Category archive: Personal

Friday, April 28, 2006

How to refuse profitable business, part X: Truly bad telecoms marketing

I wrote a column in the 3GPortal about an extremely bad marketing example from the UK, with one of my mobile phone accounts with one of the UK mobile operators. I didn’t mention the operator, that would be unfair, as these kinds of mistakes are commonplace all throughout the mobile operator community. But the story is illustrative of how bad telecoms marketing is still today in 2006 in even such a modern and competitive market as the UK.

Without getting to the specifics of the telecoms profits, customer care info, etc details that are in the column (which is written obviously for telecoms professionals), let me keep it on a more general level here to summarize the story.

"How to refuse profitable business, part X: Truly bad telecoms marketing" continued...

Monday, April 17, 2006

Exbrayat: An author's (posthumous) blog

The grandfather of my fiancé (and EA advisory board member), Antoine Clarke, was a famous French writer known simply as Exbrayat. He invented the genre of the humorous detective novel and wrote more than 100 books (plus several plays and films), on which his first name, Charles, never appeared. You can read more about him here, at the Exbrayat blog that Antoine and I set up yesterday.

We hope the blog will be something very special for Exbrayat’s fans. We will be adding more never before published family photographs, podcasts, and other goodies for fans as time permits. For Antoine’s mother, who has always been very publicity shy and has refused all interview requests, it’s a genuine case of blogging and social media as DIY PR - actually conversing with the public, bypassing the traditional media owned by others in order to speak directly with the people who really count, on a platform owned by the family. The network that nobody owns is a million times more valuable and useful to the family than any other.

May 5th would have been Exbrayat’s 100th birthday, and we’ll all be heading to France soon for the various Exbrayat centenary celebrations in that country. Antoine and I will be taking photos there for the blog, as well as noting the family’s observations on the events in France. And yes, we’ll be doing it in English. 

Sunday, April 09, 2006

Brand hatred = brand love

Nishad at oneangrycustomer writes:

[M]any FMCG brands are in a constant battle, even against supermarket brands, because they have gone out to appeal to the widest demographic possible and rarely to a tightly knit core group who could be true evangelists for the brand and the company.

Thanks in large part to my blogging, I have developed a personal brand. There are people who hate that brand (that is to say, they hate me). They disagree with what I say, how I say it, and why I say it. I can say without hesitation that I wear the hatred of such people as a badge of honour. When I look at the ones who love me, I know I’ve cultivated the right crowds.

How about you and your company?

Brand hatred = brand love

Nishad at oneangrycustomer writes:

[M]any FMCG brands are in a constant battle, even against supermarket brands, because they have gone out to appeal to the widest demographic possible and rarely to a tightly knit core group who could be true evangelists for the brand and the company.

Thanks in large part to my blogging, I have developed a personal brand. There are people who hate that brand (that is to say, they hate me). They disagree with what I say, how I say it, and why I say it. I can say without hesitation that I wear the hatred of such people as a badge of honour. When I look at the ones who love me, I know I’ve cultivated the right crowds.

How about you and your company?

Friday, March 31, 2006

Blog blindfolds should have no place in business

Last night at a dinner for my day job as Head of Marketing for the UK’s largest search engine marketing company, some of the attendees (from the online dating sector) were discussing their companies’ fear surrounding blogging. They know they’ve got to get in on this somehow, but they’re not sure quite how, and they are very afraid of ‘giving up control’.

As I said last night, it is natural that these companies are afraid: By and large, they have little idea of what they are getting into. Plunging in without an understanding of this space is ill-advised at best. The good news is, if they do endeavour to gain that understanding, and figure out how to control what they can and let the rest bring them benefits, there is really nothing to be afraid of. I have yet to encounter a business that understood this space, moved into it, and lived to regret it.