Spirit manufacturing in Australia had a period in the sun. But the sun is setting. IBIS World recently reported that over the last 5 years the spirit manufacturing industry grew 3.3% to revenues of around $568M p.a., under some pretty negative circumstances. But the next 5 years have a gloomier outlook with growth forecast at […]
Retail advertising Most retail advertising is so far behind the game it might as well be playing tiddlywinks I’ve written some controversial pieces about advertising, but this might be the most controversial. Why? Is it because I’m going to make a lot of enemies in my competitors? No. It’s because I’m going to make the […]
Marketing & Sausages This article was first printed in The West Australian 25/8/14 The marketing author and social media savant, Gary Vaynerchuck has a saying, “A penguin cannot be a giraffe, so just be the best penguin you can be”. I think this is why I don’t understand why some communications businesses like to add […]
‘Quality, originality and relevance’ are the new Triumvirate of marketing. An article in The Guardian on ‘Google Search Changes’ started with a reminder that ‘Google’s Panda, Penguin and Hummingbird search algorithms affect around 90% of online searches, according to Search Engine Watch. These algorithms strip out “bad searches” – sites stuffed with keywords, duplicated content […]
Marketing Cost: You cannot save your way to success. In 1993 Al Ries and Jack Trout published the seminal marketing text book, ‘The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing (Violate them at your own risk)’. If you are a student of business (every day is a learning day!) you should read it. Aside from some anachronisms […]
The 2015 Sensis Report ‘How Australian people and businesses are using social media’ reported that 37% of large businesses and 80% of small businesses do not have a ‘social media strategy’, with many ‘digital communications and social business strategists’ seeing this as bad news. But like the Curate’s egg, it is both bad and good […]
“A winning marketing strategy is fundamental to building long-term company success”, said a marketing strategist. (Me. Just then). As I wrote that line Warren Buffet’s famous quote, “never ask a barber if you need a haircut, he’ll say yes”, sprung to mind. Assuming you have hair and you don’t want to resemble a homeless person, […]
Brand Development If you are planning on expanding your business, it is crucial you understand the importance of developing your brand to achieve the results you want. Brand development techniques can be implemented by businesses of any size, and can help your business grow even faster and stronger. Here are some more thoughts about brand […]
Marketing is a wide and complicated area of study and, as with other specialities, it takes years of experience and constant study to master. However, the word ‘marketing’ has been overused and generalised in a way that has led some of the tried and tested concepts and tools of marketing to be misused and wrongly […]
Content Marketing is the latest area of marketing communications being promoted as a new opportunity for brands. ‘Content is King’ is a phrase now being used in this area, but what is Content Marketing? Definitions of Content Marketing vary, but let’s use the Content Marketing Association as a starting point: Content Marketing is the […]