 Mýrdalsjökull, Iceland |
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| October
2007 Tuesday 30th October 2007 I have to pay tribute to Martin (aka Pansy-San) - pictured, above left, who is now living in Japan, and producing particularly fine press ads ads promoting his language courses. I was also quite fond of the ad below his, and can't help wondering if Martin managed to negotiate some kind of 'bulk ad' deal with the newspaper in question...
Friday 26th October 2007
Soprano: Isabel Bayrakdarian, Sinfonietta Cracovia,
conducted by John Axelrod. Thursday 25th October 2007 Sunday 21st October 2007
An amazing show staged on the side of the Brunswick Centre on Friday night: Light Touch - with Scarabeus and SnakeOil.
The Foundling
Museum on the north side of Brunswick Square. Sunday 14th October 2007
Stuart: A Life Backwards traces Stuart's existence, back through homelessness, prison and drug-addiction to an abusive childhood, to the symbolic moment of transformation from "a happy-go-lucky little boy into the nightmare Clockwork Orange figure of the last few decades". Told with wit and fondness, Masters describes his book as a memoir of a friendship. Stuart never got to read the book; he was killed by a train in 2002. The question as to whether his death was suicide or an accident remains. Listen
to an interview with Alexander Masters carried
out by Sarah Crown from Guardian Unlimited. Saturday 13th October 2007 Last week I
sent in some pictures to the lookalike section on Radio
4's Saturday Live website. My campaign
to highlight the fact that they are, in fact, one and the same person
gathered momentum when Fi
Glover mentioned the remarkable similarity
during a discussion about the paparazzi on this morning's programme.
Well, have you ever seen them in the same room? WELL
HAVE YOU? Friday 12th October 2007
Companies are operating in a changed environment. We’ve left behind the ‘knowledge economy’ where advice from management consultants was all pervasive, we’ve also progressed through the ‘media economy’ where media owners controlled what we see and what we don’t see. We now find ourselves in the ‘ideas economy’ where peer-produced information is aggregated and published in real time. This has resulted in a shift of the traditional power-base, putting consumers themselves at the centre of this trend. Much of this consumer empowerment has been as a direct result of the participatory web tools and services that have come with the advent of web 2.0. From blogs, forums and message boards to online news, consumer reviews, articles and features, media has become uber-democratised with content creators becoming the power brokers. Web 2.0 has shifted consumers from being ‘end-users’ to active participants in content, and therefore knowledge creation. The web has transformed from a mere information source to a massive databank of reviews, advice and customer experiences. And Consumer 2.0 wields a great deal of power. People are talking constantly about brands on the Internet, and information travels fast. People write about experiences, and these opinions are quickly indexed by search engines.
People form groups based on shared interests, they talk and share experiences, and it is this aggregation of many individual consumer experiences that enables the network to see itself as a community, forming a unified collective intelligence. And it is this collective intelligence that has reorganised the relationship between producers and consumers. Negative word of mouth is generally regarded to be 10 times more powerful than that which is positive, and people are much more likely to write about bad experiences than good. Research shows that people research the net extensively before making a buying decision – and, be it right or wrong, they believe what they read. The nature of the web is also that opinion is often sold as objective fact – there is no editorial compass to substantiate fact from fiction, and due to the wildly replicating nature of the Internet, the negative views of a vocal minority can easily be mistaken as fact. For firms operating in competitive markets, especially those that have matured to the point at which brand outweighs tangible product features, the advent of Consumer 2.0 is mission critical. Mass marketing is becoming a fast outdated concept. Traditional approaches to understanding customers and communicating with them are inadequate to form a strong, distinctive, bridge with the individualistic, wary and discerning Customer 2.0. To compete effectively, a new approach is needed, one that reveals the inner values of the firm and translates them into a competitive advantage.
This shift has gone from mass marketing to building trusting relationships, from ‘push’ to ‘pull’. Engaging with Consumer 2.0 will involve companies re-evaluating their strategic and operative brand management. The transition from marketing to collaborating will mean brands will need to appeal to attitudes and emotions rather than demographics. Many companies are now learning from global e-traders such as Amazon and ebay, for whom consumer participation is now seen as an essential element of commercial success. Such retailers have acknowledged the fact that their customers are bargain seekers, opinionated reviewers, and are on a mission to find the best of the best. The first step in being equipped to cater for Consumer 2.0 is intelligence – a company needs to get under the skin of Consumer 2.0, identify their ‘best’ customers, and then research what pushes their buttons. The next stage is listening to, and then creating a dialogue with them. A company should aim to create a community of loyal brand advocates, and then give them the tools to share. Making the brand stand out from the crowd is the next step - Not only is Consumer 2.0 more media-savvy and cynical of traditional marketing, they are also overwhelmed with a plethora of brands from which to choose. A re-evaluation of a company’s Customer Relationship Management is also a part of the process – listening processes should be put in place, and Consumer 2.0 is ignored at a company’s peril. Feedback should be acknowledged and acted upon. A crucial element of this is a brand’s web presence – no longer should a website be regarded as ‘add on’ to the marketing plan, but should be used as a fundamental source of communication, information and customer feedback. The delivery then needs to match up to the brand promise. Companies need to behave ethically and transparently. Many brands who have engaged in deceptive marketing techniques such as fake blogs or testimonials from manufactured customers are quickly exposed.
Sunday 7th october 2007 Saturday 6th october 2007 They were discussing lookalikes on Radio 4's Saturday Live this morning. Here's my contribution.
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