MarCom Professional

Yesterday in London, Jonathan MacDonald chaired an excellent day at the IIR mobile content conference in London - and also had a major announcement.

He mentioned that on the 8th December 2008 he will retire his existing presentation deck: - Volume 1: The Communication ideal.  On the 9th December 2008, he starts his new journey Vol 2. No Way Back From Here.

I have re-posted Jonathan’s explanation below - which can also be found on his blog.

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On the 8th of December in Helsinki I will close the Communication Ideal Phase of the ‘Every Single One Of Us‘ movement. More...

What follows is the unedited version of my latest post for TechCrunch, "Is Obama Ready To Be a Two-Way President."


Source: Barack Obama's flickr stream

Where there’s victory, there’s also opportunity…

America voted while the entire world watched and listened. Whether you supported Obama or McCain, we equally shared the hope for positive change and a new beginning towards a brighter future. This Presidential election was the first in 50 years, in which there was no incumbent President or Vice President from either party competing for the Presidential nomination. More...

Sizzle It! exclusively produces sizzle reels for public relations, marketing and advertising professionals, and they'll buy you breakfast for telling your friends

New York City, NY (November 12, 2008) -- Sizzle It! is the first company to offer specialized expertise in the production of sizzle reels. The company aims to become the go-to source for creative, engaging and effective sizzle reels and promo videos. Sizzle It's management team has over 20 years of experience and a dedication to making clients' lives easier. Their clients include several high profile organizations such as Blue Man Group, NBC Universal, CBS, Hewlett-Packard, the Eric Trump Foundation and many top public relations, marketing and advertising firms. More...

Further evidence that consumer confidence is taking a beating emerged this week and made me think more about what this will mean for marketers operating in a depressed commercial environment.

My previous post alluded to the need to adjust marketing and PR strategies to take into account the fact that none of us are going to feel particularly flush in the next 12 months, and how this might impact on the habits of the great British public. I had dinner with some friends earlier this week and realised that talk of us spending more time at home (and less time spending money on the high street) isn't just theory - it's happening now!

Two out of three have spent the last two weekends at home, one has installed Sky Broadband so that she can download music and movies and, she says, order takeaway. More...

Consumers are never happy unless you give them what they really want

In another recent post, Seth Godin commented on how consumers are never happy, but are constantly demanding freebies, updates and product improvements from businesses.

Seth suggests you can continue feeding the demands of unhappy customers, as though trying to buy a spoilt child’s affection, or you can give them what they really want: a sense of connection, to feel appreciated and loved.

Generic mass marketing cannot make people feel special or loved. Email blasting the same message to every customer is like sending a bulk message to your entire address book at Christmas, when what they really want is a personal message in an individually addressed card. More...

An interesting campaign for Pepsi in Latin America turned up in my inbox this week.

Pepsi’s “Kung Fu Fighting” Widget is a mobile software application that is part of an international TV ad campaign for the Pepsi brand and beverages that began airing last week in Latin America.

Pepsi’s TV commercial for “Kung Fu Fighting” features modern remakes of the 1974 funk classic “Kung Fu Fighting,” and centres on a light-hearted competition to win the last can of Pepsi. In an attempt to secure the can, people break out in a freestyle dance-off to the sounds of “Kung Fu Fighting,” as remastered by Grammy-award winning artists Shaggy and T-Pain, along with hot new female recording artist Tami Chynn. More...

Congratulations to President-Elect Obama - an historic victory. But part of his success may be down to a psychological phenomenon known as "contextual priming". A study performed last year revealed that the building you vote in has an effect on who you decide to vote for.

In essence, the context of our surroundings affects our thinking. People voting in schools, for instance, are more likely to vote for a candidate who supports extra school spending - no matter what their political allegiance. Previous research has shown that the context of advertising also matters. Both the words and the visual images in advertisements have greater effect if they are in context. More...

Search agency bigmouthmedia is kicking arse this morning with a wonderful piece of Guerrilla PR. It’s surveyed the top 100 PR agencies in the UK and reckons that the industry is ill equipped to deliver digital services. It reckons that 79% of firms have yet to develop a set of online and social media services.

bigmouthmedia also takes a crack at agencies that haven’t got a blog, presumably on the basis that you need a blog to understand blogging. 89% are failing to publish their own blogs.

I’d love to see a list of firms that bigmouth media reckons aren’t up to muster. We haven’t launched a digital team at Rainier PR per se so maybe we’d be named and shamed. More...