AI BRINGS LIFE TO CREATIVE
Other than the creative itself, Cannes has always been a difficult spectacle to watch. I’m sure it’s more fun to actually go as a contestant. But something caught our eye in this year's Cannes coverage. The Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity introduced the ‘Creative [...]
AUNTIE E’S BIG BREAK
ostensibly off-topic alert It has been a long time since I wrote about my Auntie E. If you need or want to know who she is, please read WEEKEND WITH AUNTIE E, or the earlier THE GRACIOUSNESS OF NO. We left off with Auntie suffering from [...]
DINOSAUR OR COCKROACH?
The Economist recently weighed in on the state of the advertising industry. More specifically, the multinational advertising giant part of the industry. Curiously, Sir Martin Sorrell is quoted in overly-optimistic tones, and two weeks later, he quickly and quietly disappeared. All Economist articles are very [...]
SEO & GAMING THE ALGORITHM
Earlier this month, Rob LoCascio wrote an interesting article for techcrunch.com [1], which caught my attention for two reasons: He makes an audacious prediction: ‘In 2018, we will see the first major [e-commerce] brand shut down its website’. His point-of-credibility is solid, given his professional [...]
CONTEXT IS EVERYTHING
Context is everything, especially on social media. There has been a lot of social media interest in the image above, less the question mark, combined with headings and comments like: “Jeff Bezos in 1999. Next time you want to give up, think of this.” “Jeff [...]
AUTHENTICITY & THE NATURE OF MARKETING
As so often happens in the marketing world, another word has lost its original (and proper) meaning. To this club, which includes ‘Activation’, ‘Engagement’ and ‘Hack’, we must now add ‘Authenticity’. The genesis of this post is a recent post in Marketing Week titled, ‘Authenticity [...]
PORSCHE AS A SERVICE?
Like most, we follow news on our favourite brands. We’re particularly interested in news on a favourite brand that is, or has been, a client. So a recent press release from Porsche Cars North America (PCNA)[1], the US subsidiary of Stuttgart-based Dr. Ing. h.c. F. [...]
PEOPLE ARE NOT BRANDS
I’ve recently been reading Mark Ritson’s blog posts for UK-based Marketing Week. They are a nice mixture of smart thinking and entertaining delivery. The Background Ritson is an Aussie and career academic who also does marketing consulting work. He comes across a bit like the [...]
CAN’T GET NO SATISFACTION
I don’t believe this is the appropriate forum for comment on Donald Trump, President of the United States. This post is about Donald Trump, the person, which in his case, is the Donald Trump brand—right up Coyote's alley. I’ll do my best to stay on topic. [...]
BIG BEER & AUTHENTICITY
It isn’t a surprise that Big Beer titan Anheuser-Busch InBev (AB InBev) has come up with a marketing campaign—video spot, anyway—that pokes fun at the craft beer segment: Very well done, not surprisingly, by one of the world’s truly great agencies. But here’s the thing—AB [...]
THE MEDIA IS (ONLY PART OF) THE MESSAGE
The title of this post was going to be ‘THE POWER OF CREATIVITY REDUX’, but preparatory research inexplicably led to Marshall McLuhan, and there you have it. To save readers from going down that same rabbit hole inadvertently, all Marshall McLuhan content is relegated to the [...]
THE PUBLICIS STUNT
As everyone knows, the big news at the end of this year’s Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity was Publicis Groupe’s announcement that they are suspending all creative awards participation for the next 12 months, including the 2018 Cannes Lions. The stated purpose was to [...]
MORE DECISION SIMPLICITY
Consumers’ desire for personalisation and mass-customisation does not mean they want every purchase decision to be complex. Consumers want decision simplicity, a topic covered here previously. Here are two new tales on the same topic. Liquid-Plumr vs Drano Have you shopped for household drain cleaner [...]
THE PORSCHE LANDMARK
Earlier this month, Porsche AG celebrated the production of its one millionth 911 model. This is big news for the 24,500 people that work for Porsche, the 15,000 or so Porsche dealer employees, Volkswagen Group (Porsche’s parent), the less-than-a-million current Porsche owners and the multiple [...]
THE COST OF YOUR AI-DA
We’re referring to artificial intelligence-enhanced digital assistants (AI-DAs) here. They seemed to start as quirky little chat bots like Microsoft’s Tay (see CHAT BOTS JOIN THE CONVERSATION). Now they are everywhere. Apple’s Siri was at the forefront of AI-DAs with consumers way back in 2011, [...]
BRAND HACKING
Clearly, hacking is a very big topic for the new Trump administration. Fast food, and the McDonald's brand in particular, are big favourites of Donald Trump. After you read this post, check out the TV commercial below from 2014, and its chilling last line of dialogue. In a [...]
MEDIA IS NOT BROKEN
A recent survey by UK-based media consultancy ID Comms, reported by Campaign [1], shows that advertisers (clients) are failing to meet expectations (of clients and their agencies) in four key areas: setting clear KPIs for media; having a point of view on ROI for media; having [...]
BUILDING THE GLOBAL TRUDEAU BRAND
A big part of the success of Justin Trudeau's election campaign success is due to the excellent branding work of Bensimon Byrne. If you need a refresher on that, see the case study here. After election, and before the absolute need to worry about re-election, politicians and [...]
WHAT MIGHT BE WRONG WITH DIGITAL
Today (in France), giant marketing network Publicis announced it is writing down the value of its digital brands (Razorfish, Digitas and Sapient) by 1.5B USD. [1] This was part of a discussion of the company's 2016 financial results, which indicated a loss of 567M USD, mainly [...]
DAZED & CONFUSED BY PwC’s RFP
My last post (IS YOUR MANAGEMENT CONSULTANT NOW YOUR CREATIVE PARTNER?) was of interest to almost no one. Despite that, and acknowledging in advance that it is bad marketing to do so, I’d like to continue on that same thread. According to Adweek/Agency Spy today, [...]