Why bother to write?
Last week I was copied on an email one of my clients sent to a now former supplier. It was polite, respectful, thanking them for their service, and wishing them well. What struck me immediately was that it was not in the ‘voice’ of my client. A moment later, I...
Great minds do not think alike.
‘Great minds think alike’ is a common saying. Sometimes it might be right but the greater value of having a few great minds in the one place exchanging views is the fact that they will bring different ideas, values, backgrounds, and depth of knowledge to...
How to ruin a great idea
Ideas are usually great because they do one of two things, sometimes both: They focus on a deep and genuine need, obvious or not, to the casual observer. They remove a problem that causes irritation. Great ideas have a common characteristic: they are focussed....
The secret of successful coaching.
As a kid I was a reasonable tennis player, having been coached by an expert and playing competitively from a relatively young age. Nothing outstanding, just competitive at a district level. Aged about 16, my father who had been an outstanding player and myself...
The two drivers of Brand Salience
The best place to start this discussion is some sort of definition of ‘Brand Salience’. To me it is the extent to which your brand comes to mind. This might be unprompted, as in ‘what brands of beer can you name? That first question may be followed with a...
How fast can the development beat of AI become?
November 30, 2022, will be remembered as the day AI was unleashed upon a largely unsuspecting world. Dall-E had been around for some months, but it was OpenAI's launch of ChatGPT that opened the floodgates. Yesterday, November 6, 2023, OpenAI announced they are...
The six essential copywriting tips.
Over the course of writing 2,500 plus blog posts and many articles and presentations while reading widely on the advice to copywriters, usually published by those desperately seeking to sell some sort of course, the commonality of advice is clear. Without an...
Are FMCG brands facing an extinction event?
When I was a boy in this business, back in the seventies, having a brand was table stakes to be in the game. At that time, there were a number of supermarket chains, and every one was stocked with a suppliers proprietary branded product. There were many...
Is Dunbar’s number still relevant?
Throughout human evolution, we have existed in small groups, tribes and clans. Individuals have worked together for the common good of the small tribe, and often, perhaps most often, been at odds with the tribe across the river. British anthropologist Robin...
What SME management should know before investing in chasing government grants
Most SME's I meet have at one time or another contemplated, and often invested considerable resources in the quest to obtain public grant funds. Rarely do they approach this exercise with any understanding of the disconnect between the way the commercial...