In today’s digital world, small is beautiful. Information is delivered in nuggets and bullets, listicles and soundbites, and tweets and snaps. Notifications buzz on our devices and divert us long enough to click and perhaps even like. But what if that moment of communication is just that… a superficial moment? Can bite-size content really do the job if we want to deliver authoritative and nuanced information? Read more…

Tags: Best practices, Buzzfeed, Content Creation, Content Strategy, Viral Content, White paper

My wife is not a fan of washing up, but for a few short weeks, she simply couldn’t resist standing at the kitchen sink, pulling on the Marigolds and plunging her hands into the hot bubbly water. Then, Procter & Gamble stopped producing its limited edition “vintage” bottle of Fairy Liquid – a white cylinder with green and red branding – and sadly, normal service resumed.

On the local high street, a new supermarket opened for business. With a new but very old logo. Intriguingly, after a root and review of its branding, the Co-operative Group has returned to the logo that adorned its stores half a century ago. Graphically, it’s fantastic – a blend of funky typography and minimalism – but it also elicits an emotional response. I almost felt like a boy again, off to buy some R White’s lemonade and a bag of Golden Wonder salt ‘n’ vinegar crisps.

Nostalgia is a powerful marketing tool. It can encourage us all to remember our rose-tinted pasts and to bathe in the warm glow of the good old days when the world was simpler and the sun always shone. It creates an emotional connection between brand and consumer. And it’s beguilingly effective. A simple change in a product’s packaging can turn a daily chore like washing up – into a moment of pleasure. It can make supermarket shopping feel like a trip down memory lane. Read more…

Tags: 90’s Kids, Co-op, co-operative, Coke Hilltop, Fauxstalgia, Memories, Nostalgia, Nostalgia-based Marketing

How political should a company or brand be in today’s post-truth world? After backing American footballer Colin Kaepernick, who famously knelt during the national anthem before a game as a protest against racial injustice, Nike has no doubt. “Believe in something,” demands the latest version of its long-running ‘Just Do It’ campaign. “Even if it means sacrificing everything.” Read more…

Tags: Brand Activism, Controversy, Corporate Social Responsibility, CSR, Marketing, Nike, Strategy

(Image: GETTY)

The four annual golf majors are fantastic sporting occasions but the Ryder Cup, which takes place at Le Golf National in France this weekend, is bigger and better, attracting millions of golf fans, sports fans and even non-fans. The three-day event dominates the headlines – both news and sports – and sends social media into a frenzy of sharing. For a competition that was once only supported by a few die-hards, it is a remarkable renaissance. What lessons can we learn from the success of this iconic contest?

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Tags: Controversy, France, leadership, Less is more, Ryder Cup, Severiano, teamwork, War on the Shore

Corporate communications can be risk-averse and consequently unchallenging, but the objective should often be the opposite – to engage your audience by being thought-provoking and inspirational. Risky, even. By injecting your writing with honest views, spiced with character – and a well-pitched level of controversy – you can engage your readers at a much more fundamental level.

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Tags: Bond Vigilante, Controversial Content Marketing, Corporate Communications

The internet is packed with lists of bite-sized chunks of information that are simplistic clickbait designed to boost traffic, but a well-designed list of great content is a fantastic way to communicate.

From the Ten Commandments to Buzzfeed’s mind-boggling list frenzy, human history is filled with lists that have a fantastic capacity to grab and then focus our attention. Humans, it seems, are hard-wired to engage with lists and that means they are an excellent content marketing tool.

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Tags: blogging, Keywords, Listicles, SEO

The 2018 FIFA World Cup has kicked off in Russia with 32 national teams fighting to win the coveted gold trophy. It is also the ultimate test of global sporting brands and their content strategies. In a tournament dominated by heavyweight spenders we believe there could be some surprise winners on – and off – the pitch.

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Tags: brand, Digital, Football, Marketing, Strategy, World Cup

In the drive to exploit the latest trends in the dynamic world of digital marketing, it is easy to overlook the importance of more traditional parts of the content mix. Like the good old blog, which seems to have been around forever… well almost. The phrase ‘weblog’ was first used by Jorn Barger in 1997 before Peter Marholz broke it down two years later into ‘we blog’ and transformed the way we think about communicating forever.

‘Blog’ may not be the most beautiful of new words, but it displays a fundamental marketing benefit – it does, like a trusty pot of Rustin’s varnish, what it says on the tin. There is no shortage of content types to exploit today, from the infographic to the video, but we think it’s important all businesses ensure their 2018/19 blogging strategy is spot on.

For starters, if you have an active website blog, you have a 434% higher chance of being ranked highly on search engines, according to Tech Client, and B2B marketers using blogs generate 67% more leads than those who don’t. Compared to expensive banner ads, which so few people click these days, a blog is an amazing value. As AJ Agrawal, an entrepreneur and marketer who helps start-ups and Fortune 500 companies optimize their growth channels, declared in Forbes: “Marketers who prioritize blogging are more likely to have a positive ROI than those who don’t.”

Here are ten more reasons.
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Tags: blogger, business blogs, Content, influencer

As the dust settles after an enthralling 2018 Masters golf tournament is it time for marketing executives to reflect on a golfing – and Augusta – truism: that less is more?

Every year, an exclusive field of the world’s finest golfers compete on Augusta’s beautifully manicured course to use fewer shots than the competition in a bid to win a green jacket. The prize money? No-one mentions it. This is the Masters and – dazzling azaleas, verdant fairways and super-blue lakes aside – understatement rules.

But it is not just on the course that less is more. At Augusta, the less the merrier is also true when it comes to the sensitive process of choosing sponsors. At most leading golf tournaments around the world, the target is to collect a long list of big brand names – it’s easy to find space for another logo on a sprawling 18-hole golf course.

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The Super Bowl is a glitzy sports and entertainment phenomenon that guarantees a viewership of 100 million in the United States alone. This year’s show at the US Bank Stadium in Minneapolis, Minnesota – a heady mix of American football and Justin Timberlake, the half-time entertainment – will dwarf other media highlights of the year. Even the Oscars with its red-carpet celebrity and Hollywood glamour only attracts 30 million. Read more…

Tags: Advertising, Big Game, Content Marketing, Super Bowl