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 –...
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....
John Lewis & Partners in the UK has declared 2018 to be the “year of shopping on the move”, citing in their Annual Report how smartphones now account for 42% of visits (up 17 percentage points year on year). Downloads of the John Lewis app...
We’ve talked in this parish before about the gap between promise and experience. Two years ago we called it the expectation gap. I believe that gap is widening and it seems the greater the promise in advertising, the worse the product experience. You may also...
There can be no doubt that programmatic media buying has the potential to change the way brands connect with customers. The promise of more relevant, timely and persuasive communication is intoxicating for a marketer. Coupled with a more efficient media buy and greater transparency, programmatic...
Chess masters don’t focus on the pieces on the board, they look at the empty space for potential moves. Professional footballers don’t look at the player with the ball, they look at the other players moving into position. Amateurs focus ONLY on the pieces, on...
Being a media owner, like being a world leader (or wife of a world leader for that matter), comes with responsibilities. For businesses, it is especially so when using owned media channels to distribute exclusive content that people love. Last week two headlines in the news...
In case you missed it, GDPR is now enforceable as of last Friday. You probably knew it was coming, because your inbox may have experienced an explosion of “We’re Changing our Privacy Policy” emails. Whilst GDPR will affect different business in different ways, all businesses...
The old truism that the company you keep says a lot about you is never more apt than when developing brand partnerships. People are quick to judge, so you have to get it right. Even when you get the brand fit right, there is still...
