Elen Lewis, Marketing Society editor, curates the edited ‘need to know’ highlights from the weekend papers, from doctors paid £20,000 a week to 20,000 homes sold to pay for elderly care
Doctors are being hired at rates of £20,000 a week by hospitals to cover NHS staff shortages.
Sales of low-alcohol beers have risen by more than 40 per cent nationwide over the last year.
By 2015, 60 per cent of new jobs will require specialist skills held by just 20 per cent of the population.
France is a larger corporate power than Britain, providing 40 of the world’s 500 largest business groups compared with 26 for the UK.
An estimated 20,000 people a year are forced to sell their homes to pay for care in old age.
Five things we learned from executive marketing director at Boots, Elizabeth Fagan, as she went Under the Spotlight with Alan Mitchell last night at London’s Vinopolis.
1/ How prepared are you to take risks? This is something we all have to get better at.
2/ The history of Boots has never held the development of the brand back. We have always been ahead, and our heritage gives us the permission to go ahead.
3/ I believe that complexity in data and knowledge can create simplicity.
4/ The biggest challenge we face is ensuring a brand of our size remains consistent.
5/ My mantra is that I don’t work weekends. You have to get down time to get head space.
Elen Lewis, Marketing Society editor, curates the edited ‘nice to know’ highlights from the weekend papers, from the badger cull to the scooter boom
The Government’s plan to cull badgers could wipe out up to 79% of the animals in their heartland of the west and south-west of England
Eight out of 10 married women do more household chores than their husbands, while just one in 10 married men does an equal amount of cleaning and washing as his wife
97% of Pinterest’s users are female
The populations of almost half of the world’s seabirds are in decline – conservationists are particularly concerned for the albatross family
There has been a remarkable rise in the sale of scooters over the past 14 months. Sales in the UK rose by 7.6% in the first two months of this year
Elen Lewis, Marketing Society editor, curates the edited ‘need to know’ highlights from the weekend papers, from obese primary school children to unemployed black men
The £500-a-week benefits cap (due to be implemented in 2013) is expected to leave around 130,000 families across London unable to pay their rent
One-fifth of primary-school leavers are now obese
Unemployment has doubled to more than 50% among young black men
There are around 12,000 children in the UK and Ireland living with HIV contracted from their mother in the womb, at the point of delivery or while being breastfed
Over the past three years, more than 45,000 students at 80 institutions have been found guilty of ‘academic misconduct’ (cheating in exams and assignments)
Elen Lewis, Marketing Society editor, curates the edited ‘nice to know’ highlights from the weekend papers, from safe childbirth in Greece to the price of eggs
Greece is the world’s safest place to give birth, with a one in 31,800 risk of dying in childbirth.
The Micronesian island of Guam has the highest divorce rate in the world; Guatemala has the lowest.
Nearly 250 stretches of Britain’s most important rivers are at risk of drought.
British women spend two hours more per day than men doing unpaid work.
The price of eggs on the EU wholesale market has nearly quadrupled over the past week to more than four euros a kilo.
Elen Lewis, Marketing Society editor, curates the edited ‘need to know’ highlights from the weekend papers, from the millions living abroad to the millions cold at home
There are 5.4 million UK nationals living abroad.
23% of people in rural areas of the UK are of pensionable age, compared with 18% of people in urban England.
Thailand has the greatest percentage of women in senior management (45%). Japan has the lowest (8%).
Older mothers are fuelling a baby boom; the abortion rate among the over-forties has dropped from 42 to 28 per cent in two decades.
16% of people over state pension age in the UK are living in poverty; 3.3 million are unable to warm their homes.
As part of our partnership with Marketing magazine we spark debate amongst senior members of The Marketing Society. On this occasion as Procter & Gamble announce plans to shed staff while increasing its focus on digital ads we ask does funding innovation come before protecting marketing jobs?
YES
Louise Fowler
Business Leader, Marketing, The Co-operative Banking Group
Firstly, innovation does not always require investment. In my experience, the best and most creative marketing often comes from a constrained brief.
That said, we are not in business for the preservation of our own jobs or lifestyles. Call me old-fashioned, but I believe any marketing-led business exists to add value for its customers. This means continuous innovation.
Sometimes, it means changing the size and shape of the marketing team, bringing in fresh ideas and asking some people to move on and try other things in their lives.
I can’t think of an innovation that’s come from protecting jobs. I can think of plenty born of change, disruption and constraint.
Elen Lewis, Marketing Society editor, curates the edited ‘nice to know’ highlights from the weekend papers, from men needing marriage to the popularity of le cinéma
The health and longevity benefits of getting married are significantly higher for men than for women
66% of people with jobs suffer from ‘nomophobia’ – a fear of being without your mobile phone.
In the UK, households throw away 7.2 million tons of food each year. More than half of that is food that could have been eaten
More than 60% of all households have never switched their gas and electricity supplier
The average marriage in Britain lasts 11.3 years
More than two-fifths of all cinema seats sold last year were for French-made movies
Elen Lewis, Marketing Society editor, curates the edited ‘need to know’ highlights from the weekend papers, from cash stashed at home to migrants’ minumum earnings
The average amount of cash kept at home (excluding that kept in wallets) is just under £218 per UK household
On average, in London, a sexual crime is committed against a man every hour
8,880 state school teachers chose to retire early in 2010/11 – the highest number for 13 years
It’s estimated that 1% of the world’s population is asexual
Under new rules to be announced this week, migrants working in the UK must earn at least £35,000 a year if they want to stay longer than five years
Joss Davidge, Business Director of brand experience agency BEcause, continues his weekly quest for marketing ideas that get people talking. This week he looks at two campaigns that show it’s paramount to think of key messages when creating a memorable brand experience.
Pop-up and “flash mob” marketing tactics work well when core brand messages are at the heart of the activity. Unfortunately, I’ve come across lots of experiential activity that’s more about the experience than it is about the brand. The issue with this approach is that it becomes easy to remember the experience but forget the brand – not ideal. By contrast, here are two recent campaigns I’ve spotted that work because they clearly put the brand at the heart of the brand experience.
Intel: Pop Up Theater
Intel wants to position its new Ultrabook as a new type of personal computer – a responsive and lightweight alternative to laptops. To do this, a flash mob of 60 individuals each equipped with an Ultrabook has been appearing on the streets of Los Angeles. Grouped together, the screens create a “Pop-Up Theater” providing an imaginative animated background to various situations such as hailing a taxi, body building, skating and busking. There are rumoured to be plans to roll this activity out across other cities in the US but for now these short, well-captured videos are doing the rounds online.
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