Recently walking past a coffee shop in Melbourne I saw this sign: Coffee $5 Coffee please $4 The first thing it reminded me of was my mother nagging me as a child of the importance of always saying please when you ask for something. The second, a much...
First-up, this post has nothing to do with Harry and Meghan. You see, there was another high-profile royal event that occurred in 2018 (just not as photogenic) and it’s being hailed as the reason for a “patchy” Christmas retail period. Last year’s Royal Commission into Banking...
According to the esteemed UK publication Marketing Week, the primary media trend for 2019 is growth of owned media monetisation in ecommerce. Zenith predict it will add around $100bn of new money into the global advertising market next year. If it follows a similar path...
Ethical consumerism recognises that every purchase decision comes with a moral choice. Retail brands have to continually improve their sustainability and ethical practices because, in many ways, shopping is the purest expression of morality and, some believe, is more important than voting. Think I’m kidding?...
A hugely significant year (they just seem to keep getting bigger!), here is our review of what just happened through our unique lens: McDonalds, Commonwealth Bank and Sainsbury’s all saw material growth exclusively from owned media We were all shocked into paying more attention to...
In our highly connected economy, where trust and relationships are central, convergence has become a driving force shaping our lives. Convergence is the coming together of multiple separate entities, technologies, functions, experiences or groups. In the tech world, convergence often relates to the fusion of...
Many retailers talk the talk when it comes to effectively using their data to drive marketing solutions. Few have demonstrated evidence of actually doing so and achieving incremental sales. UK supermarket Sainsbury's stand out for doing exactly that. The granularity of loyalty programme data has long...
They say mistakes are the best way to learn. I’m not so sure about that, but mistakes definitely make for memorable lessons. Back in the late nineties, I began my first job in media buying. Essentially, learning how to spend a lot of money –...
Giving? No, in the world of retail, it’s about sales. There is a growing sense that this year, retailers are focusing on providing valued experiences in-store rather than over-investing in expensive advertising to get people through the door. This is hardly surprising in a climate of...
Everyone in business knows the importance of a clearly defined strategy, even though it is often eaten for breakfast by culture, according to Peter Drucker. It sometimes seems like culture and strategy are polar. That the two can never coexist. That they are combative. Divergent....