Monthly Archives: August 2010

Aug 12 2010
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Fun Stuff

cor blimey guvner

Now that I’m working for a London agency I’ve been practising my rhyming slang in order to localise my talents.

It’s taking a while as cockneys tend to talk at breakneck speed and generally lay on a thick rather loud accent however, I thought I’d share my newly developed wisdom with you in the event that you may one day need to switch to being a dab hand cockney next time you’re coordinating a meeting with a suvner…

So…

Lesson 1

‘Can we have a team meeting to talk through the presentation ahead of tomorrow please?’

Translates into:

‘Awright geeezzaa! gok wan we ‘ave a team meetin’ ter charlie chalk fruff da presentashun ahead ov tomorrow please? Sorted mate’

Lesson 2

‘Please would you order a suitably posh lunch for an important client to arrive for noon in the boardroom tomorrow? Thank you.’

This took a while to understand but what I should really be asking is:

‘Blimey! ‘Bell Cheese (I spluttered slightly at this point) would you order a suitably posh brady bunch fer an impawtan’ clien’ ter arrive fer noon in da boardroom tomorrow? Thank you.’. Nuff said, yeah?’

And lastly, but I find most importantly when you’re new to a team…

Lesson 3

‘Would anybody like a cup of tea and a scone?’

This one I definitely need to get right:

‘Blimey! Would anybody like a cup ov bertie mee an’ a scone? Nuff said, yeah?’

I’m sure there’ll be more to follow, for now I’m going practise my accent and then I’m michael owen ferbrady bunch wiv a couple ov da diamonds and pearls, innit.

Laters!

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Aug 09 2010
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Client questions answered, Content, Debates and Discussion points, strategy

What makes a good launch strategy?

Products flop all the time, fact.

Ok, maybe a negative start to a blog post but mulling over the recent failure that was Google Wave and deciding the over demonstrated, under communicated approach to launch it didn’t help, I decided to consider what makes a product launch successful.

One of the most common mal-practices is not targeting the right consumers. By not focusing on who you’re trying to engage specifically and aiming at a generic platform you weaken your strategy. So rule number one is (hopefully not surprisingly) understand your core market.

I’m assuming at this stage your product is tailored specifically to your core market and that you have based it upon insights and research from the start (if you haven’t, maybe consider this more before going any further).

So next up, what is the USP for your product? How will buying this product improve your consumers’ life? How can you emotionally connect with your consumer to inspire them to buy this product?

The answers to these questions will form your message; it’s likely you’ve thought of this as you develop the product but, tip number three is really about keeping the message consistent.

Every ad you serve, page you create, email you send, needs to deliver this message. Keep it clear, concise and constant.

So you’ve got that bit nailed, next you need to think about when, where and how you’re going to wow your audience with this amazing unique message. Where are your audience and how can you get the message to them (note I haven’t said how you can get them to the message). Map out your landscape and look at the best touch points to deliver your message.

And remember, once you have launched the product into market, there is no turning back so make sure you get it right or you’ll join the Coors bottled water, Cocaine energy drink and Bic underwear failures pile.

Who? What? I hear you say… my point exactly.

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Aug 03 2010
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Debates and Discussion points, Mobile

Privacy v’s Security

In a world where we’re connected to each other, quite often by several ways at once, the most talked about topic at the moment seems to be how to balance our privacy with security.

The company behind Blackberry smartphones recently released a statement ensuring their customers that data was indeed private and protected but, internet security experts say that protecting our privacy is a growing battle against the demands for access to the communications occurring across networks.

You can maybe understand how governments might justify the need to tap into certain watched individuals but they do that anyway don’t they? Why do they need to know what I thought of  ‘the film last night’ or ‘which route I took to work’? Feeling exposed? Well it’s certainly getting Joe Public up in arms.

Communications companies and service providers appear to be on the side of the consumer with a growing volume of content being encrypted (Google mail recently undertook a lot of work after big trouble in China) but as this information starts being distributed for intelligence how long before our every move, exchange and decision is open source?

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