Ciao Signor Capello. Come sta, signore?*

by neil.cowan on February 5, 2010

People buy people, we always say. Unlike magnets, in our business like poles attract. Shared values, same views, similar likes and dislikes and social norms…it all helps create that essential feeling of comfortable ‘common ground’ between individuals.

Or chemistry as we like to call it, here.

Better business relationships and deals for mono-glottal Brits abroad, for example, are often said to result from those few Brits capable of speaking just a few words in the foreign host’s own language and knowing just a little bit about their cultural values. Like not blowing your nose on a hanky and putting it in your pocket, in Japan. Or HSBC’s airport and TV ads which used to proclaim their knowledge of how to do business successfully worldwide as a result of knowing the similarities and differences that united or divided countries. [click to continue…]

Motorway Voterways

27 January 2010

Intelligent marketing hasn’t always been about dumbing down.

Profiling and creating a manageable number of representative consumer ‘personas’ (sometimes a bit stereotyped, admittedly) serve to render the complex task of audience selection simple by grouping people into recognisable cohorts who may share the same attributes, values and other cultural / commercial reference points. Phew! All based [...]

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Sweet dreams

20 January 2010

Newspaper headlines — if anyone still reads them — used to be about serious things such as the weather, a shortage of unnecessary flu vaccines, The X Factor, etc.
But we’ve moved on. Now, despite the world’s problems, chocolate has taken pole position. We’re all worried about Cadbury’s. Or rather we were.
So have I missed something? [...]

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Whatever dismisses your brand

19 January 2010

Kellogg’s and Kodak, two of the world’s best known examples of branding, were born in the 1880s and 1890s. One good, one not so good, you might say. But both stumbled on something only verified much later: that guttural sounds (like ‘k’) seem to exert significant influence. As do repeated consonants…Coca Cola, Google, Kit-Kat,

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Zeroes heroes

13 January 2010

Snow. It’s not all bad. It’s not just about getting gridlocked in Guildford, stuck  in Sussex or frozen in Farnborough.  Snow is good. Here’s why.
First footprints in the snow. Like new tyres, big deep tread-marks. Neat and crisp and even.
That was me. This morning. Trekking across the car-free agency courtyard to be the first in [...]

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10 for 2010

7 January 2010

Hey, because everyone’s at it, I might as well have a go, too. So here’s my thoughts on 2010. Not digital, not marketing, not even very serious. Just some more thoughts to add to the mountains of stuff already out there. So here goes:

Bird flu came and went. We’re doing OK with pig flu. We’ll [...]

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High anxiety

17 December 2009

It may no longer be cool to say that, in business, there are no problems, just opportunities. But for British Airways, it seems there are just problems.
Sadly, when you spend a little bit of time on trying to unpick Unite’s threatened 12-day strike this Christmas, whoever your airline favourites are, you can start to have [...]

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Write on

4 December 2009

As everyone knows, letter-writing is dead. All that junk mail. All those bills. All that clutter landing on my doormat / in my postbox.
It’s not that we’ve lost the ability to write. Well, not totally. It’s not the constant post strikes. It’s not even that email has replaced old-fashioned letter-writing. No…writing letters is just too [...]

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Paid-for advertising

30 November 2009

So, at last newspapers are gonna have a crack at charging us if we want to see stuff online. It’s Johnston Press today but if drum-banging Rupert Murdoch’s wishes are fulfilled it’ll be News Corp tomorrow.
The give-it-away-free model that’s supposed to attract eyeballs that’s supposed to attract advertising that’s supposed to help monetise the business was [...]

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Wanted: more hooligans

24 November 2009

Football is supposed to be a gentlemen’s game played by hooligans. Well, I’d like to put in a good word for the the Wigan Athletic hooligans who are now refunding their 565 travelling supporters’ money.  On this basis, I wish there were more hooligans in the world. Thierry Henry’s always been considered as one of [...]

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Good news is bad news.

16 November 2009

Bad news is a big turn off. Terrorist attacks, the global crash, the Middle East,  the shortage of ginger in China, Manchester United losing 1-0 at home. The bigger and badder it gets, the more we just want to cover our eyes and plug our ears. So off with the TV. Or radio. Or skip [...]

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