2009 growth strategy

The raised vegetable patch is together, rocket garden is in and the sun is doing it's photosynthesis thing.

I've got particularly high hopes for the carrots, spinach and beetroot this year.

small things, big places

I've got a thing about doing small things in big places at the minute. Like spot the bull is being taken out to the masses this year. It's a really great small idea that has proven it's success as a digital campaign for a few years running, but is now being pushed out bigger.

The other interesting bit of this is that it's pretty old news for people who work in digital or early adopters. But it's going to be new news for the other 98% of the population. Like T-Mobile bringing the flash mob concept to the masses, there is plenty of stuff that has proven it's worth at a relatively small scale in the last few years. Stuff that has the potential to be re-visited with a clever bit of planning and work just as well big.

memory marketing

When I was a youngen' every summer the Radio One Road Show would come to Tenby's South Beach car park for a day. It was the highlight of the summer seeing the likes of Utah Saints miming to top ten hits. I've got some good memories of the Radio One Road Shows. 

It was only when I walked past south beach car park the other day that I realised the Radio One Road Show was a marketing exercise. Like all branded events are. But that to me was the genius of it, people had a good time, picked up the brand association and felt warm about Radio One. To this day I feel I have a moral obligation to like Radio One over other radio stations purely for the fact they put on a good party on my local beach every year when I was growing up. Memories eh.

i want some grub

Great Grub. Packaging by Marcus. Nuff said.

what goes around comes around

A couple of years ago I bought a shed and got a house and garden thrown in on the deal. Then the house sprung a leak and I had to move out while it was sawn in half. Now it's nice and new again and I'm about to move back in almost 2 years to the day when I first moved in. 

Not much that brands can learn from this though I'm afraid. I'm just saying like.

my true colours shining through

The computer said I was red and yellow and green and blue but I think I should be yellow and red and green and blue.

 

ski sunday

I was taking to my friendly neighbourhood financial advisor this week about finding a good place to put my money for the next few years. Somewhere that might be a better return than the 1% I get from the bank at the minute. In order to do this he first had to find my attitude to risk. A facinating task I'd compare to choosing a ski run on a mountain. Lots of different risk factors, ability levels and levels of return to be chosen from.

I got to thinking the same metaphor could be applied to committing marketing and advertising campaigns. When embarking on a campaign you can choose a safe pedestrain route (green run) and not get a huge thrill from it. Or go straight for an edgier stand out solution (black run) and run the risk of having to be carried off the slopes in a stretcher or getting to the destination very quickly with a beating heart.

Or you could choose to just go off piste and invent your own way down.

That's this week's metaphor of the week done and dusted.