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SANDWICHED BETWEEN JOY AND HOPE....

by robert campbell, 26 November 2009, 20:47

Anyone who's been down Carnaby Street recently will have noticed the following. 1) Beta towers is throbbing. 2) The Carnaby Street Christmas decorations are spectacular. Some believe they have been paid for entirely out of Mr Lace's unspent new...

Dell Heaven!

by Justin Hunt, 26 November 2009, 19:08

I spend a lot of my time trying to persuade companies to engage with social media. Sometimes it can be demoralising. The defenders of the status quo are well entrenched in some organisations. However, there are plenty of enlightened people leading the...

Who controls the brand now?

by Justin Hunt, 26 November 2009, 19:01

Some marketing people don't like to hear that they no longer control their brands. But it is true. You may spend millions on a finely created commercial. But it can still be commented on and edited through social media. Every brand is being talked...

Murdoch makes waves. Microsoft provides paddle. Google sails into the sunset!

by George Parker, 26 November 2009, 18:10

With all the talk and media hype about the Wizened of Oz (Rupert Murdoch) deciding to put Google out of business and throw in his lot with the Borg of Bing (Microsoft), particularly as rumors abound that MS will pay the Dirty Digger dumpster loads of...

Murdoch v Google

by Justin Hunt, 26 November 2009, 17:55

Murdoch versus Google: who is going to win? It’s a classic old media v new media showdown. Murdoch claims his valuable content is being taken for free by Google and that he is not getting anything in return. But is that the complete story? Jeff Jarvis...

More bad news from cScape Group

by BOB WILLOTT, 26 November 2009, 17:12

AIM listed internet technology specialist cScape Group suffered a loss of £319,000 in the year to 30 June, reducing its net assets to a mere £449,000. Three days ago the group disposed of ITM Group, a small loss-making element of its business, presumably...

Who’s killing Wikipedia?

by Mark Tomkins, TDA, 26 November 2009, 14:41

It’s the perfect, self-generating business model. An online encyclopedia that continues to grow as people update it. But it isn’t. Well, at least not recently. According to recent reports, Wikipedia has lost 49,000 of its volunteer editors and there may...

Newcastle United's stadium farce is a classic example of misjudged sports sponsorship

by Mike Spicer, EHS Brann, 26 November 2009, 14:20

As a football fan and a marketer, the recent announcement that Newcastle United’s stadium will now be called sportsdirect.com @ St James’ Park Stadium interested me both in a professional and personal sense. Unfortunately the two parts of me were resolutely...

'GMTV - the gateway to the ITV day'

by Jeremy Lee, 26 November 2009, 14:04

Well that's what John Cresswell, acting chief executive of ITV, thinks in what is presumably an homage to Balham. ITV today paid in the order of £20m to Disney for the remaining quarter of the breakfast broadcaster that it already did not own. This...

Battle of Big Thinking (6) - Social media: a fad or the wrong term?

by Gordon Macmillan, 26 November 2009, 13:06

Big Thinking in social media. Good line-up here. A bit of a run off between Jeremy Ettinghausen, digital publisher at Penguin, his anti social media line and VCCP's Amelia Torrode airing concerns about social media being like a snake oil fad. Jeremy...

Most discussed

French EDF hijacks British flag and uses Ecotricity’s idea for Green Britain Day

by CHRIS ARNOLD, 29 June 2009, 01:21

It’s one thing for a French energy company to hijack the Union Jack for greenwash purposes but to take the ad campaign (or something very much like it) of a genuine green electricity company, Ecotricity, has really inflamed green minded consumers. EDF...

The Politics of Losing

by Dave Trott, 06 May 2009, 09:45

A few years ago, the LibDems asked some people from the media to a meeting to discuss how we could help them do better in an election. I listened to everything everyone said, but it just seemed more of the same. They wanted some quite nice posters and...

The truth about awards

by Dave Trott, 07 April 2009, 12:12

When I was a junior copywriter at BMP I used to get furious at the D&AD Awards. Usually because the work that won didn’t live up to D&AD’s original maxim: STIMULATION NOT CONGRATULATION. The jury always got it wrong. I thought they were bent,...

Why would you follow a Celebrity on Twitter

by Gordon Macmillan, 04 February 2009, 12:24

Good blog post on the Guardian today, on social media (Bobbie Johnson "I've had it with social media") and the incessant chatter it creates. One elements of that, particularly with Twitter, is celebrities. Who follows these people and why...

Please can you refute this argument.

by Rory Sutherland, 14 November 2007, 21:18

I have suddenly conceived the insane notion that brands are good for the environment. Can this possibly be true? It is now common to ask why property prices in Britain are so high. Another way of phrasing the question might be to ask why - at least from...

I am a PC

by Belinda Parmar, 08 December 2008, 09:07

At first when I heard about the Microsoft "I am a PC" ads, my first instinct was that the world's biggest computer company should not feel the need to respond to Apple's "I'm a Mac and I'm a PC" ads which had aired...

Who make better planners? Planners or creatives?

by Rory Sutherland, 06 August 2008, 01:40

This was the debate at the IPA on Monday evening. David Golding vs Dave Trott. And, my sweet Lord, was it good! Quite possibly among the best single hours I have spent at an event in my working life. I also however have a slightly odd take on this argument...

WE'RE CLOSING.

by robert campbell, 04 October 2009, 20:04

We've had a fab five months. We've got a great bunch of people working here, and a client list that we're very proud of.... Thomas Cook. Jackpotjoy. The Outdoor Advertising Association. BUPA. Ealing Studios. A major charity who we have to...

If you heard a friend had landed a job at the Playboy mansion, your first question probably wouldn’t be “What’s the pension plan like?”

by Rory Sutherland, 15 July 2007, 12:31

Or how advertising people could have a much better life on far less money. I am old enough to remember a time in London when friends would spend the odd evening trying to work out what our contemporaries were earning. Back then, someone’s salary...

Advertising doesn't work like we think it does

by Dave Trott, 02 November 2009, 11:15

A couple of years back, I noticed a lot of stories in the paper about a split in the Church of England. Apparently, the C of E had run a campaign that had caused a controversy amongst bishops. I was quite surprised the C of E had such a high profile....