How a creative brand idea becomes a campaign

There is sometimes a bit of ‘black box’ magic that seems to happen when a creative brief turns into an executed campaign. Some would have you believe there’s ‘secret sauce’ but the reality is that expertise and years of experience are the best predictors of what will be a success and what will fail.   I am […]

How to use List.ly as a Marketing tool

What is List.ly? List.ly is a list building website that allows you to build and curate shareable lists. These  are then viewable by others. People can ‘like’, ‘dislike’, comment or even add items to the list.  This results in a list that re-organises items based on their popularity.  You can then embed these lists in […]

Agency uses a ‘reverse RFP’ to showcase services

How’s this for a neat idea? You pitch us in order to win our attention and get your marketing services free by reversing the traditional RFP process.  The Brand pitches the Agency. Well, I’m not offering it just now but Hart is inviting prospects to submit their ideas by 30th November, 2012.  could be the […]

Battle of the Brands – A Sporting Engagement

After the success of the first Battle of the Brands post, I thought I would revisit the subject, but this time use the heavy weight of New Zealand, in terms of social media engagement. The brand I am referring to, of course, is the All Blacks. With 1.87 million likes on Facebook and 170 thousand […]

Marketing agency structures and business models

There are many different ways to organise your creative agency.  Reading in the news from the Guardian where Lorraine Ruckstuhl thinks small agencies are getting the advantageover larger networks with many service offerings. This has to be balanced against what clients and brands want to get from their agency: New research from Avidan gives an assessment of what […]

Fan Engagement – has a real ring to it doesn’t it?

Following up to yesterdays post, I’m now going to look at the top NZ brands on Facebook and compare them to our most engaging brands, our most trusted brands and the most engaging brands on Facebook in the US.    Interesting side note: The All Blacks were left off this list despite have 1.8 million […]

Alexa Rank Demystified: Part 2 – How to interpret Alexa Rank

Alexa provides users with 7 different categories of information that can be used to get an idea of how their website ranks. This information can be extremely effective when trying to determine where the strengths and weaknesses of your website lie, and how to go about fixing any weakness. However at first glance, these tools […]

What does a modern creative brief look like?

Take a look at this Master Client Planning Brief Template It comes from a top international agency – and drifted across our desk in the line of duty. Call out the bullshit.  This is not good marketing agency business practice. They asked the client to complete the brief for them. I understand that ‘cover your ass’ corporates […]

Best Practice email signup form: PSFK

Nice information ask here from trend spotters, PSFK. They call it ‘need to know’ – I hope they do. It includes a request for twitter id – first time I’ve seen that on an email newsletter sign up form. Interesting that they choose to put it so high up – under your name – the […]

How MontBlanc could improve its email marketing

I just bought a pen, a beautiful pen and shared my email address with the supplier – top luxury brand, Mont Blanc. A week later I got an email, beautifully crafted but inappropriate message.  This is not the way to say hello and welcome to your new customers.  Launching right in with a sales message…. […]