A couple of days ago, Hugh quit Twitter to work on writing his book. Now I’m considering quitting Twitter, but nobody’s signed me up for a book. The reason? Spam, spam, eggs, bacon and spam. Well, without the eggs or the bacon. The sheer volume of new followers I’m getting these days who are blatantly [...]
Ofcom says yes on more TV ads
I’m disgusted to find out that Ofcom is about to allow more advertising on commercial television channels in the UK. Somehow, in response to people using more personal video recorders like Sky Plus, Ofcom’s been fooled in believing that the answer is to slap on some more ad minutes into every show. The geekier masses [...]
SXSWi 2008: “Self-Replicating Awesomeness: The Marketing of No Marketing” panel notes
For this panel, I ditched the laptop and only used pen and paper so my notes are less than clear. In fact, I’m lucky if I can read my own handwriting, but the highlights for me were finally meeting the lovely Tara Hunt, a fellow Canadian expat and inspirational blogger. My notes might be a [...]
Links of the week: Media, marketing & brand in today’s world
In the past few days, I’ve read some genuinely interesting articles which I’ve been meaning to blog, but to avoid stale blog entries in my drafts, I’ll just share the links and let you read on. Fair use in the digital world according to Thomas Hawk Companies without conversation: Hasbro/Mattel on Scrabulous and Target on [...]
Blog Topic Challenge: “Write about your job”
As first entry for my infamous Blog Topic Challenge, I thought I’d begin with an elementary and logical first step. James Whatley, SpinVox blogger and great friend of mine, suggested that I should “write about your job and everyone you have ever met in your niche industry…” Great suggestion, but there are just too many [...]
2007′s dumbest moments in business according to Fortune (and me)
Being the end of the year, everyone jumps in on Top lists, both retrospectively and looking to the new year. Fortune created its list of 101 Dumbest Moments in Business in 2007. From the peanut gallery, I can’t help but comment on their list and add a few of my favourite dumbest moments of the [...]
Do promotions, coupons and incentive programs have any value on mobile?
[Crossposted from the Taptu blog] Sitting in my parents’ living room in Canada, I’ve seen just how much unrequested mail they receive, flyers from supermarkets and furniture shops to clothing and hardware stores. Each one is filled with “50% off” claims and coupons. It’s a quaint tradition that is now being shoehorned into new technologies [...]
The Secret Strategies Behind Many ‘Viral’ Videos or why Dan Ackerman Greenberg is an idiot
[Disclaimer: I realise the last thing I should be doing is giving this guy more visibility and mentions on the web, but his original article, as well as his follow-up REALLY rubbed me up the wrong way and I need to vent it out.] When I took on my first marketing role, some years ago [...]
Must PR people and bloggers be like oil and water?
Last week, Chris Anderson, author of The Long Tail and Wired Magazine blogger, lashed out at lazy PR people. The crux of the story is that Chris gets torrents of press releases, some more or less relevant, from public relations agencies that can’t really be bothered to do their research before sending releases around. Therefore [...]
Your call is important to us: Seven tips to use when dealing with customer service
We’ve all had situations where we’ve needed to call the customer service number for a product or service where either something’s gone wrong, or we’re dissatisfied with what’s happening. It’s normal for that to happen considering the amount of goods and services we consume in a year. Some products are bound to be duds sometimes. [...]
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