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Marketing 2025

In my last blog post I mentioned having attended a CIM Future Focus event in Leeds – the discussion is now available in a document which can be seen here  – hopefully interesting reading, I certainly found it useful to review the comments again. There is even a picture of me included along with the comments […]

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Is marketing just digital?

Yesterday evening I attended the Chartered Institute of Marketing (CIM) FutureFocus event in Leeds as part of their #Marketing2025 Hackathon launch. During the evening there were many interesting discussions about the role of marketing and what this might be in 10 years time. One theme which kept recurring was the actual role of marketing. One […]

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Focussed differentiation

There is a great podcast in the BBC Radio 4 ‘The Bottom Line’ which includes great examples of a few regularly used marketing models – the podcast, entitled Single Product Companies was braodcast on 26 Jun 14 and featured interviews with senior staff from WD40, Maclaren and Crocs. Each of these organisations has a very limited […]

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CIM Northern Conference – day one

I’ve been in Liverpool today for the 2014 CIM Northern Conference – a great day with some really useful insights from the speakers. Here are some of the ones I thought were great:   Everton Football Club (Richard Kenyon and Robert Elstone speaking) Everton have been using social media to engage with local communities and […]

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New, additional, delivery location

We are delighted to announce that from September we will be delivering the new Chartered Institute of Marketing (CIM) qualifications for the Certificate and Diploma in Professional Marketing in Sheffield with evening courses to enable professional marketers to gain the qualifications in under 12 months for each. Full details available soon or contact us for […]

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Is an App a substitute for personal service?

Having read an article about a new app this morning it got me thinking about whether apps should be used as a substitute for good personal service. Apparently Flypay – http://www.flypay.co.uk/ – have received £1m in funding for their app which will enable people to pay restaurant bills without the waiter being involved. There are claims […]

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Supermarkets need to help small shops survive

I recently heard about a new initiative from Booths, a supermarket chain based in Preston with stores predominantly in North West England which has implications for both Booths and other shops local to their stores. Booths operate a loyalty card scheme and have recently changed the offers to include a “free daily regular hot drink […]

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Whether customers like it or not!

I just saw this heading and had to write a quick piece about it – this is the sub-heading of an article in Autocar magazine this week which discusses hybrid powertrains for Rolls Royce cars, but it is the wording of the sub-heading which caught my attention. Why would anyone want to do something which […]

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It’s the little things which make the diference

When it comes to customer service and building relationships it is often little things which make the difference, something which I experienced recently highlighting this. There are times when I use DHL for deliveries of parcels and so get to chat briefly with the drivers who collect and deliver the packages. I’m a bit late […]

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What price convenience?

Price is always an interesting and complex area for marketers to deal with and get right but today I saw an example which shows how price isn’t always proportional to the amount of product received. At a mainline rail station and wanting some water to drink I looked at one of the station vendors and […]

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Improved proposition gives differentiation

Amazon have just announced what appears to be a great differentiator in a crowded market which should give a more compelling proposition to customers. Only available in the US at the moment but they are offering a free cloud based mp3 version of music customers have bought on CD from Amazon since they started business […]

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More 3D printing

It seems that 3D printing has moved on since our last blog post on the subject link here 3D Printer manufacturer MakerBot Industries has opened a shop to allow people to see the printers and technology available, read more here or watch a short video here These printers  have great possibilities for marketers of physical products […]

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