Blog

Behind the scenes of long-running Irish soap

I was delighted to travel to the Republic of Ireland recently to work with representatives of TG4 - a channel which provides a wide range of programming for Gaelic speakers. The trip also involved a visit to the set of soap opera Ros na Rún, which is celebrating its...

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LEGO and the building blocks of digital transformation

There’s no doubt that LEGO is flavour of the month among marketers, following the launch of their movie and the innovative ad break to promote it. That’s probably why Conny Kalcher was so much in demand at the Brand Republic broadcast on Digital Transformation held on...

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Perfect delivery

Save the Children's latest ad showing the birth of a real child in Liberia does what any commercial should. It grips you from the start and leaves you remembering a simple, straightforward message: in this case, that a million kids die every year around the world on...

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Groupe INSEEC

For the past few years, I've been working with the French business school INSEEC - lecturing in brand advertising, British advertising and creative teamwork. Here's a short video we put together recently.

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The advertising time machine

I've recently been pondering two competing trends that come out of the digital revolution. The first is the pressure on marketers and advertisers to create realtime content. Rather than having an approvals process which lasts weeks or months for new digital marketing...

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Does Bitcoin add up for brands?

Interesting article here in Marketing magazine about so-called 'cryptocurrencies' and their implications for brands. Bitcoin is the most celebrated example of a phenomenon which transcends our expectations about what a currency actually is. Uncontrolled by any...

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Clever guys and their dolls

Mother London should be commended on their provocative Christmas campaign to raise awareness of homophobia in Russia. The much-admired agency has produced a set of Russian dolls in the form of gay icons such as Elton John and George Michael. Not only are they selling...

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A chance to cover the essentials of copywriting

I frequently run courses in copywriting for the Chartered Institute of Marketing and we always get a fascinating mix of people from different backgrounds and organisations coming along. Here's the view of a delegate who attended a workshop in Manchester recently. We...

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