Recently in Marketing Category

How did Verbatim's marketing team approach a tech-savvy audience with their functional and boringly inanimate digital storage offerings? By bringing them to life in a gladiatorial fight to the death, of course!

The best marketers have always known that strong cut-through isn't just about meeting a consumers need but also creating an emotional connection as well. Especially in markets where brands and products are closely competitive in pricing and benefits, an emotional edge can be immensely powerful in converting more sales.

I've done many, many different jobs in my twenty-odd years of working life - from the fun (working in night clubs) to the disgusting (drawing lots to see who would unpack the hamper from the old folks home in an industrial laundry). But by far the worst job I have ever done was back in 1996 when I spent three horrible months as a door-to-door salesman.

Probably the most overused cliche in digital marketing today is referencing Minority Report when discussing augmented reality (AR). AR is on many marketing prediction lists for 2010 as the proliferation of 3G smartphones and the convergence of GPS, cameras and applications means location-specific informatin can appear on your phone.

Is there another industry with such a wide disconnect between client and professional as web and digital design? These professionals seem to have client horror stories so bizarre, so out of touch and so hilarious that we love to swap stories of unrealistic requests, ridiculous comments and terrifying payment negotiations.

Apparently, I'm a potential wife-beater. I didn't know that, never having beaten my lovely wife and never having inflicted violence against women in any shape or form. But according to a campaign underway today, men should swear never to inflict violence on women. Otherwise, I guess the implication is, we would.

A few more of my recent articles and contributions to Nett Magazine are now freely available online for those of you yet to pick up a copy. I haven't updated this blog with Nett articles for a while, so it's time to remind you all why I am so proud to be involved with it.

In an age where the audience has an overwhelming number of choices, channels and media, getting people to switch on or subscribe to your channel is increasingly difficult. Therefore, advertising television channels with flashy idents and major marketing campaigns is now more common. Well, everywhere in the world except Australia it seems.

So I was reading AdNews yesterday when I came across the following quote. (It originally contained two typos but that's modern subediting for you...)

When I think of some wonderful TV ads recently made - "Sony Balls", "The Big Ad", "Schweppes Burst" - I ask myself...

As technology has provided better and faster ways of tracking a customer's response to a given marketing campaign, the industry has increasingly become obsessed with numbers. This link resulted in this number of conversions. That direct mail piece resulted in that many phone calls. These poll respondents said this about the brand.

Recently, I've become fascinated with the possibilities of giving free content away as a legitimate - and highly successful - marketing strategy. Some of you reading this may already be nodding in a "tell me something I don't know" kind of way. After all, blogging is a free content marketing model.