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I was impressed that those elderly cool cats, Stephen Fry and David Hockney, were singing its praises in my free Evening Standard last night. And earlier this week when I called on the delightful Camilla Harrison at the uber-cool offices of M&C Saatchi there was an iPad left on the coffee table in reception for visitors to play with. (Camilla incidentally is in part delightful because she is doing a grand job on the publicity material for this year’s Annual Conference & Dinner at a very competitive rate.)
Picking up the iPad for the first time, I was able in seconds to play the John Lewis commercial from You Tube (which is nothing to do with M&C Saatchi but, is in fact from those young upstarts at Adam and Eve).
I wanted to see the commercial because so many people have been mentioning it for some time now and I kept forgetting to check it out. In terms of ease of access and clarity via the iPad it was most impressive. The commercial itself would not win any prizes for originality, but it is pretty daring for John Lewis mainly because it doesn’t show a single store, a single piece of merchandise or a single smiling partner. Its very on brand for John Lewis - though it has been pointed out already that the oldest its “seven ages of woman” hero gets is around 65. So we never get to the care home stage – or as the bard had it: “second childishness and mere oblivion, sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.”
But I digress. I was seriously impressed by the iPad and I’m sure that it is one more step on the road to the replacement of traditional print media. Although here I have to correct myself because Professor John Naughton taught me a couple of years ago at our Annual Lecture that old media never die, they just learn to adapt to the new ones. He cautioned us against media ‘endism’.
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Posted: May 28th, 2010 | Author: hugh.burkitt | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Annual Conference, Annual Dinner, Hugh Burkitt, ipad | 8 Comments »
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I am sure we have all had quite enough politics in the last couple of weeks, so let’s get back to that other great English obsession – football.
JP Morgan Chase & Co has just produced a lengthy “quantified” report assuring us that England will win the World Cup. A curious PR stunt that will surely further undermine our belief in bankers, and remind us that most business plans are full of spurious quantification.
Everyone knows that English footballers always arrive at the World Cup a) knackered at the end of a long season b) distracted by their publicity hungry WAGS c) carrying long term injuries and d) so hyped up by national expectations that normally dependable footballers are sure to whack their crucial penalty into Row Z, oh and e) we never practice penalties anyway.
This week I observe that the press pack have already turned on our previously highly rated national manager, Fabio Capello, partly to manage our national expectations, but also to start building the bonfire around the stake so that we can all give him a good roasting when England fails to lift the trophy.
In a different part of the football forest, last week I joined the Fulham faithful for a memorable trip to Hamburg for the final of the Europa Cup against Atletico Madrid. We played to perfection the classic British role of gallant loser – by conceding a goal three minutes from the end of extra time. As we trudged back to our convoy of buses to be airlifted out of enemy territory as fast as possible, the only good news I could reflect on was that we didn’t lose on penalties. And for the rest of time I can continue to kid myself that five crafty Fulham players might just have performed better than an equivalent bunch of nervy Spaniards. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted: May 20th, 2010 | Author: hugh.burkitt | Filed under: Leadership Central, Notes from the CEO | Tags: Hugh Burkitt, leadership, team work, the marketing society | 9 Comments »
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Seven Steps to Political Heaven.
Here are seven observations on this election – from a marketer’s point of view. I have tried to be objective – unlike almost all the print media – and will reveal my own vote next week.
1. This election demonstrates the power of television. If the opinion polls have got it right there will be a huge swing to the Liberal Democrats as a result of the TV debates. But will an incumbent PM ever agree to live TV debates again? Should they be written in to our constitution? They have their limitations, and the minority parties -especially the SNP - do seem to me to have a legitimate grievance, but the debates are one hell of an improvement on party political broadcasts.
2. We are all part of a “herd”. Members who have attended our recent “Makes You Think” sessions in London, http://tinyurl.com/25xzb66, will know that we all follow the herd around us. Nick Clegg “wins” the first TV debate. The opinion polls show Lib Dem support shooting up. So voting Lib Dem suddenly becomes much more attractive if people think that others are going to do the same, and that the national total of liberal votes may count for something.
3. Social networking has not proved to be a significant factor. Hurrah.
4. Advertising has again proved unimportant. Posters have been conspicuously present on behalf of the Conservatives and absent on behalf of Labour and Lib Dems. Marketing magazine research correctly confirms that the general public have seen more advertising for the Conservatives than for any other party, but Marketing also say that a third of the people they spoke to believe it has influenced the way they intend to vote. I am sure this is not true. It has – as with so much advertising – merely confirmed an existing prejudice. It is a good example of what John Kearon calls ‘me’ research where respondents are being asked to examine their own motivations and it is hard for them to be accurate in their response. If political advertising were that effective the Conservative party would have an unassailable lead by now, by virtue of their overwhelming advertising share of voice. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted: May 5th, 2010 | Author: hugh.burkitt | Filed under: Leadership Central, Makes You Think, Market Leader, Nice to Know, Uncategorized | Tags: CEO, election, Hugh Burkitt, the marketing society, Vote | Leave a Comment »
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The Marketing Society Star Awards are central to promoting excellence and the vision of helping build a world class marketing community in Scotland. These awards are judged by a wide cross section of senior marketers across most sectors in our community and chaired by our Chief Executive Hugh Burkitt.
The awards night, at The Corn Exchange in Edinburgh on the 21st May, will be a great chance to celebrate making your mark with your colleagues, competitors and clients. And of course, this is your chance to be amongst the first to discover who has won these prestigious awards.
Key Times
Cocktails: 7pm
Awards Ceremony: from 7.30pm
Dinner
Champions Awards after dinner
Band, bar and dancing till 1am
Location
The Corn Exchange
11 Newmarket Road,
Edinburgh,
EH14 1RJ
Posted: April 21st, 2010 | Author: nicci | Filed under: Event, Need to know | Tags: Awards, Edinburgh Corn Exchange, Events, Hugh Burkitt, marketing, Scotland Events | Leave a Comment »
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What would your favourite marketing moment of the past 12 months be?
Was it when Alexsandr the Meerkat got half a million Facebook friends? Or more recently when Twitter came of age as a cloud of tweets descended around the live election TV debate between Brown, Clegg and Cameron? The Virgin Atlantic’s ‘Still Red Hot’ campaign? Vote now by commenting on this post or by messaging us on Twitter – @TheMarketingSoc
The most popular suggestions will be shortlisted at this year’s Marketing Society’s Awards for Excellence with the winner decided by SMS on the night of the awards ceremony on 7 June.
Get voting.
Posted: April 16th, 2010 | Author: hugh.burkitt | Filed under: Customer Champions, Digital, Green, Growth Drivers, Leadership Central, Makes You Think, Market Leader, Need to know, Nice to Know | Tags: Awards for Excellence, Hugh Burkitt, marketing society | 1 Comment »
I was impressed that those elderly cool cats, Stephen Fry and David Hockney, were singing its praises in my free Evening Standard last night. And earlier this week when I called on the delightful Camilla Harrison at the uber-cool offices of M&C Saatchi there was an iPad left on the coffee table in reception for visitors to play with. (Camilla incidentally is in part delightful because she is doing a grand job on the publicity material for this year’s Annual Conference & Dinner at a very competitive rate.)
