Andrew Armour's Benchstone Blog
On Coaching, Marketing, Partnerships, Innovation & Collaboration – From Andrew Armour
A great piece by Robert Andrews on how brands and retailers are increasingly banking their marketing and product development budgets on content. The clothes brand Net-a-Porter receives a staggering 3 million people visiting their site and devouring articles, blogs and videos. Whilst traditional media needs to reinvent its own revenue streams – entrepreneurial brands are increasingly becoming media businesses.
paidContent:UK
via Why Content And Commerce Is A Marriage Made In Heaven.
A great article by Simon Waldman (LoveFilm) on how IBM reinvented itself, from a business that was selling lots of hardware in the declining mainframe market – to one that now makes 84% of its revenue from software & services – $8Bn. How did they do it? (1) Rethink everything, (2) don’t kill but reinvent the core business, (3)find a big adjacency (or the thing that is near to your business…) – and,(4)innovate at the edges.
paidContent:UK
via What Media Companies Can Learn From IBM’s Turnaround.
News International’s move to monetising the access to content continues. And now, News Of The World puts up a paywall.With so many free news services available this is another brave move. But as iPad and Android slate devices start moving from early adopters to the mainstream – the divide between paywall, subscriptions and apps – will become blurred.
Media news, UK and world media comment and analysis | Media …
via News of the World moves behind paywall.
It was said that Napoleon wanted his generals to the be the luckiest ones – not necessarily the smartest. In the same way, not all great business innovations need to be the result of brilliant research, dedicated marketing and canny logistics. Sometimes it may be just an accident as Kevin Roberts points out below.
KR Connect
Serving and understanding customers, acquiring and retaining them is more difficult than ever. And yet we then build systems and employ people who do not make that any easier..
According to Sainsburys 70% of consumers at 4.00pm in the afternoon – do not even know what they are going to eat that evening. Strange isn’t it? Last week I was lucky enough to attend a great session at Henley Management School where Prof. Moira Clark outlined some of the latest thinking on customer management. Serving and understanding them is more difficult than ever – and yet marketers then build systems and employ people who do not make that task any easier…
Continue reading “Human Beings Make Such Difficult Customers.”
Great article that reinforces the importance of one of my favourite F-Words: FOCUS. This TechCrunch piece explains how YAHOO lost its way – trying to be something they’re not. And casts an interesting question about whether Google should really try to be a Facebook or Twitter style social media business. One of the first lessons a marketer learns is the danger of brand dilution and over extension. Focus is the key. Or as a great TV producer once put it, to make it clear to me – ” its deciding what we DO NOT DO and WHAT WE ARE NOT that makes our brand”
Great article by TechCrunch..
via Trying to Be Something You’re Not: Works for Drag Queens, not for Google.
An interesting piece by Seth Godin re professionalism. It is certainly a word that is over used and perhaps not often understood. The best explanation I ever learnt was to compare your approach to work with that of a professional in times of challenge. An airline pilot with alarms going and lights flashing. A surgeon realising the ops not going well. Your lawyer, about to make his final defence statement when you’ve been falsely accused of rape. How would you like those people to behave? Personally I’d want those people to be calm, well organised, with a good plan in place, someone who communicates and motivates the people around them and is well skilled in their craft. What you don’t want is someone who is moody, sloppy, ego centric, not really in the zone and at the races. It reminds me of the story I heard the Arsenal coach Arsene Wenger – a manager of legendary detail and focus. He tells the story of the young aspiring pianist telling the maestro ” Wow. I’d give up everything to be able to play like you”. And the maestro replies – ” I have”
via Professionals, amateurs and the great unwashed.
According to Professor Richard Wiseman – one the of the most brilliant and widely quoted of UK psychology writers – sceptic and debunker of pseudo-science nonsense (and a brilliant illusionist too by the way) – the foundations of brainstorming are shaky ones, to say the least
We’ve all been there: The plastic cups. The marker pens with more squeak than ink. That white board with the shadowy phrases of projects long forgotten, still ghostly visible. The sticky notes. The giant pads of paper. Blu-tak. So, is brainstorming really any good? Professor Richard Wiseman thinks maybe not..
Continue reading “Business Myth #1. Is Brainstorming Really Any Good?”
If Innovation is about ‘making it real’. Pioneering is about ‘finding the new way of doing things.
Pioneer: “(v) To open up an area or prepare the way. (v) To take the lead or initiative in. (v) To open up and explore a new area”. There is much talk in marketing about innovation isn’t there? And yes, it’s a concept I do have a passion for. But do you know a marketer who does not describe themselves as innovative? Its like trying to find a programmer who does not like Star Wars. And speaking of Star Wars, where did George Lucas get his ideas from for all those amazing special effects? More of that later..
Continue reading “Pioneering And The Joy Of Harryhausen”
Andrew Armour's Benchstone Blog 