Filed under //
content strategy
Oct 14
Could marketing exist in a zero-growth economy?
Watching The Light Bulb Conspiracy today (thanks Adam) has resurfaced a question that has been eating me for a while:
Could marketing exist in a zero-growth economy?
The film outlines how planned obsolescence - building products with a reduced lifespan - is intrinsically linked to consumerism and the growth economy. Our markets depend on it to create the pace of consumption demanded by the growth model.
For so many industries, especially the one I work in now, growth is so much a part of the fabric of business that it's practically invisible. Decoupling our practices from growth has been, almost literally, unthinkable.
But given that we are crashing against some of the limits to all this growth - social, environmental and economic - it's now the limits themselves that are getting harder to ignore.
So, given that 'marketing' is itself being turned inside out by social media, could whatever's left be put to work in support of achieving a different kind of prosperity?
Or is its destiny, like that of many other modern inventions, wholly tied to the structure that invented it?
Oct 5
I bought one T-shirt from Vistaprint and all I got was this lousy spam
So I bought a T-shirt from Vistaprint in August. I wanted a gimmicky slogan across my chest while I attended CS Forum.
It cost around £20, and was delivered on time. While unlikely to be seen thronging the catwalks of Milan next season, it bought me a little cheap attention ahead of my talk on content strategy for the social web. Job done.
Now like any capable digital retailer, Vistaprint sent me confirmation of my order and a receipt, via email. They also notified me when the T-shirt was dispatched. Three emails. All good.
But then: the spamathon.
It began on 30 August, before I’d even received my T-shirt. I got a message saying “Charles , Your offer is ready for dispatch”, even though I’d already had a message telling me my order had been shipped.
Confused, I opened it – and found that it was actually a selection of offers. Crafty devils - they got me to open that one.
Um, I’ll decide when I want to do my businesses, thanks
The next day I got an email offering me 500 free business cards and a bunch of other stuff. The same came through again a couple of days later.
Two days after that, I got a message saying “Confirmation of September's Package for Charles Peverett”. I’d twigged by then - just another sales message. I win! The same day they sent a request for feedback on my T-shirt order, which I duly ignored as suspected spam.
And so it went on. A month on from my order, I’ve had 22 emails from Vistaprint. Fully enough to justify a pie chart:
I’ve been
· thanked for my loyalty (to recap, I bought the one T-shirt)
· given ‘VIP access’
· designated a ‘valued customer’
The cognitive dissonance created around my experience of buying one T-shirt leads me to an inevitable conclusion: I’m being targeted for divestment.
It’s a fair cop. I only ordered one item. I’m sorry. I promise not to do it again.
Oct 4
On content strategy, loveable fools and organisational change: Karen McGrane at CS Forum 2011
Inspirational - one of the highlights of CS Forum 2011.
Watch all the way through for mentions of 'metadata as the new art direction', NPR's multi-platform publishing API vs Conde Nast's bespoke iPad editions, and for the Harvard Business School research on the role of competent jerks vs loveable fools in organisations.
Sep 13
Content strategy for the social web - slides from my CS Forum presentation
via slideshare.net
Your thoughts welcome, of course.
Filed under //
content strategy
editorial
Aug 25
Jeremy Keith - One Web
via vimeo.com
Why true responsive design demands that content comes first, and how the proliferation of browsers and devices has shown up the 'consensual hallucination' that content can be fully controlled.
Jun 30
Agency magic show
A colleague, on receiving an unreasonable request to produce something immediately at the behest of a client:
The thing is, I haven't even been told what it is that I'm expected to pull out of my arse.
It's one thing to be expected to pull something out of your arse. Quite another for it to be a surprise.
It's what we like to call 'la magie du derrière'
May 25
to introduce the event: "My word, it is ten years (Sunday 28th January 2001, to be precise)
since Tom Sheriff and My Good Self brought the fabulous ARLENES to
Brighton for that first Gilded Palace night, and forever skewed the
axis of Americana towards Brighton. As well as the above festivities,
there's also a special radio show going out on Brighton Festival Radio
this Thursday 26th May at 8pm BST. Tune in locally on 87.7 FM, or
listen online here. "Presented by yours truly and My Good Self (Charlie to his mum, and
the guy whose very idea this was in the first place... the lengths
some people will go to to play Grant Lee Buffalo records in public!),
the show will be a two-hour romp through the bands who graced the
roving GPOS stage, and a tribute to some of the Brighton venues that
hosted us. We're working on getting that other fella involved somehow
too: y'know... small, beardy. Brummie-now-Canadian curmudgeon? That's
the chap..." Those of you who have loved or indeed lost at the Gilded Palace of Sin
sometime over the last decade: we'd love to hear from you. Best gig?
Favourite venue? Special moment? You can leave messages on the Gilded Palace Facebook page or if you use Twitter, by using the hashtag
#gildedpalace
Dry your tears.. .it's The Gilded Palace 10th B'day Radio Show! Thurs 26 May, 8 - 10pm
Allow the Gilded Palace's torch-bearer of recent years Scorcher Shane
to introduce the event: "My word, it is ten years (Sunday 28th January 2001, to be precise)
since Tom Sheriff and My Good Self brought the fabulous ARLENES to
Brighton for that first Gilded Palace night, and forever skewed the
axis of Americana towards Brighton. As well as the above festivities,
there's also a special radio show going out on Brighton Festival Radio
this Thursday 26th May at 8pm BST. Tune in locally on 87.7 FM, or
listen online here. "Presented by yours truly and My Good Self (Charlie to his mum, and
the guy whose very idea this was in the first place... the lengths
some people will go to to play Grant Lee Buffalo records in public!),
the show will be a two-hour romp through the bands who graced the
roving GPOS stage, and a tribute to some of the Brighton venues that
hosted us. We're working on getting that other fella involved somehow
too: y'know... small, beardy. Brummie-now-Canadian curmudgeon? That's
the chap..." Those of you who have loved or indeed lost at the Gilded Palace of Sin
sometime over the last decade: we'd love to hear from you. Best gig?
Favourite venue? Special moment? You can leave messages on the Gilded Palace Facebook page or if you use Twitter, by using the hashtag
#gildedpalace
May 24
Flash intros and punching the mime out
Jared said, "When we have clients who are thinking about Flash
splash pages, we tell them to go to their local supermarket and
bring a mime with them. Have the mime stand in front of the
supermarket, and, as each customer tries to enter, do a little
show that lasts two minutes, welcoming them to the supermarket
and trying to explain the bread is on aisle six and milk is on
sale today."Then stand back and count how many people watch the mime, how
many people get past the mime as quickly as possible, and how
many people punch the mime out.
An oldie but...
Found via The Oatmeal's 8 Websites You Need to Stop Making
Filed under //
content strategy
