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Things are getting pinteresting...
In hyper-speed social media terms Pinterest has been a bit of a slow burner for some brands as they have struggled to work out how best to use the platform to connect with their consumers and meet their business objectives. But as the site has passed the 20 million users milestone and is now beating Twitter, StumbleUpon, Bing, and Google in referral traffic, it’s becoming hard for any forward-thinking brand to ignore. Read more...
Striving for a Staycation?
Despite the disappointingly damp summer we are experiencing, I am delighted to continue to see so many visitors to our region. Being lucky enough to live near, and work with, the New Forest National Park it never fails to surprise me how many thousands of people flock to enjoy the Forest year after year. This is something we should all embrace, not only in terms of a sense of pride that our corner of the country is such a big draw to overseas as well as domestic visitors, but also because of the huge financial return the tourism industry brings to our region, especially in these hard times.
‘Staycations’ in this Olympic and Jubilee year are big business. According to Visit England, 2011 saw 5% more domestic holidays in England than in 2010, and this is set to grow by another 4% into 2012. Huge marketing budgets are being pumped into attracting the holiday maker to spend their hard-earned funds here rather than head off in search of sun beyond our shores. A poll undertaken by budget hotel chain Travelodge recently claimed 41% plan to holiday in the UK this year resulting in tourist industry earnings hitting £8.7bn – up by £1.5bn. Read more ...
Lessons learnt from the woman asking for money on my train
Last week, a woman who looked down on her luck boarded my crowded Overground train into central London at 8am and addressed the carriage with a long rambling story about her battle with drugs and her struggle to build herself a better life, after which she squeezed her way through the carriage asking each person for money. Not a single person gave her any (me included) and most people would not even meet her eye, yet I’m sure many of them might have wanted to help had the pitch been made differently. It got me to thinking about what was wrong with her approach and what basic communications lessons could be learnt in terms of achieving desired behaviour outcomes... Read more
What's the problem with Facebook?
When Facebook went to the stock exchange there was an air of optimism. Not too much I’ll grant you but some, certainly nobody expected a collapse although some investors were cautious.
The resounding sound of the dotcom bubble bursting would still have been in the ears of some large institutional investors and here was a company, known around the world but largely unproven as a business model, Facebook listed with a valuation of $108bn, some 100 times its revenue, a valuation level unheard of in regular financing. Read more
Carry on Screaming
During these austere times few people can have failed to notice the eye-watering sum that Norwegian artist Edvard Munch’s iconic The Scream artwork fetched at Sotheby’s.
Whilst the art world is punctuated with multi-million dollarmoments in the spotlightlike this (rememberVan Gogh's Sunflowers anyone?) for me the auction raised two questions.
Firstly, that perennial dilemma faced by PRs - how do you measure value? And secondly, shouldn’t Sotheby’s marketeers receive more recognition for their part in achieving this feat? Read more
Apprentices get to work
Across the country, trainees from the construction industry will this month be competing in the hope of reaching the final of the largest annual multi-trade competition, SkillBuild. The highest scoring trainees from the final will go on to compete at WorldSkills Madrid 2015. As an apprentice, this is the biggest event in the calendar and provides an opportunity for them to showcase their skills to their employers as well as friends and family. In these difficult economic times it is truly great to see so many employers year after year supporting this competition and rewarding the hard work of the trainees and apprentices.
