Online Insights on FIVEaa Sunday February 5 2012
This month on Online Insights we explore mind control tricks from the underbelly of marketing, tease out some of Adelaide’s interesting bloggers, get a grip on British English and poke some fun at the lack lustre food photos shared in Social Media.
5 Creepy Forms of Mind Control You’re Exposed to Daily
As many of you know, I am a marketer. And there are many different understandings of marketing.
Some people think of marketing as those hyped-up people in car parks trying to hustle sales of ‘car wash in a can’ or similar. Others think marketing is having a job in a large firm where all you do is design posters and arrange launch events.
But I work in that part of marketing called strategy development. This is where I believe the hard yards of marketing are exercised. Thought goes into the product or service being marketed, the ‘market’ or ‘markets’ being marketed, and all that will be involved in bringing the two together. Sometimes this results in tweaking, redesigning or cancelling a product or service. At other times it results in shifting the focus of the story and message surrounding the product or service so that it can resonate with a different audience.
However, I digress. Tonight’s link is to a comedic article about some of the ‘tricks’ researched by marketing boffins for extracting an extra degree of influence from customers.
Is Consultant Anxiety Syndrome hurting your business?
I was introduced to a new client recently, who immediately made it clear they were going to watch every minute of time spent on their account like a paranoid hawk. Can you relate to this?
My immediate thought was to wonder how I could help them feel more comfortable working with me, a consultant who charges by the hour.
While I am acutely aware that we all must demand accountability from our service providers and merchants, my fear is that this anxious and aggressive mindset will actually rob both the client and the consultant from being able to extract full value from the engagement because the “whole” of the client will not be “present”.
Let me explain. Continue reading
Online Insights with Steve Davis on FIVEaa, Sunday, May 31, 2009
Steal Our Ideas
Here’s a novel way for two advertising types, Adam and Jon, to make an impact in their industry. It is a great blog/website. The pair behind this site offer up ideas for advertising campaigns and quirky products for people to freely steal. It is a superb flow of creativity. Here are my favourites:
- The safe fridge magnet – with so many people struggling with weight, they have drawn up a safe fridge magnet that you can stick on your fridge as a reminder that you are breaking in to a treasury of calories that you should think twice about. I like their thought that weight watchers could take the idea and brand up some magnets to give away.
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Great idea that needs stealing
Love the alternative warning messages on cigarettes – unkissable, this will make me look creative, and no will power. How true!
- They’ve posted a message for Greenpeace to target the 60% of Americans who carry guns – “the more wildlife you save, the more wildlife you can kill”.
- An idea created for careerbuilder.com gives people the chance to Continue reading




