After a year away, I’m very pleased to have re-joined the board of Includem, a leading-edge, Glasgow-based organisation that works with the most vulnerable, troubled and challenging young people and their families throughout the country. Voted one of Britain’s 50 New Radicals by NESTA and The Observer, Includem offers a range of services that are rooted in evidence-based practice and shaped … Read More
Aged 50 to 85?
Do 50 year-olds have the same needs, wants, preferences, attitudes, and behaviours as 85 year-olds? Some might, but most don’t. So why do some businesses group everyone over 50 into one segment and market to them as if they are one homogenous mass? Would they adopt a similar approach to marketing to 15 year olds as to 50 year olds? … Read More
Teaching Retail Marketing at Heriot Watt University
Since my first jobs as a student in a William Low supermarket and Glasgow Airport’s Duty Free Shop, I’ve been involved in, and fascinated by, the diverse, every-changing retailing sector for my whole career. I’m therefore delighted to have been appointed to teach the Retail Marketing class to undergraduates in their final year at Heriot Watt University this autumn as … Read More
Walk more to boost your marketing thinking
Gavin Brown, a director of the communications skills specialists Speak with Impact, a Wallace Marketing client, shares some useful advice on creative marketing thinking and problem solving. “Do you want to Speak With Impact, get more creative or solve thorny problems? Then learn a lesson from the great poet Robert Burns. As a junior lawyer I remember being faced with … Read More
Periscope, Meerkat and MyEye, worth a try
Video was backed by most as a hot trend for 2016, but YouTube, Vimeo and co aren’t the only tools being used by marketers. Andy Adamson of WEB, a web design and technology company that I’ve worked with on several projects, gives an overview here of some emerging mobile video apps that are worth taking a look at. “Currently we … Read More
German market opportunities for Scottish business
Working on a Scottish-German marketing initiative over the last few months with David Scrimgeour MBE, a Scots lawyer now working as a strategy and business adviser in Germany for more than 25 years, has reminded me of the still untapped opportunities that the largest economy in Europe could present to many Scottish companies. David is the founder of the British-German … Read More
Marketing training for insolvency practitioners
Insolvency Support Services, an award-winning provider of a uniquely complete range of support services to the UK insolvency market, has launched its new 2015/16 training programme including two Wallace Marketing courses for insolvency practitioners (see pages 24 and 25). Eileen Maclean, director of Insolvency Support Services and one of the UK’s foremost insolvency practitioners and trainers, said: “David’s expertise lies in … Read More
Is print dead in the digital age?
The Royal Mail’s recent research, ‘The Private Life of Mail’, investigated whether printed materials are still relevant in the ‘digital age’ of marketing. Flock Creative, with whom I’ve worked on several projects, and I jotted down our own thoughts. Me: “Print is able to meet some of our senses that online can’t.” Too often these days people go for … Read More
Bumper sticker vs. marketing philosophy
As the late US cartoonist Charles M. Schulz, of Peanuts (Snoopy, Charlie Brown and co) fame, once commented: “there’s a difference between a philosophy and a bumper sticker.” No matter which shiny bumper sticker featuring a slick slogan is stuck onto a business to attempt to position it in the marketplace and differentiate it from its competitors, it is the … Read More
Mind the brand gap
These days the term brand is possibly even more misunderstood and misused than the word marketing. For many, it simply means logo. If you’re lucky, they might even think it’s about colour palette and fonts. As Rita Clifton, the doyenne of branding, has said: “to equate brand with such superficial cosmetics is the equivalent of saying that people are really … Read More