Kitcatt Nohr - Features (3)

Stop squeezing the middle

Fri, 27 Jan 2012 12:16:04 +0000

All too often it’s middle managers who are the first victims of marketing department cost-cutting. But according to recent evidence, thinning-out your middle management layer can be a dangerously short-sighted move.

So why is everyone talking about HTML5?

Tue, 24 Jan 2012 15:34:19 +0000

Ask a Flash Designer what they do for a living and there’s a good chance they will no longer say Flash Designer. They are more likely to reel off a range of different skills, most of which have probably been acquired over the past two years. Because even Adobe now acknowledges that the future is not really about Flash.

What can we learn from Silicon Valley and Hollywood?

Thu, 24 Nov 2011 19:24:32 +0000

Let me start by getting something straight. One of my colleagues put it to me that this IPA trip was arguably “a jolly” for agency leaders in California. I refuted the accusation then and I will again today. There was nothing arguable about it. It was a jolly. In fact jolly was not the word, it was incredible.

Brand Miliband

Thu, 24 Nov 2011 19:15:49 +0000

In November 2011, Marc Nohr was invited to appear on the BBC Two show Daily Politics.

Fun, attractive, and best of all, available

Wed, 23 Nov 2011 16:28:16 +0000

What do this year’s IPA Effectiveness Awards finalists tell us about what advertising can do for brands?

The three bitter pills we must take to regain trust

Fri, 11 Nov 2011 00:00:00 +0000

There’s probably no greater issue in marketing right now than the phenomenon of ‘the trust deficit’. It crops up in every client meeting I attend, and every focus group I listen to.

The hunt for the red herring

Wed, 09 Nov 2011 18:15:01 +0000

Attempts to prove the effectiveness of social media are focusing on creating new metrics and evaluation frameworks. The answer lies elsewhere: in tracking the activity between platforms better.

Real brands need real customers

Fri, 30 Sep 2011 23:00:00 +0000

Have we once again entered a period of collective madness?

If you can’t be handsome, be handy

Wed, 31 Aug 2011 23:00:00 +0000

I’ve just returned from a short fact-finding trip to New York. As the plane climbed out of JFK, I sank back into the shareholder-friendly luxury of my Premium Economy seat and mulled over what I’d seen, heard and learnt.

Beware the sausage man

Sun, 31 Jul 2011 23:00:00 +0000

Something strange has been happening this summer. And I don’t just mean with the weather. Or last week’s spontaneous street parties.

Time to ditch the matching luggage?

Thu, 14 Jul 2011 17:46:36 +0000

In the marketing village, the thing we call ‘integration’ has been a hot topic of debate for at least a decade now. Despite this, there still seems little agreement over how best to plan campaigns across the multitude of marketing disciplines at our disposal.

Is research stuck in a rut?

Mon, 13 Jun 2011 23:00:00 +0000

As time goes by, and my nasal hair proliferates, the more disenchanted I become with the way in which marketers are using focus groups.

Keep on trucking

Thu, 05 May 2011 10:30:04 +0000

Two events have given me particular pause for thought in the last month. The first was tragic. The second was rather more welcome. Both have prompted me to think further about the nature of innovation.

Busting the Boomer myth

Wed, 30 Mar 2011 13:25:00 +0000

The Boomers are coming. Millions of them are reaching retirement age. And they’re not like the docile cardigan-wearing geriatrics of yesteryear. They’re radicalised. Suspicious of authority. And as consumers, they’re more demanding than any generation before or since.

The perfect (brain)storm?

Fri, 18 Mar 2011 15:11:19 +0000

Take a quick poll around your office: Who is more creative, a group working together or people working separately? The vast majority will say, “The group, of course!”

The future of Ethiopia

Mon, 07 Mar 2011 14:58:29 +0000

Ethiopia. The mention of it conjures up images of drought and famine. Distended bellies and wide-eyed children. Bob Geldof and Midge Ure. A quarter-century since two billion people watched Live Aid, two creatives from Kitcatt Nohr Digitas set off to Ethiopia. We went in search of new images and new stories, for a new fundraising campaign for Age UK and HelpAge International.

Evolution and revolution: two sides of the same coin

Wed, 23 Feb 2011 14:58:23 +0000

If there’s one phrase planners hear most often, it’s probably the six words ‘We’re looking for evolution, not revolution’. Fair enough, different businesses move at different speeds. However, the more I understand about the way the world works, the more I realise that you can’t have evolution without the occasional revolution.

Mail's role in the digital landscape

Mon, 24 Jan 2011 12:26:03 +0000

Do you remember the first email you received? I do. It was like getting a letter from the future. Of course, I’m a lot older now, and my short-term memory isn’t what it was. But I’m not sure I could tell you much about the contents of the last email I received. Or, indeed, who sent it to me. If the sender is reading this and still waiting for a reply, I apologise.

What charities can teach the rest of us

Thu, 20 Jan 2011 10:20:51 +0000

Like an old Harry Enfield character, I do a lot of work for charity, but I don’t like talking about it. I worry that my commercial clients will somehow see it as evidence that I’m going soft in my old age.

When a little Chutzpah goes a long, long way

Thu, 02 Dec 2010 16:46:03 +0000

Innovation is this season’s must-have. The economy may have avoided a double dip. But consumer demand is taking longer to lift. The patient has lost his appetite. Fresh, tasty morsels are what’s needed, not yesterday’s re-heated leftovers.

Junk mail and junk advertising - should we ban it?

Wed, 03 Nov 2010 14:58:25 +0000

Junk mail and junk advertising - should we ban it? Every few years the media jump on this bandwagon.

Consumer confidence: sunrise or sunset?

Thu, 28 Oct 2010 12:01:46 +0000

They say it’s always darkest before the dawn. As an inveterate late riser, I have little insight to contribute here. However, if I were to apply the analogy to consumers’ economic behaviour, I’d say it’s as black as your hat out there. And yet the post-recessionary sun is taking an unconscionable amount of time to creep above the horizon.

Mind the creativity gap

Fri, 24 Sep 2010 11:47:47 +0000

Few would doubt that creativity is one of the most important raw human ingredients of marketing. Which makes some recent news from the US more than a little disturbing.

Palm trees

Mon, 23 Aug 2010 17:21:46 +0000

It started when I was at art college - Norwich School of Art. Everyone collected something.

Some prisons have lace curtains

Mon, 16 Aug 2010 10:47:35 +0000

Have you noticed that house on your street? The one no one ever visits? Ellie lives there.

Bill Bruford on listening and creativity

Thu, 12 Aug 2010 17:06:35 +0000

What does a drummer know about advertising? A lot, it seems.

Use marketing to your advantage

Wed, 11 Aug 2010 12:19:00 +0000

Marketing can be used to gain better business advantage.

CRM and the rise of the spimes

Sun, 01 Aug 2010 17:13:11 +0000

I’ve been thinking a lot about the afterlife recently. Not mine, you understand. This strategy lark is tough, but not that tough. Yet.

Cross about cross-selling

Sat, 26 Jun 2010 13:45:36 +0000

If I’ve heard it once this week I’ve heard it a thousand times. ‘I don’t need an iPad. But I don’t half want one.’ Apple remains a shiningly positive example of a marketing practice which so few brands seem able to master. Namely, cross-selling more products to people who already have a plentiful sufficiency of goods in their homes which bear the same logo.

Obliquity and the power of testing

Sun, 23 May 2010 16:45:28 +0000

We’re living in testing times. Or at least we should be. The speed and flexibility of interactive marketing means this should be a golden age of direct response testing. However, time after time I come across marketers who are averse to the very mention of the word.

A word to the wise

Tue, 11 May 2010 12:30:36 +0000

When my father was in his 60s, he was able, for the first time in his life, to afford a new car. Up to then, he had always bought used.

Offline interactive: the strange rebirth of direct mail

Tue, 11 May 2010 12:25:00 +0000

I’m writing this on the way back from a meeting with a prospective client. They are a pioneering online business. They have invested heavily in all today’s cutting edge marketing techniques, from segment-of-one eCRM to social media. Today’s meeting was about exploring an exciting new medium which the brand has never tested before. Its name? Direct mail.

Will swing or nudge win the general election?

Fri, 23 Apr 2010 17:16:12 +0000

Journalistically speaking, attack is always more interesting than defence. Just ask the Belgians or the French. They should know by now.

Why fly-by-wire is better than haywire

Wed, 10 Mar 2010 16:28:49 +0000

Marketing is a heroic profession. Or so we like to think. Compared with our colleagues in finance, say, or IT, or manufacturing, we have an image of ourselves as courageous change-makers.

In the republic of social media, content remains king

Wed, 10 Feb 2010 16:34:43 +0000

I have a bit of a bone to pick with social media.

The calculus of guilt: How being bad can help us be good

Tue, 12 Jan 2010 16:59:51 +0000

January is a month of sack cloth and ashes, a time of painful recommitment to the ideals of health and the body beautiful.

Lies, damn lies and advertising

Mon, 23 Nov 2009 00:00:00 +0000

‘In advertising there’s no such thing as a lie. Merely expedient exaggeration.’ So says Roger O. Thornhill, Cary Grant’s original Mad Man in North by Northwest. If one school of thought is to be believed, our industry’s capacity for playing fast and loose with the truth pales into insignificance beside that of another group: the innocent consumer.

Journeying along the mobile marketing continuum

Sun, 27 Sep 2009 16:29:16 +0000

Here's what may be a likely scenario for any advanced marketer lately: saw the newest mobile augmented reality application; salivated; read about more than 65,000 applications in Apple's app store; despaired; read about competitor's new mobile idea; panicked; got an urge to do something in this space himself, as soon as possible; started looking around.

Blue Ocean or Simply Better?

Tue, 22 Sep 2009 23:00:00 +0000

For well over a year now, we marketers have been busy just surviving. But soon, the first round of recovery strategy workshops will be upon us. Which academic marketing theory will frame the debate in those stuffy rooms along the M4 corridor? Which thinker’s model will soon fill every flipchart in the land?

Can the banks ever regain our trust?

Wed, 12 Aug 2009 16:28:54 +0000

If you think this is a problem caused entirely by the recent collapse of the world’s financial system, you’d be wrong. The problem goes back much further. Research in the mid 90s – during a period of strong economic growth – showed up to 85% of all bank customers said they did not trust their banks. Among the major banks, only First Direct scored well for trust, and they were spectacularly better than all others.

What the Cyber Lions winners can teach us this year

Mon, 27 Jul 2009 16:55:45 +0000

A strange thing happened the other day, when I sent the news of the recent Cannes Cyber Lions winners to my agency colleagues. It was an innocuous email, the kind of an email mosquito that swarms our offices every day. No big deal. Just a small act of sharing the news and, hopefully, some learning.

Marketing conversations in the web 2.0 world

Tue, 27 Jan 2009 15:55:32 +0000

In April 2008, Tesco had that sobering experience of social media gone wrong: in its blog, the marketing director of the chain’s US operations, Simon Uwins, unwittingly (or honestly, depending on the point of view) revealed that the roll out of their Fresh & Easy stores would slow down. It turned out to be a trigger call for nervous City traders and about £900 million was temporarily sliced off Tesco’s market value.

Best ideas shouldn't be given for free

Mon, 12 May 2008 16:46:53 +0000

I don't often receive delightful mail at work, but I did recently. It was from a client asking me to send her an invoice for our agency's participation in a pitch. It was the second such letter I'd received in three months.

Choice is often a double-edged sword

Sun, 23 Mar 2008 00:00:00 +0000

Go into a coffee shop and ask the baseball capped teenager behind the counter for a coffee. Not so easy.

Who says that consumers know best?

Thu, 21 Feb 2008 00:00:00 +0000

You can't come across a marketing magazine or agency pitch these days without talk of "co-creation". Though the term has its roots in Alvin Tofler's idea in 1979 of the Prosumer (a contraction of Producer and Consumer), it has become achingly hip in recent months. And as direct marketers it's right up our street - redolent as it is of the concepts of customer-centricity, interactivity and dialogue that lie at the heart of DM.

Testing, testing

Sat, 01 Dec 2007 12:56:19 +0000

They say we live in testing times but I'm not so sure.