There was an interesting article in The New York Times about ‘The Cost of Paying Attention‘. And why that is a problem. Not so much for those in need of attention, but for the people paying attention, that it consumes the very necessary time need to think and be creative: “Attention is a resource; aContinue reading “Attention is becoming a scarce resource”
Category Archives: consumer
Too much plumbing. Too little poetry.
We live in a world driven by data and although we probably don’t even understand half of it or don’t even bother to look into it as we should, decisions aren’t taken unless they can be fully rationalized. As Rishad Tobaccowala mentioned in a recent post: “In marketing we worship the algorithm and its superiority toContinue reading “Too much plumbing. Too little poetry.”
An ‘audience’ is an organisational convenience from a broadcast age
Activities not audiences. Russell Davies wrote an interesting post about how organizations are thriving upon ‘marketing thinking’ and how digital breaks most of that traditional thinking for good. It’s not about technology, it’s about a change of mind. “An ‘audience’ is an organisational convenience from a broadcast age. It’s a reasonable way of segmenting theContinue reading “An ‘audience’ is an organisational convenience from a broadcast age”
The strategy is delivery: it’s not complicated, it’s just hard
Neil Perkin does many interesting things. One of those things is organizing the so called “Google Firestarters” which he curates for Google UK. Last Monday he had invited Russell Davies, planning legend and now creative director at GDS, to come and talk about his learnings and insights working on GOV.uk. Fascinating talk, well worth crossingContinue reading “The strategy is delivery: it’s not complicated, it’s just hard”
Design is not just what it looks like. It’s how it works.
Design. Is Apple losing focus on one of it’s most essential unique strengths? For a big test we did for Belgian Cowboys recently some members on the editorial team including myself switched from iOS to Android for a while. Not just to see if we liked it or not but also to find out ifContinue reading “Design is not just what it looks like. It’s how it works.”
The Ironic Effect. Why you might fail because of your best effort.
Why you sometimes make the problem worse by trying too hard to fix it. Interesting article from Oliver Burkeman over on The Guardian: From weight loss to fundraising, ‘ironic effects’ can sabotage our best-laid plans. The great Harvard psychologist Dan Wegner, who died earlier this year , wrote a famous article entitled ‘How To Think, Say,Continue reading “The Ironic Effect. Why you might fail because of your best effort.”
Dare to say ‘focus on the consumer’ one more time
[Rant alert] Seriously. I’ve had it with this gratuitous expression. I get it, we all get it by now don’t we? There’s no reason for every presentation to feature a slide with this so called knowledge and then someone in the audience will tweet it and it’ll definitely generate a few retweets. And every timeContinue reading “Dare to say ‘focus on the consumer’ one more time”
Big data, big promise
Big data is the whole grail of marketing. And yet not many is actually making lots of progress. There’s a good good on that captures well what the state of big data is if you ask me: “Big Data is like teenage sex. Everybody talks about it. Few do it and they do it inContinue reading “Big data, big promise”
Is your smartphone becoming too smart for its own good?
The feature phone. A ‘new’ name for something that exists for a long time already just so we can differentiate it from the more recent forms or versions, as so called retronym. Because that’s what it is, for people my age we used to refer to the feature phone just as a mobile or cellContinue reading “Is your smartphone becoming too smart for its own good?”
Who are you?
Customer centric. Customer focus. I’ve heard it so many times, I’ve seen it written on dozens of business missions or as part of a brand’s values. Yet, I don’t believe it. Because quite frankly if you think about the business decision process within companies, which topics do you reckon come first on the list? ThoseContinue reading “Who are you?”
