Thursday, April 24, 2008

Publicis wonder if we're all idiots

Apparently we don't know if TV advertising works. That is apparently the "hold grail" (see http://adage.com/mediaworks/article?article_id=126611). Hmm for me, this one is in the bag. TV advertising does work - or at least some times. Maybe someone at Adage isn't so sure.

Thursday, April 10, 2008

Do we manage brands on past performance?

People often question using techniques such as marketing mix analysis to help manage brands. They accuse it of being a blunt backward looking tool which fails to take into account the changing dynamics in a market. This is the "driving using the rear view mirror" critique.

My response is always the same - you need a three point plan in order to mitigate against this potential issue:
  1. Acknowledge that analysis is indeed backward looking but it's only one piece of the insight jigsaw and nobody has an Oracle with which to look into the future
  2. Ask yourself some tough structured questions about how and why the future might be different from the past. Construct some kind of process around this questioning (Delphi workshops work well here)
  3. Invest some effort in activities designed to answer new questions - if you haven't got a clue whether sponsorship and events are a great way to communicate with your core customers, try it on a small scale

Not doing the above and relying blindly on historical analysis will leave you looking a bit like this guy when things to shift.




Wednesday, April 02, 2008

Information Visualisation Workshops in London this September






Just a quick post to let you know that we (marketingQED) are hosting three workshops on Information Visualisation this September.

Very briefly, the workshops are as follows:
  1. Table and Graph Design for Effective Communication - Sep 17thThis full-day course will teach you how to effectively communicate quantitative business data using tables and graphs. You will learn how to select the appropriate medium of communication (table vs. graph, and which type) and how to visually design each component to express your message clearly and compellingly.

  2. Dashboard Design for at-a-Glance Monitoring - Sep 18thDashboards offer an exciting new way to provide people at a glance with the critical information they must monitor to do their jobs. This full-day course reaches past the hype to give you the unique design skills required to build dashboards that really work.

  3. Visual Data Analysis for Discovery and Understanding - Sep 19thMost business data analysis requires skills and practices involving the use of graphs that can be easily learned, but resources that teach them are almost impossible to find. Almost all books and courses on data analysis teach sophisticated statistical and financial analysis techniques, but only about 10% of business data analysis requires them. This full-day course is for those responsible for the remaining 90%.

More details here -> http://www.marketingqed.com/Services.html

All workshops will be run by Stephen Few of Perceptual Edge.

Tuesday, April 01, 2008

Highlight of the morning from the BBC

Director: Rilap Loof according to Scamp....