It’s all too tempting in marketing to stay up the shallow end.

There may be loads of people there and it can be noisy as hell. But at least you keep your feet on the ground. None of that over-intellectualising psychological nonsense.

The problem is you never learn to swim.

So you focus on short-term activation at the expense of long-term brand bu...

What’s your preferred way of ending letters, emails, texts or cards?

Are there times when the rules have to be followed, as long as you can remember your faithfully’s from your sincerely’s?

Odd, if you think about it, declaring your faith to an unknown person and your honesty to someone you do know.

And are there other times when it’s all about a...

If you want marketing immortality, come up with a quote like this by Ted Levitt:

“People don’t want to buy a quarter-inch drill. They want a quarter-inch hole.”

It’s over 50 years old now and still going strong. Even Seth Godin uses it in his new book, ‘This Is Marketing’.

But he thinks Levitt didn’t go far enough because nobody actually wants a...

In the end we’ll all have to wait and see about ‘The Boy and The Piano’.

Wait until January for the Christmas post mortem. Wait for the full-year results to see if John Lewis recover from the 99% first-half fall in profits. Wait to see how many stores they have open in five years’ time.

Until then it’s open season on the ad itself. That's the price you...

All brands need an idea behind them.

It’s hard enough working out what that is and capturing it in a few words. But it can be even harder hanging onto that idea as a brand grows, as competitors react and, particularly, as owners change.

So all rise, please, for Aunt Bessie’s.

They’ve been selling their frozen Yorkshire puddings, roast potatoes an...

As if by miracle, the stars have aligned in the marketing firmament to spell out a single word.

It can be seen and heard across the land, from the conferences to the comments, the books to the blogs. It’s the answer to all our prayers for growth and profit.

And the word is ‘reach’.

All the themes of the day appear to congregate here.

How p...

Thursday morning and here I am. 13 years, 8 months, 1 week and 4 days since I started working from home.

The Mac has chimed and the iPhone’s charged. A mug of tea steams.

There’s lots to do. Start with what’s needed first, always best.

I do think I’m better at this home-working lark than most.

Some crack almost immediately.

Either t...

Coming out next month is a book called ‘Eat Your Greens’, with the sub-title ‘Fact-based thinking to improve your brand’s health’.   

Published by the Account Planning Group, it’s a collection of views from the great and the good of marketing opinion.

The editor Wiemer Snijders has also come up with a clever way to promote the book. He asked each c...

“You are, you’re always on your phone. You look at it as soon as you wake up and last thing before you go to bed. You watch TV with it in your hand. We can be right in the middle of talking and then there’s that alert sound and you go straight to it. You even unplug my phone before it’s charged up so you can charge up yours, which is really annoying. You’re definitel...

How do you think the global brand director of Häagen-Dazs, Jennifer Jorgensen, chose to describe the target for her brand’s big new repositioning?

A. Millennials

B. Adults who eat premium ice cream

C. The Instagram generation

D. The millennial inside everyone

E. Someone called Lily

If you said A, your eyes probably rolled as you answered. As com...