quadrant, as those are the things that will make the...
Sclerosis of policy
Listening to the PM and Opposition leader the other day, "debating" the future of health care in this country, I felt a bit woozy. One of the biggest items in the budget, and certainly the item of huge interest to most Australians, and what do we get, nothing but more...
Not “If” but “When”
The phenomena of social media is one that businesses need to understand, and be ready to respond when, rather than if, it gets difficult. The Nestle Facebook page has been overrun by new "fans" after the publicity surrounding their practices of using palm oil sourced...
Where next for wool?
Australia rode on the sheeps back in the 50's, but in the 70's & 80's the sheep turned nasty, and we mostly got off, having lost our pricing power through the competitive growth of synthetics, and strategic stupidity. When we dismounted, looking for an easier...
Forensic marketing
Yarning to an old mate last week, the usual wide ranging stuff you examine with someone you know well, he said "you know, what you do is forensic marketing, exhuming the deeply held assumptions that distort the outcomes, simplifying the jargon, identifying the...
Canute sees the light.
Guvera, an Australian start-up, has evolved a business model that is a bold but necessary experiment for the music industry. Music downloads from the site will be free, paid for by advertisers who get the opportunity to connect with consumers of particular songs, or...