STUART GREENFIELD

Steve Jobs my condolences to his family, friends and work partners

2011-10-06T17:10:00.000+01:00

In 1985 I went for a job interview with Apple in Hemel Hempsted. I was seen by the then UK managing director who was explaining how the Apple operating system and the combination of the new Macintosh hardware would challenge the leadership for the new PC and MSDOS operating system launched by IBM who Microsoft had licenced MSDOS to them. As a young man who had been selling IBM PCs, mainframes, and peripheral products I thought that Apple may not be the best choice for me at the time. Who would bet on a proprietary operating system with fixed hardware and against IBM? Let's face it in 1985 no one every got fired for buying IBM. In the end, however, I didn't have to make the choice as I wasn't offered the job.

I joined company with a small UK distributor of PC software and peripherals which later became C2000. But then something exciting did happen, Apple found its niche as the cools tools for the advertising and creative industry, and although still too expensive for the average manufacturing business the marketing departments set up little groups of Mac users who where are able to create the graphical needs of their business. Creative agencies did the same and desk top publishing was born. To be honest the hardware and software was easier to use and was much more stable and this was down to the fact that there was only one hardware platform that programmers needed to focus on. But as we remember Apple was in financial trouble.

New products like the Newton were a disaster and it wasn't until Steve returned to the company in 1997 and launched the neat, fashionable and low cost Imac that things began to change.

By then I was running an advertising agency and need PCs and Microsoft to build websites and web servers but the creative team all had the best Macs and Adobe software. To be clear we had to have both platforms to embrace the new Internet world. Cheap notebooks were all PCs but photo-shop was always on an Apple.. well for a time. Our networks were linked but to run the business we needed Microsoft... however buggy and full of viruses it was. In the terrible climate of 2001 Apple embraced the Internet and the Ipod was born once again locking you into Itunes but it was compatible with PCs and this grew the marketing into the winner we know today.

It is an amazing story and one which has been driven by both style and technology genius. But I believe this is probably the begining of the end for both Microsoft and Apple. Google and Android are becoming the power house for the future.. the micro payment economy is approaching, hardware devices will come with contracts for voice and data services. Businesses will be run from the cloud. This is a much more sustainable model for the world but we may all be a little poorer in not have that funky little branded gadget that gave us the edge down in the pub. I am sure that Steve would have moved Apple to take advantage of this but without a tough man at the top I can't see a career manager making those kind of decisions. Look at Google, they brought back Larry Page to run the company as Eric Schmidt, a really good guy, was not driving the technology side of the business hard enough. In the last year Google has really started to perform.
So thank you Steve Jobs for being a tough guy and doing something so amazing.. nature is a bastard.. RIP
And finally words from the man himself:
“No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don't want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life's change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.” – Steve Jobs
And in the words of Ayn Rand who I beleive is an author he read: 'Who is John Galt'
Stuart Greenfield

Please visit www.greenfield.co.uk or email Stuart Greenfeld: Stuart@greenfield.co.uk

Digital Revolution

2010-05-10T00:07:00.000+01:00

Digital Revolution

Please visit www.greenfield.co.uk or email Stuart Greenfeld: Stuart@greenfield.co.uk

Bigot

2010-04-29T08:54:00.001+01:00

We certainly needed something to really excite the public in the run up to May 6th 2010 election and Gordon Brown's disastrous 'mircophone malfunction' (a classic mistake any PR should have managed correctly- I bet someone looses a job over that!). At least it may move the election on from the 'That nice Mr Clegg' he could run the country couldn't he idea.

So bigot.... let's remind ourselves of the meaning from the Concise Oxford Dictionary:

n. an obstinate and intolerant believer in a religion, political theory.. (16th c. Century French)

In my mind it would seem that the real bigot could be Gordon Brown himself as Gillian Duffy from Rochdale has none of the educational and intellectual advantages of Gordon and therefore is more of a mirror on the feelings around her, she may be a bigot but Gordon could have used a less emotional word such as narrow in her views, which is a fact of course, as most of us are. On the other hand Gordon has one political theory and has a strong religious background, he is allegedly an immovable object when it comes to his views and not a great listener, which is not always bad especially if your path is to be at the very top of your game, which he is. So and thank goodness we have a moment, with a week to go, when the floating voters will being to get off the fence. This will be seen as Gordon's Ratners moment and he will awake many times at 0317 with that word drifting into his subconscious... Hands up those who want to be the PM!

Please visit www.greenfield.co.uk or email Stuart Greenfeld: Stuart@greenfield.co.uk

Greenfield wins award for Capitec bank creative work

2010-03-26T08:32:00.001Z

Stuart Greenfield has followed his recent award for Peperami with a Bronze award for his creative work for Capitec bank. Capitec have recently been voted one of just 27 brands of the future by Credit Suisse and wanted to announce this in a digital and outdoor campaign in South Africa. Stuart's creative called 'proverbs' was based on traditional African proverbs and led with the idea of trust and understanding.

Please visit the awards site: http://www.ideabounty.com/blog/post/2560/the-capitec-bank-top-30

Capitec web site: http://www.capitecbank.co.za/

http://www.capitecbank.co.za/

Please visit www.greenfield.co.uk or email Stuart Greenfeld: Stuart@greenfield.co.uk

GOremortgage TV ads go live

2009-08-29T13:12:00.002+01:00

Campaign running from 1st September 2009

The campaign will run on ITV, Five, More4, E4, Dave, Living, Fiver, cartoon network, Sky 1 , Sky 2, National Geographic, Sky Sports, and the Discovery channels.

4 TV ads were created named, Shopping, Party, Carwash and Lawnmower. Each ad was produced in 30 second and 10 second variatons.

The Goremortgage service provides customers with a direct link to a mortgage officer who handles all aspects of a remortgage including searching for the most suitable product on the market, completing the paperwork and dealing with conveyancing via solicitors. All correspondence is carried out over the telephone or by email.

Party

40th Birthday party? You need a best friend to get you throughthat and sometimes they even solve the remortgage as well!

Watch here on Youtube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eK-4jxfuW-I

Shopping

Your best girl friend is always there to lift your spirits and take you shopping... best friends even find the remortgage company you need!

Watch here on Youtube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kXMkU9P2Xac

Lawnmower

Brother comes round and solvesTony's remortgage problem and fixes the lawnmower...easy!

Watch here on Youtube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wXxqY-ScD50

Carwash

Brothers can be annoying but also useful. Paul helps Tony clean up the car and the remortgage problem.

Watch here on Youtube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GONbjY-fcwU

Please visit www.greenfield.co.uk or email Stuart Greenfeld: Stuart@greenfield.co.uk

8 TV commercials in 2 days?

2009-08-20T16:46:00.005+01:00

When the going gets tough the tough get goi.......

It has been a lean time over the last 12 months for many advertising agencies but the tide will change and suddenly there is going to be a tidal wave of businesses that need to freshen up their brands and start to really engage with their target markets. Stop advertising for too long and the damage could take a lot longer to put right than you think. New technology, new companies, new ways and innovations continue to dreamt up even during the toughest times. It had been said that there is even more innovation during the darkest days than during the boom times. Just look at the innovations between 1939- 1945? But, we maybe at war in some parts of the world, but in Europe the big consumer beast is stirring and it is time to get marketing.

Impossible to contemplate a year ago but when we were asked to produce four 30second and four 10 second direct resonse TV commercials in just 2 days with a very slim budget the only answer was YES and how high!

We kept it local, we used classical actors, we searched for a single location where we could create 4 completely different story lines around a single brand and briefed the media buyers accordingly. The weather being so unpredictable was a real worry but on the day it was perfect.

As director and writer my job was to keep focused on the script in hand, no deviation and not too many new ideas on the day.

So was it possible?

Once I get out of the edit suite... all will be revealed

Please visit www.greenfield.co.uk or email Stuart Greenfield: Stuart@greenfield.co.uk

Face book ... in my face

2009-08-17T08:32:00.003+01:00

Teenage revolution

Not saying I'm getting old or anything but the true power of Facebook became very apparent to me last Tuesday.

My teenage son informed us that he was going to have a party ih the garden, with tents, and music around a fire. This was agreed and little more was heard about it until a few days before my son cleaned out the old stable block, yes physical work was done, and ask us to supply food and some liquid refreshments. Asked how many were coming the answer varied from 10- 50. As parents we expected maybe 20 as we live in a rural location 2 miles from a small branch line.

Returning home at 6pm on the fateful night 3 or 4 boys were assembled so everything normal. I was then asked to prepare to collect the revellers from the railway station at 8pm. My son said it would be fun to take the landrover and horse trailer as there might be too many to get into the car and as it was only 2 miles it would be fun to jump into the back of the horse trailer. I agreed. It seemed like a good idea at the time.

At 10 minutes to 8 with just a 10 or 12 young people at the party I thought my trip to the station would be singular and quick.

I arrived a few moments before the train drew up and my shotgun passenger a good friend of my son jumped out as almost every door on the small 3 coach train opened and 70 or so children poured out onto the station plateform.

Three trips later I despatched the crowd of children back to our home by which time parents had dropped off another load of young people.

The rest of the story is one of little sleep, noise, stress and I won't bore you with the details.

So we have all heard about the facebook parties before, now first hand without any cost, no invitations, no telephoning (maybe some texting) I have seen the it in action.

Facebook is mainstream, a growing force and is perhaps the most powerful tool for connecting with 14-20 year olds if not a wider audience. Will Twitter, Linkedin and Google and other web 2 ideas be able to compete... certainly there is still more excting opportunities.... but who's controlling who?

Please visit www.greenfield.co.uk or email Stuart Greenfeld: Stuart@greenfield.co.uk

Is the iphone the future of computing?

2009-05-05T17:47:00.007+01:00

listen to this blog here

I've seen the future and it is happening on a phone near you! You know Apple Inc is truly a most remarkable business and should there be a battle in this World of instant communications then there are really only two players and the other one is Google.

To get an App approved by Apple is tricky but the opportunity is huge if you succeed. Apple have just announced that new operating system with parental control will be introduced soon that will then allow them to approval a lot more apps and open up the market. It seems to me that Apple with a music download model which is just huge, even with Spotify running up behind, it suddenly seems the idea that Apple may have created the future for business computing around the apps model is really going to happen. Why wouldn't I want to use all the iPhone apps on a bigger screen in the office? Why would I? Only to make it easier for myself I suppose!

These tools are going persuade a lot of people that the old word of big programmes running on PC's and the daily Microsoft reboot are not necessary anymore if you opt for a more mobile and flexible approach to storage, management and communications. CRM systems, stock control, accounts, could all be run via a multitude of secure apps on devices that fit the working conditions. Small and light for the warehouse and on the road team, big screen for in office collaboration etc.

But you ask, where is my data, how safe is it? How secure is it. Well maybe more safer and more secure than in your own data centre? So it seems to be that the company which was there at the beginning and for some time beaten by Microsoft may have created the path for the future. It makes Google's offerings, over and above the search engine look a bit unstructured maybe? Plus wasn't this Bill Gates idea anyway, create a standard hardware platform for the world that anyone can use and ensure everyone uses the same operating system, then get everyone to write software for it? Symbian is the mobile operating system of the moment outside the iphone and the Apple apps model will surely storm into this area as well.

It all seems such a logical solution really, just need to make sure we have a broadband network that can support it all. Please visit www.greenfield.co.uk or email Stuart Greenfeld: Stuart@greenfield.co.uk

Business Southampton - Is just existing enough?

2009-04-24T10:24:00.000+01:00

Listen to this blog here

Business Southampton comes of age

From the city's CEO dinner club a new force emerges

As a member of the CEO Forum a dinner club in the early 2000's I was involved in the early days of the creation of Business Southampton., and yesterday I saw the organisation come of age at its annual conference.

This morning of theatre was well orchestrated by a number of the cities marketing companies including LeepeckGreenfield. Key note speeches by Malcolm Le Bas, Sally Lynskey and Sean Muskett from Scandia all beat the drum of collaboration for a better city and outlined the success to date.

However it was not until Michael Portillo, the guest speaker for the morning, was introduced that the event turned from good to great. Michael is a fine speaker but had also done is home work and it summed up Business Southampton very distinctly.

He said what is important about the Business Southampton is that it actually exists at all. It is a 'brand' that is a point of contact for Government and big business to identify with. The fact that Business Southampton has not yet achieved any of the big changes that many leading cities such as bilbao, Barcelona and Valencia have,to quote 'Michael should not been seen as a negative because all this could be achieved. Michael took us through a very inventive and witty journey of metaphor and strories each time coming back to the core theme of people and leadership.. well crafted in every way.

But what Business Southampton needs is more creative thinking and more members and I believe this could come quite quickly as during this harsh recession there is more intent for communities to pull together.

Business Southampton must embrace technology and new networking techniques and be given some important central funded projects to run and manage in a proactive and creative way to enable critical mass to be created.

To quote Tom Peters

Those who Add Value through the Creation of Intellectual Capital are the new winners. ... They are not people who make lumps. They are people who create billions of dollars of value ... through the pure exercise of imagination

Business Southampton has not been an easy birth but there are signs that if the main goals are kept clear and local infighting from other 'business' organisations are avoided and a singularly motivated board of directors are driving the organisation then Business Southampton may well become a great innovation for Southampton - the sleeping giant.

Other notable moments was the introduction of Dawn Baxendale a new member of Southampton City Council heading up economic development. I was impressed immediately by her and hope she will become a supporter of the organisation and pass some key projects to the organisation.

Ian Murray scribbler and pirate still wants to plunder the art vaults of the City to build , build, build and this would be great had it been done in 2006 when art prices were the highest ever. To do it today would be the same a Gordon Brown selling off our gold reserves just at the wrong time... or would it.. answers on a post card.

On a more personal note, this is a blog! I have spent the last few months working on the creation of a regional investment vehicle this started as Uvestin and I very much wanted Business Southampton to embrace this idea. To me BS was a perfect partner. The organisation is made up of a majority of service type businesses, all of whom need new businesses to flourish in Southampton, (Funny how many lawyers have recently joined) Uvestin would in effect be a venture capital business designed to take 'local' risk for middle size businesses struggling because of the recession. This idea as grown into the HantsFund when I was fortunate to meet Caroline Williams the force behind this fund to help home buyers obtain mortgages. Today Essex Council have announced the creation of a Uvestin style set up. You know Business Southampton and Southampton City Council can be part of Hampshire's version and it could be the idea that is the catalyst to take Business Southampton into its next phase of getting Southampton through the recession.

Please visit www.greenfield.co.uk or email Stuart Greenfeld: Stuart@greenfield.co.uk

Brand New Ideas - created on an iphone!

2009-04-22T14:26:00.000+01:00

Open publication - Free publishing - More marketing

Twitter, Google and Voice activation

2009-04-05T10:19:00.000+01:00

Suddenly it all seems very logical

A few weeks ago while I using Twitter and realising how similar it was to 'broadcast' SMS I thought that it would be a simple idea to add a Skype style add-on to the service for direct connections. You tweet, connect with someone then talk!

Today it would seem we are just a few days away from Google announcing their purchase of Twitter and Google introducing a refined voice activated search service and it now seems such a logical idea.

On your mobile you ask a simple question 'Where is the nearest petrol station'? into a twitter interface and immediately knowing your location by GPS or cell identification the answer is spoken back to you or a tweet is sent directly to you.

For more complex questions you may have the option to open a Google window and read the results or listen to the top three results. This will require a new field on websites and, perhaps, adding a short description that can easily be converted into an audio stream, or maybe a customisable audio file of a predetermined size.

Any thoughts send me an email and they will be added here: stuart@greenfield.co.uk

Please visit www.greenfield.co.uk or email Stuart Greenfeld: Stuart@greenfield.co.uk

The Hampshire Bank takes shape - HantsFund

2009-03-28T11:37:00.000Z

Uvestinhampshire will be presented to the Hampshire Senate today

The Hampshire Senate meets today at the Fareham Council Civic Centre.

On the agenda will be a presentation by Caroline Williams, Chair of the Hampshire Economic Partnership. Caroline will be outlining the plans for HantsFund and Uvestin Hampshire.

View the presentation here

Stuart Greenfield of Greenfield Strategic Marketing Consultants has joined the team developing the new mortgage and investment vehicle.

Email...what was that all about!

2009-03-16T20:03:00.000Z

Walled gardens... again...come on team...

It must have been ten years ago when the web was an unknown frontier where many people felt safest in special places created by the likes of AOL or have to plunge into the fearful unknown. Some even tried to map the web world and produce posters showing where all the paths led. It was a surreal place which many business kept well clear of.

But now in the recession hit world of 2009 has anything changed? The corporate world sits tight in their safe world of outlook and email. Our children become brand heroes of Facebook ,Bebo and Twitter.

Suddenly we are back to 1998, I think! Each social group defined by the placespace/world they go to swap information. At home you have your text friends, how quaint. Your Linkedin buddies ibn the office, how boring. Your twitter anonymous out there people and your in box interlopers.(you still use email!)

Danger lurks, never let them meet. If they did your double, triple or quadruple life would be blown apart in an instance and what would you do with all the extra time you had?

But how long can all this continue, how green are all these servers in the cloud, how many passwords, how many logins, why must we have an email address as well?

Suddenly a few ideas pop up, what about entering information directly into any browers that links to the 'cloud', what about everyone having just one unique name that if typed into any device linked to the 'cloud' would link to your stream of consciousness. You could add information at will in any format and choose the way it was delivered. It's a merging of everything into a ' twitflickfacelinkedyammerbebo'.

Ha Ha you all cry it will never work. Its a nasty controlling Orwellian orgy of madness and we will never be free again.

But hold on, think for a moment, if it were intelligent and learnt your needs and began to track your habits, it would begin to feed you the information you wanted, screen out the people who you had not interest in and provide you with comparisons and aids to travel, shopping, learning and work wouldn't we all want it, especially if it gave us a competitive advantage, in a social and business context.

Then the more it were used and the bigger it became the more difficult it would be to infiltrate and control. Sheer scale would mean that it became impenetrable. The fundamentals apply; all information is just organised data, if there is so much date that it is impossible to organise 'big brother' would have a tough job to follow you and if he did you would know, because he would have to use the same system, because that's all there is. Do you get my drift? So if we are all identifiable then we are all anonymous arn't we...???

So goodbye to email goodbye to facebook and twitter...well sometime soon I guess? Now all we need to do is work out how to pay for it.

Promote, Vote, Win ...Hello to POVOW!

2009-03-14T13:16:00.000Z

a new social networking phenomenon about to go large

How do you combine online social networking with a little more edge? Something that raises the stakes but is not direct advertising or blatant promotion. How could you link personal and business goals and tune these to the new world economic situation plus make it fun and entrepreneurial with a real added value at the end.

Well here is my idea for a Saturday:

POVOW - Promote, Vote, Win

(Pronounced PO VO)

This is a serious idea and has the following ingredients:
People - with ideas that need promotion

People - with ideas that need money

People - who want to see people succeed

People- who champion new ideas

People - who want economic recovery

People - who love social networking

People- who want to take part, perhaps anonymously

People - who understand that online gives freedom

So how does it work:

You are talented and wish to sell yourself and your ideas, this maybe a business idea or just an invention.

You go to the POVOW.com (promote, Vote and Win) web site and add you idea (you have to accept that if it is not patented or copyrighted it could be copied). You promote the idea on the website by writing about it, adding video, podcast or anything you think will be interesting to voters. You pay a £1 or (dollar equivalent) as minimum entry to the £1K game. You promote idea on twitter, facebook, stumbleupon.. or any of the social networking sites.

Next you decide on a draw to enter. £1K, £10K £100K £1m.

£1k = £1 entry

£10K = £10 entry

£100K = £100 entry

£1m = £1000 entry

You then get everyone you know to vote for your idea by going to POVOW.com. This can be by a link on any social networking site or your own website. The idea is to promote your idea and to gain votes.

When the the target of has been reached of new ideas the idea with the most votes wins the pot . (e.g 1000 ideas are added to the £1K POVOW the idea with the most votes wins the pot)

The money is transferred to the person with the winning idea and all the voters go into the winning voters hall of fame. (They can opt in to receive further information about the idea)

Any idea can be entered for further POVOW's by spending another £1.

Why would you vote?

People are intrigued by ideas and the thought of voting for an idea that wins means you have an instant buzz if you are right

You may wish to support your friends, town, country, school, association or political party. All these categories may be added into the POVOW entry

Are there enough people with ideas out there?
We need millions of ideas and millions of people to vote. It would seem for anyone needing a way to promote an idea get instant feedback this is a great opportunity, plus the added chance to win funds. With social networking in play you are even able to help generate your own votes by persuading people to view and vote on your own idea.

What about confidentiality?

There are millions of people with millions of ideas but turning any of them into winning successful products or services is the most difficult thing in the world ask any entrepreneur! So in many cases it is worth the risk. (you can still protect the idea in the normal way of course).

Why will it work?

POVOW is about building a following for your idea. If you don't create your own followers you are unlikely to win, however, as the number of ideas and voters increase POVOW will become a portal for ideas. Remember all £1 entries are given to the winning idea each time the target is reached. You may enter your idea into the £1K, £10K, £100K and £1m

Why will people add ideas?

As POVOW creates voters by entrants social networking, the site will show the number of ideas submitted and as the number approaches the target of 1000 in each category so the amount of networking and promotion created by the participants will increase. (there will be excitement as the number of votes for each idea will be shown) This helps them by promoting their idea and promoting voters.

How do we prevent orchastrated voting and multiple votes?

There will only be one vote allowed per person (or unique email address)

Will people vote?

There is no reward for voting so it is as much about the power of the particpant to generate votes and the positive social feedback you are creating by voting that will encourage individuals to take part. As all the money goes directly to the winner and winning voters become followers of the winner by entering the winners hall of fame POVOW creates a positve feedback loop for all involved.

And finally

If you idea is a POVOW winner it is immediately legitimised as something that has appeal. This is good news for everyone especially investors who are looking for ideas that have been researched.

And as the POVOW strap line says - PROMOTE VOTE WIN isn't that what the business world is all about.

You promote it people vote for it and you win

What of?...

2009-03-12T17:52:00.000Z

What of?

Leave it, it sleeps
It has no life, it promise no path, it has no answers
It makes you cry, logic is its game
Too clever
At once too stupid
Clutch to the dream it brings good news
It is a mirror even of logic
It takes your feelings and as the addict
You feed upon the need
The seducer always offering you the dream with the answer
More answers create more questions
You return to the void, flashing, controlling, and waiting, silently

Stop don’t be tempted
Just a word and you have a million
Just a thought and you have one path
An energy exploding in a universe of possibilities
Hold back take a new path
No you cannot stop
This route takes you to the answer.

Stop
The answer lies within you
The answer for you, is you
But answers are just questions
For people with reason

What of people
What of people’s thoughts
Is what you are what they think
But what of care
Care not of people’s thoughts
Thoughts have no action other than the thinker
But thoughts that think become the person
The person that thinks must find thought
What of thinking
Thinking the greatest power
Power does control and destroys the thinker
What of control
Control of thinking is to tame the mind
Control the mind control the person
But control needs reason and reason thinks
What of knowledge
Knowledge thinks or does thinking create knowledge
I think not
Knowledge comes of work and work needs reason
What of work
Work controls thinking so learning is not work
What of learning
Learning is a gift that creates knowledge
Does knowledge give meaning
What of meaning
Does meaning give reason
If knowledge and thinking give meaning and reason
What of madness
Think less, work more, put reason and madness away

What is left
What of fun
What of laughter
What of spirit
What of future
What of time
What of reason again
If reason is the reason
Then what of reason again
The agony of the thinking, the madness of the reason
What of memory
What of past
What of future
What of now
Now is agony and dreaming is not longer sanctuary
What is now, does now exist
Is the reason past or future
What say now?
Speak to me now
For the sake of reason
Speak up

What now is love
The reason of love
Speak not of love
To speak of love is to reason without reason
What of god
Of what god

Digital Revolution by Stuart Greenfield - the CEO SUCCESS series

2009-03-03T15:11:00.002Z

Square Eyes

2009-03-03T09:42:00.000Z

As the recession magnifies the pressure on broadcast content Stuart Greenfield provides a view

I was always told that too much TV would give me square eyes; of course, this was just a way to prevent prolonged and mindless viewing which every child of my generation was quite capable of doing. In the late 60’s and 70’s family TV viewing on the three channels became part of our culture. Although there were still many families who could not afford or just didn’t want TV by the 1980’s research showed that almost every family and individual in the UK could watch TV. Technology was fundamentally changing the very nature of our lives. We were being programmed by programs and we didn't mind.

Joining the conversation was knowing the plots and news fed to you by the BBC and ITV. It was a good thing, wasn’t it? On the plus side families shared time together even if they didn’t talk or do as much, but for many it was a much needed time of relaxation from the hard slog of manufacturing and intensive hard work during the working day. It improved communications, helped in education, and enabled a plethora of products to be advertised which created a more competitive environment and we hope better products, better tuned to our needs.

But during the hay day of scheduled TV were we missing out, did it create a generation of losers? Fed by eye on a daily basis everything we needed to function but not allowing us to think or create our own ideas. Recent research has shown that bored children are more likely to be creative and imaginative were we deprived of this freedom? Today technology once again and as it always has is driving change. Change in the way families live but this time we could be changing back to the time before TV. A time when the pattern of the day was formed by our own needs and those of the community. A time when with no scheduling of radio and TV we gained our knowledge of the world by being proactive, planning what we wanted to do when we wanted to do it and interacting with people around us.

So today we have communications tipping point which we are approaching at break neck speed because of the current economic crisis and technological improvements. The future of the BBC based on a one charge for all paid by everyone looks out dated. Independent TV’s revenue model looks shakey. Satellite TV looks increasingly expensive with Freesat, Broadband and Kangaroo (which was not allowed- but something will appear from the ashes) Add to this that only 53% of the UK population have subscription TV and as we approach digital switch over we are in danger of cutting off the very oldest part of the population there are many challenges ahead.

The creation of a world of content available to all when you want it the utopian position for many. For many with broadband, iphone, Sky, PC’s this world already exists. You are not going to be told what or when to watch. You don’t want to pay for anything you don’t use and you certainly don’t want to be in a fixed location to do it. This is the future for us all and it could break the shackles of the last 25 years and change the way we live for the better.

There are challenges and they include how we pay and how they are funded. This same question has to be answered online as well. It will be a classic Darwinian fight. As these problems are magnified during this recession we should be pleased because the new landscape will appear more quickly from the rubble of an old system not fit for purpose.

One word of caution, we must take care to ensure we do not create a society further split by those with the access and those without. I believe in public broadcasting at a base level. The BBC is able to create some of the Worlds best content, but they certainly should as they have no risk! For the rest technology in the form of broadband must be provided to all but content paid for programme by programme when you want it. We have the technology to do this, it will empower us all to think more, plan more and take more control of the precious time we have.

Please email your view to squareeyes@greenfield.co.uk

Digital revolution by Stuart Greenfield http://www.greenfield.co.uk/downloads/

Southampton - This time it's personal

2009-02-28T10:29:00.000Z

A short essay by Stuart Greenfield in response to a workshop discussing Inward Investment for Southampton held in Southampton on February 27th 2009.

Southampton

Manhattan

As the home for my business since 1999 and living and working in the region since 1995 you couldn’t really call me a Hampshire man, in fact I am actually from Kent although I spent most of my childhood in East Anglia (school) then in Devon and finally for over 10 years in London. So you could say I have been about a bit! But what’s my point? The point is that for all my married life and all my children’s life we have lived in Hampshire and Southampton has been of key importance for my business life and as a gateway, on a very small scale, my wife comes from the Isle of Wight and I love being close the sea as my sport and recreation love is yachting.

So Southampton fulfils a number of key needs for me. I have always been a supporter of Southampton and this is for many reasons many of them practical. I decided to set up business in the city area in 1999 before actually moving into the city district itself in 2003. This was for practical reasons of ensuring we were seen as a leading business in the heart of the leading city in the South. It gave the businesses a geographical focus which at that time and maybe for many service industries who need to do face to face business is still crucial. Yes I could have chosen a business park on the M27 or Winchester or Portsmouth, but I didn’t because Southampton had that extra something. Many other locations ticked all the boxes but Southampton had that feeling of opportunity, activity, and perhaps because it seemed like a city with ‘work in progress’ it was like us ready to grow.

Having ‘made my bed’ in Southampton and with fresh eyes I wanted to do my bit to ensure Southampton could deliver for me. Mainly but not completely for business reasons I wanted the city to attract the biggest businesses have the most start ups and grow faster than any other. I wanted the creative industries to grow. One of the reasons I was in Southampton was because I realised that the city was not strong in this area.

We joined many of the city’s business groups and pitched for Council work which we always did our best to provide exceptional service at the very tightest margins. I engaged with other business owners and we created Business Southampton. A single aim: to keep Southampton on the journey of remaining a successful, booming and exciting city both nationally and internationally. Through the boom years of 2000-2006 we all prospered city rents and house prices increased, the port prospered, the cruise industry grew, the service sector did well, and the university created and gained funding for many successful innovative start ups. All was rosy especially with West Quay booming and unemployment low.

But it seems that during these years we may have missed a trick or two and it has taken the current downturn for me to see this. The city hasn’t changed as much as perhaps it should have. The retail and leisure areas are wholly disjointed, we have not opened up the water front, we have not built a good mix of housing and office space, we have not marketed the city and promoted the obvious advantages of a University City full of talented people. We have new business property mixed in with old, many are empty. We do not have a creative ‘quarter’ where people would wish to live and work. Transportation could be so much better we have train, airport and motorway like many cities but they do not appear to have an overall strategy. This is, of course, the same for any city in the world but could it be different?

In any argument about a City’s prosperity the effect of the region it is in is, of course, important, The City itself cannot function alone but a City’s role is to ‘carry the torch for the region’. People (and businesses are just people) come to Hampshire to live and work because of a number of key factors. (International connections, labour force, history, customers, Government incentive, quality of life). Identification of Hampshire being the choice will strongly depend on the quality of the dominant City at its centre, I really believe this. Southampton is the ‘jewel in the crown’ of the South’s prosperity and for a simple reason: It is central to the south a port has focused geography and although far from perfect the best transportation infrastructure. With the River Itchen and Test creating the East and West boundaries it is, in a very small way, like the British Manhattan!

So what is to be done? Will this recession just put any plans on hold. The truth is that right now we have a lot of people who are working as hard as they can to survive. But a new dawn will come and we need to be prepared with a strategy and a plan which puts aside small thinking and looks to a new prosperity in a world where energy usage, new technology, and population growth means most of us will have to work and live in closer proximity in our cities without two cars, maybe no cars. Life will be different for our children - that is clear. A UK where we have a new type of manufacturing, and greater local food production just as a start. With this in mind we must create a Southampton that delivers this leadership ensuring the success of the region and leading from the front.

I realise that all of this has been said in one way or another before but when economic growth stops, as it has, we have a moment to reassess and start again. Bristol, Manchester, East London, Plymouth, Liverpool, Oxford, Newcastle to name a few. All have responsibility of being the focus for their region and the magnet for regional talent all have identities which are different all have had ‘moments of reinvention caused by good fortune or catastrophe. Is this Southampton’s time, are we able to make this our moment?

Innovation, green industry, marine technology, leisure, education, international trade, are watch words for the region and Southampton should build a new vision around being a Green City of the future with innovative work and living solutions built into the city environment. We must also become the ‘start up’ city offering work and living clusters for entrepreneurs and knowledge workers with incentives for these businesses to stay in the region. There will be new business built on technology which will grow as fast, perhaps faster than success stories like Google, we need to identify and nurture these micro organisations by providing the support to keep them in the South. It may be unrealistic to think that large organisations will be relocating in this climate, so we must build our own and help those on the cusp of success succeed and not move away.

So the DNA of the Central south region is embedded in Southampton and today Southampton is the head of this ‘monster’ when it comes to world wide recognition. Yes some may say the brains are in Winchester which was, of course, the ancient capital of Wessex but that is history and we must look forward.

Every city has similar challenges; they all have a multilayered series of contradictions and issues. Southampton’s unique issues of still being an ‘industrial style’ port (and very successful because of it) means we should leverage this success into a new City for the future.

The success of our region depends on the success of Southampton, she is our Captain and as such leader. We must know her character and support her.

Please join this conversation by emailing Southampton@greenfield.co.uk and your views will be published.

Back a new regional Bank

2009-02-26T09:20:00.001Z

Massive losses, share prices going up!!!!

The tax payer will pay!

On one hand maybe we should support the new management of the big 4 banks and ensure that those still employed stay employed. I fear, however, it is too late and therefore we must find a new way. Everything is about timing and confidence. My idea of a small 'Business Society' Uvestin plc - blogged earlier has received very positive support but the bigger idea of a Regional Hampshire Bank - HantsFund- is a solution which as a marketing professional I believe is the right product at the right time. It will be an incredibly positive statement of the regions will to remain as a regional power house of innovation.

Hampshire and the Solent region offers a fertile place where we could lead the country out of recession. Southampton remains our gateway to the world and for years has has been modest about its achievements this is the moment for the people of Hampshire from all walks of life to support the Bank of Hampshire.

To add your support please email me at backthebank@greenfield.co.uk

When the banks say no uvestin!

2009-02-21T08:50:00.001Z

Stuart Greenfield launches new company to invest in Southampton businesses

Today Uvestin plc has been launched by Stuart Greenfield with the aim of initially investing £1million of cash into the Southampton business community.

The money will be invested in return for share holdings in the chosen companies and the successful Southampton business will be picked by a panel of Southampton’s leading business professionals.

Companies interested in the investment opportunity will be asked to present to the uvestin plc panel and decisions will be made within a 30 day period. The goal is to invest in at least 2 businesses per month during 2009/10.

Uvestin plc will be launching a private offering of shares within the next 30 days before floating on the PLUS market later in the year.

Stuart Greenfield said:

Over the last 9 months I have watched, as we all have, the world’s economy take one disastrous blow after another and I now believe the time is right to do something positive and quickly but on a very focused local scale.

He continued:

‘Uvestin plc’s mission statement is: To build regional business prosperity by providing investment and expertise in the community by the community.

A year ago such a business idea would have been a dream but working in partnership with the many business and support agencies in the city and realising that even with positive government incentives money is still not flowing I realised a more entrepreneurial approach is necessary to prevent some incredibly good businesses just running out of cash.

For this reason I call upon all Southampton business owners, high wealth individuals and those in need of funding in the Southampton region to contact me today and take action to ensure we keep Southampton in business.

This is not going to be a cash giveaway and the criteria for investment will be tough but every business will receive an incredible range of support, they will have guidance and help from a team of the regions best business brains and yes the Uvestin team we will be working very closely with them every step of the way.

The success of Uvestin plc will provide a return to all who invest but the bigger opportunity is that as a Southampton businesses or member of the community you get a double wammy ; every successful Southampton business builds the prosperity of the region and that means more jobs and more business – its micro economics at work.

A big incentive for every citizen of Southampton

Uvestin plc will be offering 250,000 free shares to the community of Southampton. These shares will be free to trade on the PLUS market. One share will be offered to each member of the community by simple registration on the Uvestin plc website

Snowed in!

2009-02-03T01:08:00.000Z

Broadband more rubber band

Peter behind a Digital UK - time to speed it up!

Today with much of the UK at standstill and many people using that well worn phrase ‘Working from home’ how many really will be working? Broadband speeds in the villages and small towns are still far slower than that of our European friends and today I really understood how that feels. Yes I am working from home and today I have just 130Kps which is ridiculous and enables me to pick up an email every 10 minutes of so!

The Governments latest report on the UK in the digital age (http://www.culture.gov.uk/what_we_do/broadcasting/5631.aspx) outlines the plans and if implemented the UK will be on the crest of a wave (excuse the pun). But as ever the ‘how’ bit is a little slim.

What is for sure that social networking in all its forms from Facebook and Twitter, to blogs and corporate networks we must all continue to broaden our minds and broaden our broadband.

Here are just a few of the machinations of the Social Networking world over the last 6 months:

Social media start-ups continue to attract funding and VC money, despite financial doom and gloom and recessionary fears.

Twitter is reportedly on the brink of integrating search into its home page. Finding relevant information for companies is thought to be a potential route to monetising the microblogging service.

At the end of 2008, European business social network, Xing, acquired New York-based socialmedia, for a reported $7.5 million.

In October 2008, financial services blog, Bankaholic, was purchased by financial information portal, BankRate for $14.9 million.

In 2008, AOL bought Bebo for $850 million, as part of its international expansion strategy. AOL also acquired social networking site SocialThing in 2008 in a $10 million deal.

In July 2008, Twitter acquired search utility, Summize. Tech gossip blog, Silicon Alley, valued the acquisition at an estimated $15 million.

With mobile social networking predicted to be the “next big thing,” Vodafone acquired mobile social networking tool, Zyb in the early part of 2008, in a €31.5 million deal

Yes he can! When nothing but hope and virtue could survive….

2009-01-20T20:50:00.000Z

There is little I can say which could add to the positive feeling of millions around the world. We have a challenge ahead but we are fortunate that today a huge percentage of the world are willing to give the 44th President of the United States of America all the encouragement he needs to ‘remake America’ and in doing so much of the world.

Good Luck Barack

Attitude and Energy - 2009 New Year Resolution

2009-01-02T12:08:00.000Z

New Years Resolution... the toughest ever

January 2nd and as ever I am frustrated, I want to get back to work. I am impatient and although I realise a lot of people need these few extras days break after working when we have been relaxing I just want to get started and try do my bit to get the UK back in business. Yes we need a BIG rethink we cannot just fiddle with the controls as Gordon Brown has done over the last 3 months we need some exciting change that will inspire us to use our energy and redress our attitude. Maybe we need to give a sign to Gordon to say OK you're the one we give you our support so make the decisions and we will work wit you. Surely now is the time to bury party politics and look at the bigger issues.

I was looking at that well know management training graph of 'Attitude-v- Energy and realised that both words could easily be changed for optimism. What happens to the World (apart from natural changes- and even then we are causing some of these) first happens in our collective minds, this is then processed into actions. Inspiration leadership helps us all to focus, gives us optimism and energises us to act. We need to believe there is a new way to solve the problems of sustainable energy, food, water provision and population growth. We should give a thought to these issues in everything we do, everyday.

Is this just the normal first day of January thoughts, an idea for a New Year's resolution that will be forgotten in a week's time when the hash reality of the problems ahead just put us back in our box of self-deception and 'looking after number one' or is this the moment for a more fundamental shift of attitudes when perhaps the leading Nations of the world who have the power and ability to make something happenactually stand up and say. NO to Israel, NO to Afghanistan, NO to Pakistan, NO to Iran and NO to mad African dictators and NO to China's relentless creation of a fossil fuel based economy. OK it may not be fair as we have had the 'good fossil fuel life' but for the future of us all surely it's time to change?

To add you views please email me at Stuart@greenfield.co.uk

2009Digital Marketing predictions from Stuart Greenfield

2008-12-30T14:50:00.000Z

Stuart Greenfield's 2009 predictions
30th December 2008

It is my first day back at my desk. I am slowly recovering from the worst flu have ever had, it must be my age, as postulated by my family! So 2009 is just a few days away and now is the time to put into the cloud my thoughts on 2009. During the Summer of 2008 I wrote ‘Digital Revolution’ part of my series of books which are designed for CEOs and Managing Directors. In the book I touched on a number of digital marketing key issues facing business leaders and managers due to the World economic downturn. At this date many of my thoughts are playing out across boardrooms around the world. The worsening of the World economy is beginning to create an avalanche effect in many peoples thinking and as 2009 begins the rate of change needed in business across the globe will be incredible to enable a new economic order to be established. The recent news once again establishing Japan and the fastest shrinking economy in the World is very disheartening. How much grief can they take, it seems to have been going on for every! From a marketing communications aspect those business that act quickly and grasp the new tools available to them will survive. Those business who believe that a ‘do nothing wait and see’ approach will see them through will not. Many businesses will see the recession as a legitimate reason to make major cuts and changes that they have been in denial about since 911…

So here are my thoughts for 2009 :

1.Reduce your IT resources by investigating ‘cloud computing’ solutions. Reduce your investment in servers by using outsourced server farms. Search for generic solutions online and reduce all development on new applications. Focus on providing information and content to your customers which is more relevant and fresher. (Key developments will be SAAS - Software as a service).

2.Corporate Social Networking will become the tool that will allow you to get closer and more relevant to your customers. This step does not require a high level of technical ability but does require a change in mindset and information flexibility based on trust internally.

3.Mobile devices and platforms will improve and the number of applications available from Google and Apple will grow exponentially. Consumer growth will, however, slow due to the downturn and the availability of networks and bandwidths will also affect the user experience. Viruses and scams created on mobile networks will increase and it will take until 2010 for many of these ‘consumer’ fears to be averted

4.The advertising industry will be decimated with hundreds of small traditional advertising agencies unable to continue trading. Many of these agencies will fail having left it too late to develop the much needed in-house digital skills. It is essential that all business using external PR, advertising and design agencies have a root and branch review of the solutions and services provided and the ROI.

5.Blogging, twitter and ‘life streaming’ will continue a-pace. With more people un-employed and looking for opportunities the immediacy and practicality of personal promotion will be addictive. This will peak, however, as most bloggers realize they have an average of 1 reader! Consolidation of this material into a more structured solution where verified ‘career’ and professional information will exist will be a strong growth area. Linkedin will develop but many new solutions linking ‘work life’ will appear.

6.50+ markets will continue to demand more focused online solutions and ‘Silver Social Networking’ will become grow exponentially. These services will be niched not just by interest but also by Geography and new ‘social gatherings’ will be created driven by these new web portals.

7.Banner advertising will become an outmoded online promotional tool. Sponsorship, online product placement and the creation of unique, bespoke and interactive articles will continue to grow.

8.The hundreds of bookmarking and linking tools will outlive their usefulness and there will be some failures in this sector. New synchronization and consolidation tools will grow with Google and Apple and Microsoft competing to become the dominant new ‘walled garden’ (Yes we appear to be back at that again)

9.Video will become the dominant online advertising medium and with ‘in video’ ads being the only acceptable branding to consumers. This growth will reflect a drop in other traditional and online ad systems. SEO spend will increase with huge growth in businesses offering optimization and training.

10.Sky and satellite TV broadcasting will become hugely unfashionable and way to expensive for the average family. Those who are not hooked on the sports channels will cancel or reduce their subscriptions with Freeview solutions growing. The BBC will continue to dominate the sector with iplayer gaining in usage until a bandwidth crisis is reached. New reality shows will be few and far between as the huge budgets will not find the advertisers. Online ‘virtual reality’ gaming will continue to grow with users happier to ‘pay as they go’ rather than wait for the big launch of a format game. Format games will be reduced to creation of ‘branded’ worlds for the pre-teen market.

11.Distance learning and training linked to mentoring and coaching will boom with video, podcasts and video podcasts become the defacto way to learn. These will all be downloaded to mobile devices allowing learning ‘anywhere’. Kindle based readers will be incorporated into mobile devices and although ‘single use’ device will be sold as packages with a range of titles this will not become the dominant solution. Itunes and Amazon will attempt to control the market but most ‘out of copyright’ books will become free to read in many new formats.

12.Online retailing will continue to grow but at the slowest rate yet seen. Many failures will occur due to the knock on effect from the downturn on the high street. Discount web retailers will create a new sector where end of line and unsold stock will be found especially in the fashion sector. Traditionally this market was hidden from consumers and much stock sold off in other countries in the current market this will not be possible so consumers will potentially benefit.

13.The Governments new web ranking system will be introduced and for Schools and other organizations who already have sophisticated censorship control of web usage within their environments this will be helpful. Unfortunately the increase of mobile 3G services means that for anyone not willing to be controlled it will make no difference. A number of ‘walled garden’ solutions will become available and for some this will create an easier environment to get the best from the web. So although difficult it is important that some sort of standards and controls are put in place, or maybe the web will end up looking like the banking World!

14.If you own a shed then fill it with servers but make sure you have cheap energy. One of the biggest boom areas will be in the provision of data centres as businesses outsources their server needs. The cost of management, staff and training will mean these data centres become the only viable way to manage IT cost effectively and contribute to a more sustainable energy usage program.

A new plan for Europe... and a future for us all

2008-12-09T14:02:00.000Z

There is so much bad news in the economy that I for one have almost been paralysed over the last few weeks and concentrated on writing about technology which on the whole tends to be pretty black and white. But the future in terms of economic and to be frank World stability seems very grey rignt now. It seems that even the politicians who normally have plenty to say are just concentrating on arguing what should or should not be done to take away some of the pain right now. But pain is not the biggest problem it is fear. When everyone seems to have got it wrong over the last 5 years across the whole world and no one seems to have any answers to where the bottom is, what the landscape will look like and when we are likely to get there, what can we do?

David Cameron speaking today is just undermining Brown's quick fixes and blaming him for creating FUTURE problems. He does not appear to understand basic economics, and by the way I not sure I do either, because it seems the old rules have failed. Robert Peston as written a brilliant piece on his blog outlining the past 6 months and almost making sense of the whole sorry mess. It does appear, however, that our elected politicians have not yet read this inspired overview.

But tinkering with deck chairs, reducing VAT and fiddling with tax and NI is not the answer. So this is my plan:

I think we need a snap general election in January, as low cost as possible and we then need a coalition government of the best brains all working together. We need to join the Euro currency immediately and start working more closely with Europe on everything.

Starting with energy. We need a European energy plan and policy to create a European Grid linking up all the nuclear power stations and building a new age of sustainable solutions covering wind, wave and solar.

We need to give power to a new central European Super bank and change the rules on debt financing. E.g do not allow it unless the source is known verified and controllable from a European Bank perspective.

Armed forces should become a European controlled solution with a all resources shared and each country contributing to a single managed budget.

The car industry should only be supported if all R&D stops on everything except non fossil fuel based solutions across the whole of Europe

The airline businesses should have pricing controlled and the actual cost of a flight calculated in relation to the true cost of fuel, staff, asset. Any airline that cannot remain competitive should be allowed to fail. There should be one class and one price based on the above. Emmission and noise control should be servere to ensure old planes are taken out of service at the earliest opportunity. No new airports or new runaways should be planned or built- period.

Shipping. All new ships should comply to a european emissions standard and size controlled. A European law on obsolence should be put into law and any fleet owner not complying should not be allowed into European waters.

Railway system should be nationalised and a huge electrification project put in place to remove all diesel locomotives within 5 years.

NHS should remove the Trust system and return to a centralised command and control model with General practitioners paid a fixed salary and the pharmaceutical companies nationalised if they refuse to sell drugs at a price which is deemed unfair.

Schools and further eduction. We should return to a two tier systems rather like the old CSEs and O levels and ensure that students are streamed correctly and given the opportunity to learn pratical skills in more technical based colleges and get away from this idea that every one should spend three years studying for a degree... this is has been nonsense.

Windfall tax. The oil industry should be taxed to return all the money created due to the artificial price increases over the last 3 years. A new European central oil company set up and each country should nationalise their largest oil supplier to join it. This then will have the power to join with the super Euro grid to provide a mixed source energy solution controlled centrally.

Farming and food production. Tesco should be nationalised and profits ploughed back into food production and farming. All packaging using non sustainable materials made illegal.

Housing. Mortgages will be made illegal to purchase without a 25% minimum deposit and a government verified income controlled by a new department. All mortgages must be repayment and linked to a central European controlled rate.

Minimum wage and benefits should be set across Europe and based on regional climatic and food availability criteria.

OK - this is an incredible list of changes and may look like a new Socialist World but the USA will also have to acknowledge the new Europe as will the middle east and China/India. What it does acknowledge is that Thatcherite ideals of market forces and no Government intervention has not worked and we need democratic central and apolitical management to create a fair and sustainable future.

The first step is to remove the current Governement and start communicating with Europe.

email me with your views stuart@greenfield.co.uk

24 companies out of 100 are recruitment agencies!

2008-12-09T12:29:00.000Z

What does it say about the UK economy when nearly a quarter of the 100 fastest growing companies in the UK (24%) are recruitment agencies? Published on Sunday 7th December the Sunday Times Fast Track 100 listings are always interesting reading, but I was amazed to see so many recruitment companies, all less than 3 years old on average, in the listing, OK this top 100 does not include Technology companies but if I were in recruitment I would be pretty worried about the future.

I think it also says a lot about the power recruitment agency have had in booming economy but also how much it appears we will pay for the best people. In past recessions recruitment agencies have suffered badly like any service industry directly linked to growth.

So I think recruitment is up for a big change. Online recruitment still makes the employee pay big time but perhaps a leveling of the playing field will start happening now the market will be a lot more fluid.

Corporate Social networking is going to be the killer application which will change the recruitment landscape forever and a new online model which 'levels the playing field' by using a Google style 'adsense' engine for people, jobs and ranks them by keywords, back linking and verification of information will be the next innovation. It just needs a big leap of faith from outside the industry and I think it should come from the Government.

Linkedin is already doing a good job in this area but a pure play solution is needed.

So email me stuart@greenfield.co.uk if you want to join the team that builds the first real alternative to recruitment agencies.

Death at Walmart heralds a new era of madness

2008-11-30T19:38:00.000Z

So Black Friday in the US, the day after Thanksgiving, which always marks the start of the Christmas spending spree has been a lot slower than 2007 but still up 3%. Not a toal surprise eh!. What was incredulous was that one poor shopper ended up crushed to death trying to bag a 40% off bargain in Walmart. It does seem that whatever the economic client getting a bargain always tends to bring out the worst in people has all the bad news sent them all mad?

In the UK the news of carnage in India has diverted our attention from our own economy which in itself has at least given us the opportunity to think about other peoples problems for a moment, which can’t be bad thing. The demise of Woolworth’s came as no surprise to anyone who has walked past the job in the last 2-3 years. I am surprised it didn’t get snapped up a long time ago. There is a simple reason, however, it appears Woollies doesn’t own any of its freeholds. Yes, management sold and leased back those a few years ago to keep it afloat. I think the brand could do well and perhaps returning to its roots as a £1 shop with a big new website offering thousands of items could be the answer. Go online buy 10 items with free delivery next day and loads of coupons and special offers to boot!

I went along to the Business Startup show at Olympia on Saturday and found a large crowd all clambering for advice and knowledge from a very good line up of business gurus, entrepreneurs and the odd Dragons Den Star. It was a mishmash of very tacky stands but there were plenty of people attending and as a ‘free to enter event’ I expect every one gained a little inspiration. It just goes to show that business people do need to get out and talk to each other and be open minded about opportunities. I was impressed by a new business networking company called 4networking run by Brad Burton. This is a National network of breakfast networking events regionally spread for anyone who wants to sell and be sold to. It has a good social networking site and as, perhaps, we all anticipated in the digital marketing world, creating local niches with a National agenda (SME growth) and adding a face-to-face element has worked. It’s a reason to get out of the office and connect and beats waiting for an email. It also is a well presented brand with a strong simple message, with a simple philosophy which is quite cute in a way. (It appears all the marketing has been produced by the members in a collaborative way. Now that’s neat and cheap.. and Brad has kept the quality in as well. I think the concept will certainly will be attractive to younger business people who find the ‘chamber of commerce lunches’ a bit old fashioned. Well done Brad I really think he is on to something. You know this is something that Linkedin should look at, Brad if you are reading this give them a call… they need something on the ground and focused to stay relevant during this downturn.

So the BBC has started all live streaming of BBC One and BBC Two. This will be the tipping point for broadband especially in rural areas. BT provides over 50% of all broadband in these areas, speed and consistency is already poor so expect a loads of news about this between now and Christmas. It is incredible how poor mobile and broadband coverage still is in the UK and it all adds to inability to compete on a level playing feed with the rest of the World. Time to get this sorted.

Greenfield website goes live

2008-11-24T15:58:00.000Z

New website for Greenfield Strategic Marketing Consultants goes live

With a new blog section and marketing performace tips the Greenfield! website goes live.
Working with our preferred website engineers, Maze Communications, the new Greenfield website is now live. Featuring a new blog, the site uses a very flexible content management system and is optimised to take advantage of the latest Google SEO algorithms.

Stuart Greenfield said,

'It is always testing to launch a new website but we have achieved a superb result in record time and Maze Communications have been a superb team to work with.

Not a great day for the Internet or Yahoo!

2008-11-18T17:27:00.000Z

Jerry Yang bows out

With a share price hovering around $10 the future of Yahoo really will depend on a new boss. Jerry Yang the co-founder of the Yahoo has finally decided that new blood is needed to take the company forward. Yahoo that is still valued at $14bn does need to reinvent itself as it's share of the world's search market continues to fall, now at less than 18%. This Summer Microsoft bid $33 a share and at the time that look a very poor offer to Yang, today he would jump at it, especially since he was rebuked by the company just last week when he offered to open up talks. One thing that Yahoo never seemed to get right was the control of its pay per click interface, when Google were building clever direct to consumer interfaces Yahoo out sourced systems and never committed to creating 'really easy to use' solutions this I feel always put Google ahead in that area. Yahoo had a lead in email but they appear to be loosing out there as well.

Google does need a competitor and we should all hope that Yahoo does get back into the groove...quickly

The lights are back on and someone appears to be at home.

2008-11-06T13:40:00.000Z

‘Did the king realise he was naked’

The future does look pretty un-certain but in the end a downturn must have a silver lining. A new President in the US may never have been elected if the US economy had been prospering.

The Bank of England have at last done the right thing and slashed interest rates to 3% which is incredible based on 0.5% customary shifts we have seen for years.

So a new world order in the financial markets starts now because of the failure of the banking system and the dangers created to us all by the hedge fund managers. We are all to blame for fuelling and allowing what happened but we are all now focused on the solution.

Fixing it this time will involve a new order in politics, business and the big elephant in the room, energy management and sustainability. The US will I am sure now take this seriously and I expect Al Gore to appear somewhere in Obama’s line up.

This means we must do something immediately to control the Middle East oil monopoly and as Gordon Brown said, the Middle East producers must strive for a better relationship with Europe, America and China as the do actually need us as much as we need them. If they are not careful no one will be able to afford to go to Dubai!

So this is the moment to take stock and begin again. We have a new generation of children with a different perspective on sustainability, life work balance and the future.
Their need for physical assets may well be different to ours and hopefully they will see the need for care in using them.

The Presidential Election

2008-11-04T08:16:00.000Z

It seems to have gone on forever, but the day has finally arrived. I am excited that America will choose Obama as the first multi-racial president. This has to be the best thing for the new world order. McCain is a true American hero but probably just had this opportunity too late in his life. But... it's not decided yet! I could be wrong!

But what a mess, voters waiting for hours in queues, computer systems overload and this is before the actual voting day. We can only hope we won't see the same issues that occurred in 2004 when George W Bush lost then won in Florida.

Back at home the election is big news and diverts our attention from the real issues for the recession, oil prices, and job losses. Even Ross and Brand was in a way light relief from the crushing negativity of the financial crisis. Was the Daily Mail right in their stoking of the Ross/Brand fire? Well in these 'I told you so' times anyone who is on public display must be a lot more careful, there is a lot of anger and envy building up in the UK and it will continue to come to the surface as we approach Christmas.

On the digital front, we have had all kinds of doom and gloom. We had Jimmy Wales the founder of Wikipedia announcing that he believes the web world is going to suffer significantly in the next 12 months, frankly I think that was an obvious statement as every area of business is linked. We have Facebook looking for new finance and Linkedin successfully raising cash. Amazon's growth has slowed to its lowest all time rate but Google continues to innovate. Yahoo are now in real trouble having turned down (or made to turn down) the Microsoft offer.

So it's going to be an exciting day...enjoy!

What a twitter!

2008-10-26T08:38:00.001Z

So blogging is over? This comment made the UK news on Friday 24th October. Jason Calacanis who started the story in July is a very well known Blogger in the web world and his comment is interesting in that he hasn’t really stopped blogging he has just started to focus his comments on a smaller community by creating an email broadcast list that you have to subscribe to. He has also started to use Twitter.

So why all the hype? Well he says too many Blogs are written professionally, they are part of marketing strategies for big publishers and there is just too much ‘noise’ to make them effective. But what is effective? Anybody can tell in a moment whether a blog is a personal statement, written by a journalist or corporate puff. A blog is a diary so some people, private and just easy to do, and a good place to systematically use words to crystallise thoughts. Writing is cathartic for many and the blog makes it easy to so this, almost anywhere.

Blogs are also becoming less well indexed by Google and the number of Bloggers are still growing. So there is a lot of competition and quite rightly the blogging landscape is changing. Surely this is a good thing? Blogging has given a voice to millions most of us realise that probably only a handful of people will ever read what we write but that’s not the point. The Internet as Tim Berners-lees said “was always about social interaction”.
This is the point and if Robin Dunbar’s rule of a the optimum size of a community is 150 still holds then for most people blogging will be a pastime that builds strong links in small focused groups. A big blog is a rather like the old newspaper, or magazine. And in theses cases most people will still want to be anonymous and passive.

So what’s the real story? It’s fear. The web 2 world of start ups are in a panic. They don’t know how they are going to find their next round of funding. These guys must keep the web world on the agenda and this comment about blogging certainly did that. Getting a headline when we have banks failing and currency crashing was a master stroke!

Twitter is getting big news because it works, it is quick, and it fits our sound byte world, but it is just part of the answer. If we add newsgroups, forums, email list signups, the social networking sites, the bookmark sites et al. Twitter will be abused by business and advertising but consumers will know and filter, then move on.

All these methods of communication serve the same purpose in connecting and communicating. There will always be different strokes for different folks! I say if any business wants to show its true personality then we need to hear the unedited, unscripted views of the people in the business at all levels. Written, spoken, filmed, it doesn’t matter because we can all tell intuitively if they are being truthful. Consumers will demand it business cannot avoid it.

Oil, recession and digital opportunities

2008-10-20T01:46:00.000+01:00

I think we have all been worn out over the last three weeks. The banking crisis appears to have just shrouded the main issues in the economy and we are all focused on streamlining our businesses and our personal lives for the down turn ahead. It seems to me that all along the cost of energy has been an under current that has pulled the economy down. The constant manipulation of oil prices by OPEC and the fall of the value of mining companies all over the world is probably as worrying as the banking crisis.

The next year will see a lot of young entrepreneurial business get into trouble but it will also enable those business with good products and efficient marketing and distribution to come to the surface. Those businesses with a fundamental understanding of digital marketing are the ones who will also survive best. I do not see the pace of technology change slowing as the pipeline is already loaded and these products, many software based, will be made available probably even earlier than expected.

This is a great opportunity for Google, who has just announced a further increase in profits to make some big steps forward with Android and other iGoogle gadgets. Let’s hope Microsoft also moves quickly to make up ground and create a bit of competition. I predict the Google/Yahoo merger will actually take place before the New Year. This will mean we have some much needed competition in the market. This will also be the making of social networking sites. With Linkedin now valued at $1billion becoming a major player in the senior recruitment market. News International ultimate owner of Myspace will continue to find ways to monetise that site as well.

Linkedin must be thinking of cashing soon and maybe if Microsoft fails with Yahoo they may like the look of it. Linkedin has a great model with users paying £10 a month for the privilege of being able to link up with a lot of top ranking FTSE executuves. I see Linkedin becoming the major star in 2009.

I have just finished a short guide to digital for CEOs and senior executives who are in need of a quick refresher on what the current thinking is. Called the Digital Revolution, it covers 7 steps, which neatly links soft issues to technology. First 100 copies are free, pop onto the Greenfield web site at http://www.greenfield.co.uk/ for your copy.

Myads?

2008-10-15T23:34:00.000+01:00

Does the launch of a new CPC (cost per click) model for small business to advertise on Myspace announce a little panic in the social networking world? Will this put off Myspacers? Will Myspace become the next Google Adwords?

Last year Facebook did something similar by inserting ads into users’ news feeds but this was not totally successful. What is apparent is that there is some stress in the Web 2 world and all businesses are looking for rapid revenue streams to support their business models. With a world recession looming and Myspace and Facebook together having 1.2billion visitors a month there is a big infrastructure to support.

The confidence in the Internet would be severely damaged if a major social networking site with so much information stored on it got into trouble, and although this doesn’t look like it could happen, after the financial melt down over the last few weeks who knows!

Doing a little market research myself I asked a small number of teenagers. All said they just didn’t want ads on their pages. I then said. ‘What if you got a tiny amount of money every time someone clicked’? They then all agreed that would be fine. Paying Myspacers to carry ads on a shared revenue model, now there’s an idea.

Over the next year there will casualties in every industry s, and I expect the online world will suffer to in the meantime ‘monetising the long tail’ is the total focus.

6 degrees of separation just became 2!

2008-10-12T10:26:00.001+01:00

So with almost every government in the world guaranteeing our deposits it’s all going to be fine. Business as usual, a bit of a blip and by January everything will be back to normal? But has the Government actually thought this through? What if a bank in the UK did go bust, how would the Government actually pay people the £50K. Would they immediately nationalise the operation, retain all the staff and then reduce all the accounts with more than £50K to this amount? Would they then prevent anyone from moving any money? OK I am being simplistic but we need to look at the reality. The Government's ego is 'writing checks their body can't cash'. Every penny they are using to support the banks is being borrowed some where else. The assets they are buying with our money is for assets the banks have valued. Isn't this how we got into this mess in the first place?

So even if this £50K arrangement did work what about the business accounts? How many businesses would go bankrupt immediately? In effect the government has no idea of the consequences of what they are doing. They are just hoping that this is going to sort its self out. This guarantee nonsense is just to try and calm the nerves of the general public and massage the egos of the politicians. Let’s not forget it was the Gordon Brown, Mr Prudent who presided over this mess for the last 10 years.

Not too far away in Iceland we do have one Nation that appears to be one step further down the path of absolute failure and that is Iceland. One of the banks that has actually gone into receivership is Kaupthing Singer and Friedlander and suddenly the real effects of this crisis I have felt. In this case just 2 degrees of separation brings this home to me. I know the chairman of an organisation who invested nearly £6m in this bank and today faces the loss of it all. It appears a number of county councils also invested in Icelandic banks! How did this happen well they were offering the best interest for depositors in the world. The internet allows you to easily search for the ‘best interest rates’ and bingo Icelandic banks suddenly saw £billions flooding into the country, which they used to take part in buying assets all around the world. I expect all the credit checks on the banks at the time were fantastic!

So for some people they very real effects are becoming apparent and I predict next week the current situation will begin to sink into the general public and the mood will change rapidly for the worst.

Ebay cuts 1000 jobs

2008-10-06T16:27:00.000+01:00

What is going on you may ask? Surely Ebay will be one of the big winners in the following tough months, how come they are cutting back? Well here’s my guess. Ebay are improving the efficiency of their operation all the time and many start up countries are now on track and doing well so many ‘start up’ staff can be lost without any effect.
Plus by continuing on the acquisition path they are able to cross fertilise talent and share skills, result less people needed.

More interesting is the comment I made just a week ago regarding credit cards. Ebay has purchased ‘Bill Me Later’ this is a company with Citigroup, Amazon and Equifax as shareholders and approves credit almost instantly to shoppers. Ebay obviously believe they can begin to capture more sales to consumers that do not like using credit cards on line, or are tightly managing their budgets. All in all this could grow Ebay’s market almost instantly and gets them into the financial services business and they can start making money on the money!. Would that worry you right now? What it does do is make the brand even more sticky and gives Ebay another cracking USP.

For all online merchants the marketing message is becoming clear. Your services levels must offer a range of payment solutions which are fast and easy to use, this is what customers will expect and without it you may miss the ‘last click’.

Keep your Friends close...

2008-10-05T16:13:00.000+01:00

Keep your friends close but your enemies closer. This quote was used in 'The Godfather' but is attributed to Sun Tzu who was the author of ‘The Art of War’. It would seem that politics in the UK has just raised its game, and with Boris Johnson on full attack with David Cameron backing him up (yes Boris has the power right now) it is frighteningly obvious that Gordon had to do something to make the headlines and add some new ideas fast.

Bringing in Mandy has certainly done that but will he now stop the Gordon torture and do something about the approaching recession. Next thing will be Alistair Campbell appointed as advisor and we have turned the clocks back 10 years. But the World is a very different place with a lot more problems; we don’t need old ideas and old grudges.

So if Gordon’s playing Don Vito Corleone, Mandy’s playing Sonny and Alistair is Michael does it mean a horse’s head will be found in Boris’s bed quite soon? One thing is for sure it is all going to end in tears!

Even with all this political play going on we do still remain in a democratic, capitalist country. Well this is what I thought but underneath it all £billions of pounds are being feed into the banking system with the banks borrowing against any assets they have at incredible preferential rates. We are doing what the American’s had to do through their political system by stealth.

We are, in fact, letting the banks get away with 5-10 years or more of the most incredible mismanagement or are we? Surely we are just putting the problem off for a later date?

In Japan 10 years ago when they faced similar financial conditions the Government apparently did not act decisively and this led to a country which had near zero interest rates for a decade, little growth and incredible hardship. Will saving the banks avert this or end up with the Government in a viscous circle of lower tax returns, higher deficit, higher inflation and less productivity?

Managing Directors and CEO’s across the world are facing some incredible challenges and it is clear that doing nothing is not an option. With the Government employing either directly or indirectly over 30% of the population in the UK this could mean a soft landing for many, for those employed in the SME’s sector things look much worse.

The Marketing Crunch

2008-10-01T02:16:00.000+01:00

The last two weeks seems on one hand to have shocked us all and on the other hand we appear to have become almost punch drunk on the daily news of more banks being bailed out. This continual stream of negative news has almost stopped any other news making the front pages. The Conservative conference continues but they have not had the gift of a slow news day to get their message across. In fact the shadow chancellor looked and sounded completely out of his depth when actually put on the spot about the current banking crisis. If I were to be unkind I don’t think he really understood the maths. But in reality if we look back at conservative shadow chancellors including Michael Howard, Michael Portillo and Francis Maude none of them actually have accountancy backgrounds so why would they really understand the inner dynamics, I am not sure all the traders and bankers actually understand the dynamics of the market, which is probably why we are where we are.

The Paris motor show opens, Google launch their new phone and things continue, but there are some big issues on the way, the number of redundancies not just in the city but in retail and manufacturing continues to increase on a daily basis. Tesco announces even bigger profits and you wonder what type of contracts they are offering to suppliers at the moment.

So with my marketing hat on where does that put brand Britain? Well I am going to coin a phrase now which you will hear again and it sums up what is about to happen in the Marketing services sector. Welcome to the ‘Marketing Crunch’ or ‘Brand Melt Down’. We are going to see some big failures in this service sector and it will be a combination of over supply and not just reduced budgets but no budgets at all. Fundamentally there are too many brands chasing too few customers in every sector from food to DIY and electricals and as we know when the economy slows advertising is generally the first causality.

There is just too much choice and the choice of product comparison websites just makes choosing even more difficult. The consumer is now so overloaded with branfds it is difficult to make any choice at all, and now there is an incentive not to choose so guess what? No sales.

But this was going to happen anyway even without the banking collapse. Rather like estate agents digital marketing companies can be set up by anyone with a bit of programming knowledge and an eye for design, no marketing, brand, or advertising knowledge needed. This has meant that websites and digital marketing has been one of the cheapest parts of your marketing budget but what are the results?

Now this is tricky many marketing people say that their ecommerce web site work and they are profitable and due to the measurability of the media they can prove it and its true the increase in online sales has been amazing 56% year on year, but in reality it is still just 10% of the UK retail sales and Ebay, Amazon, Tesco, and Argos account for over ½ of this. So specialist retailing on the web is just that specialist and in this new down turn that is coming many of these web companies who run these small ecommerce sites are going to go to the wall, leaving those retailers high and dry. What is even more worrying is that marketing graduates who would have trained conventionally have focused on online marketing and few understand the real process of managing brands in a conventional sense, and many of the traditional full service advertising agencies have found their traditional customers move their accounts to digital agencies. So we have knowledge gap as well. Add to this the fact that the number of brands carried by the likes of Tesco will be reduced in a recession (you only need to look at Lidl and other pallet shifters to see that most consumers will be happy with less choice when times are hard) to realise that there are going to be mass casualties in the branded, food, fashion, garden, DIY and gifts market. This will have a knock on effect in distribution and packaging industries all creating a massive marketing crunch.

Argos 12%

Amazon Sites 11%

Tesco Stores 6%

Littlewoods Shop Direct Group 6%

Play.com Sites 6%

Apple Computer, Inc. 4%

NEXT Group 4%

Ticketmaster 3%

Groupe PPR 3%

The Carphone Warehouse Group 2 %

Online sales by percentage

The survivors as ever will be the multinational brand owners, and those manufacturers with world wide markets. For survival it is crucial that companies look very closely at the core USP of their products, perhaps cut out brand extension products and focus on less products more closely targeted. Having the ability to sell direct and via all types of retailer both bricks and mortar and online will soften the blow. Getting clever and personal with consumer communications will be even more important. Relying on the supermarkets to carry you through the bad months will just not be an option.

The time has come when only the brands with a real reason to exist will be with us in 12 months time and this is how it should be in a proper market place. We are currently so ‘over branded’ it is confusing the market. What’s for sure none of these failing businesses will be able to go running to Government to be nationalised even if they employed 1000’s of people. So how does a business survive the marketing crunch? We will finally see a backlash online where the price comparison sites and affiliate driven sites will just fail to be a sound business model as the amount of online advertising will reduce inline with sales volumes. Will we see the current acceleration of online sales volumes slow down because of reducing credit limits on credit cards? If the high streets retailers are devastated with old favourites like Woolworths, Boots and WHsmiths maybe disappearing will we just see further increases for Tesco, Sainsbury’s and Morrisons with the web taking its share of orders.

If this happens will we see the likes of Tesco offering a range of designer brands and specialist goods through their portal offering a one stop shop and zero delivery costs? Free delivery is something which most small online retailers are unable to afford. What can a specialist retailer offer online in such a crowded online market and how will you find them, especially if your broadband provider convinces you to sign up to a ‘tailored pipe’? That is one that watches what you do and tunes what you see in return for a free connection or other incentives. As a small retailer you then have to work with Google and the broadband suppliers just to get access to a customer base. So what will the online and offline landscapes look like in 12 months time? I guess that Google will still be calling the shots and let’s hope that Microsoft having brought back $40bn dollars of their own shares will start fighting back and give us some alternatives maybe around mobile web and social networking. In the meantime get some brand new ideas from Greenfield!

$700bn feeding frenzy

2008-09-28T11:12:00.000+01:00

This figure, I think, will be remembered for a long time, it will stand for stupidity, greed and ego. The stupidity of us all for believing we could afford the mortgage repayments, greed of the financial advisors, and the banks and ego of the politicians especially George W Bush who has had to make this bill go through to ensure his place in history. Without this bailout the Bush legacy would have been; disastrous wars and global economic failure. It will now just be disastrous wars. But let’s not blame Bush entirely.

Gordon Brown and many other leaders across the globe did not foresee any of this. But, Gordon, Mr. prudent, the man who put his ability as Chancellor of the Exchequer above everything else should have done better. He spent the last 2 years before becoming PM fighting Tony and brooding. He stopped doing the day job and everyone knew it. Even then the likes of Adam Applegarth, MD of Northen Rock was realising that he could borrow just about any amount of money from other banks and still make a margin. As a salesman all he had to do was sell more mortgages and this he did expertly and to such and extent that just before they crashed last year Northern Rock were selling twice as many mortgages than their nearest competitors with incredible incentives. By then every other bank, and building society and sub prime loan company was on the same bandwagon. Websites appeared everywhere offering loans underwritten by merchant banks and really anyone who could raise money used it to sell money. The motivation, of course, was the fees that they made from the consumer and all the way up the food chain rigth to the Chief executives at the top. If you were selling money you couldn't loose!

Greed drove the market. The intermediary fees, the commission, ripped all the profit out of the deals at the front end. There was no personal liability for the directors of theses businesses. The amounts were just too big. It’s a well know law if you owe enough to a bank it’s no longer your problem, it’s the banks problem!! Anyway if you get your commission and bonuses who cares what the value of the business might be (Even though at the time they were valuing these banks at incredible PE’s but it was all conjecture). So the market was driven harder and harder because it was easy money and you got it immediately. Sell long borrow short was the rule. Incredible but true.

So what does Bush do? He throws $700bn at the market and every single banker will working out ways to get their hands on this money through, salary, bonuses, shares you name it. (They really don’t care about the consequences they are after all just gambling) It will be the biggest feeding frenzy of all time and its OK because we're capitalists arn't we?

Governments are not supposed to interfere, we are not supposed to Nationalise companies. The markets and economies are supposed to work alone without intervention. If we have fundamentally got it wrong how have we survived since the War? Do we want to return to the days of British Leyland or is this the dawn of a new era. Where does Cameron stand on this?Gordon will Nationalise the Bradford and Bingley Bank tomorrow, and the bank of England will start printing money (or that will be the effect). I was always led to believe Newton’s Law existed everywhere. Energy cannot be created or destroyed. Once the money’s in the system you can’t remove it and this increases inflation. On Tuesday Gordon will announce, via the Bank of England, a UK rescue package how much… start placing your bets!!

The outcome of all this I don’t think anyone has a clue. But we still have global warming, crazy oil prices, and a world at war. Something’s gotta give!

Airlines, advertising, newspapers and Phorn!

2008-09-23T16:55:00.000+01:00

So the stock market continues to dive down and the word is don’t panic it’s not that bad as only financial companies are really suffering, but did someone forget about the airlines? Alitalia will not survive for starters and this brings me to a very interesting observation. Today Alitalia took out print adverts in the Italian press and the Financial Times asking for investors to step up to the plate. Now this seems a very interesting way of communicating at this late stage. Firstly if they do go down would you expect those media bills to be paid? So does that mean they used cash? This is a small point and my real one is this. Alitalia have multilingual websites driving sales, they have massive SEO and PPC capability but if you look closely at the Investor relations and corporate information pages online there are just a few press releases giving the barest details of it all.

So what’s happening? I think its corporate inertia; the machine is just too big to change quickly. So what did they do? They went back to basics. They asked, who do we want to talk to and how do they get their daily knowledge? Answer they read the paper. Their thoughts were obviously; can’t get the journalists to write what we want so we’ll run an ad. To me this is a brilliant insight into how far we’ve come. The word surfing the net is nonsense, no one just flicks about anymore we just use it to find specific information on a subject quickly and, don’t get me wrong, it is worthy. But for inventiveness and ideas to take hold we need to be in a different mind set, we need to be free wheeling a little, sitting on the tube reading a paper, looking out the window, chatting in a bar, standing in a lift with our colleagues. Suddenly we will see something that clicks with us or starts a pattern of thought. We are not focused on finding the cheapest flight (by the way there aren’t any anymore!) so we can take new things, in and that makes us do something different. Isn’t that what real advertising is all about, changing people’s behaviour? Ok I am not about to say that targeting is a waste of money as it is crucial for us all to be reminded of the brands we love, all this has its place of course and is part of a very successful advertising industry that has survived for at least 150 years).

But advertising does more than just sell it makes the world much more exciting for us all, the quality of TV and print ads whoever they have been specifically targeted for give us all an insight into other people’s lives which I think is a good thing. It makes it a richer experience for us all. The challenge is to make the online world more spontaneous and interesting, if everything is feed to us based on our profiles and PHORM (Just one of the new behavioural targeting company which will ‘legally’ be allowed to track everything you do online http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phorm) is allowed then the web could become a very dull place indeed. Funny, and good news then that Google launched an ‘incognito’ browser window on the new Chrome product but more about that another time. So back to airlines, yes the Italians do have a bit of style and they know a lot about ego and image so well done for a bit of creative thinking on the advertising I really hope you survive. Ciao bella!

It's just a theory but haven’t we seen this all before?

2008-09-21T12:14:00.000+01:00

Tchaikovsky 1812 Overture just happened to be the music I was listening to on Thursday evening as I went for a walk after a day in the office getting my head down. It had been a normal day for me in some ways but for the financial markets probably one of tremendous excitement. Let’s be honest many of the people who work in the city live for volatility and it doesn’t get much better than last week. George W Bush sees his chance to be the hero of the moment; London blames the hedge funds and the short sellers, Gordon Brown buries loads of bad news and is out of the headlines preparing for the Labour party conference. The rest of us worry about the future of our jobs, price of food as normal. It’s all a bit like Ground Hog day everything seems to chance but nothing does, Or does it? It’s a great time for journalists and folk who write blogs, we’re having a great time but what is really going to be the outcome of all this financial madness.

What’s for sure is Monday will see a massive sell of shares which will take the World’s market down again and the roller coaster continues, as in 1812 defeating Napoleon was great in the short term but served little purpose for the poor people of Russia in the following decades but at least we got some great music to remember it by. What is incredible is how most people just get on with life, and ultimately what else is there to do. Children need to be loved, grandparents looked after. What’s happening is rather like a soap opera, we see life at its worse on the TV screen and bingo we feel that our lives are somehow better. But if we are heading for a depression it will be the ‘normal’ people that suffer most, jobs will go, hardship will be with us and frankly with the public spending deficit in August increasing by and additional £10billion there is absolutely no parachute. Which is a shame, as even the NHS has got its act together and cleaned up hospitals this year. They certainly had enough money to employ plenty of hard working fun loving Poles to do the big spring clean. But even the Poles are going home - by boat as the Channel tunnel has also given up!

So there I am listening to some great music and thinking yes this REALLY is quite a big deal, it somehow feels worse than 911, if you know what I mean! At least we had something to focus on something to vent our angry at. Does it feel different to Black Wednesday in 1992 when Norman Lamont took us out of the ERM. What about 1973?
I was a teenager at boarding school and suddenly we were told we were running out of oil and coal, prices spiralled upwards. Edward Heath declared a 3 day week on December 31st.. Result: Harold Wilson was back in power by the Spring. I remember sitting in the dark, it was cold anyway, and thinking this is more fun than working! So maybe the human condition means that we need excitement, we need things to be ‘on the edge’ to actually feel alive… maybe the thirst for more, more growth, more technology, more leisure, more money, more work, is just a way of making the journey interesting and edgy. Does being so connected to it all by the media and technology mean we are all contributing to make everything worse than it is one day and better than it is the next?

If you were a mathematician you could put it all down to a the Elliot Wave Theory which states that any market will move in a predetermined way this has its roots based on the Fibonacci series (1-2-3-5-8-12-21) Next number equals sum of previous two numbers etc. So the bigger the high the bigger the lows and it all moves along in sets of 5. This is how hedge fund geeks code their computers to determine going short or long but then the managers pop up and say … No not enough fun let’s do something interesting because my ego needs it! However, Elliot says people actually interact according to his wave theory as well so…. you’re beginning to get the idea!!… In simple terms the golden ratio as predicted by Fibonacci is 0.618. This could mean that whatever happens we will spend 68% of the time growing and 32% of the time shrinking! (Apply to everything screaming kids, traffic jams, and personal wealth)

So where does this leave us all… well back at the music, Tchaikovsky 1812 Overture unwittingly obeys a Fibonacci series, and that’s why it has stood the test of time, it’s a piece of music that takes you in so many directions, such randomness and then such focus, but we end up understanding the musical story and enjoying it and remembering it.

How can I help you apply this to your marketing strategy? Call me because visual design and web interaction and the way people open email broadcast may actually have some fundamentals that if applied could make a BIG difference… remember you heard it here first!

PS: Do the geeks win in the end! (Did Google Know)

Was Roger Daltrey right!

2008-09-18T09:18:00.000+01:00

In the famous (infamous) song by Roger Daltrey we hear about the day after the night before and listening to the news today it does seem that the World's economy has just woken up after the most outrageous drunken party of all time. It has gone on for the last 5 years or more and it would appear that everyone was involved. The party may well have been started even earlier in 1997 when Tony Blair became PM replacing John Major who at the time seemed to be running an even more scandalous party. The fall out continues with HBO/Halifax merging with Lloyds, let’s be honest HBOS was bust and Gordon Brown, probably the brightest PM ever, realised this was the only way out. Gordon will not last as PM and rightly so, clever prime ministers are just so boring. He won’t be told what to do by advisers who may have all gone to Cambridge but their ego’s come first. Result Gordon tries to do everything and wanderers around looking glum because the reality is that it’s a bloody awful job especially when you trying to sort out a decade of incompetence. So where does that put the World economy? How do we get out of this one? How do you clean up after the party? Well know one knows but I think there is an interesting thought here. Does a merged world work? If you have to read the papers, (go online) to find out who you really work for, if you don’t know who supplies your water, gas, electricity, banking, and not sure who runs the local council what does this mean? Does who you know dictates who you are? If you don’t know does that mean you can’t care? If you don’t care do you then you just look out for the short term gains because there appears to be no consequences? That feels exactly like the last 10 years, doesn’t? Is this why Celebrity culture has taken over why Big Brother has been so successful people just searching for an identity, searching to find out who they are! So in the words of Roger Daltrey .. ‘Who the F**K are you!!!’

Blasé on the day the world didn't end

2008-09-16T00:17:00.000+01:00

Blasé on the day the world didn’t end

Another market shattering day in the States, Lehman Bros goes belly up followed by a rescue sale for Merill Lynch. In the UK we have a Government on the verge of collapse but its not all bad Oil drops $5 a barrel! After a decade which has given us a boom and bust online, Al-Qaeda attack on New York City, Saddam Hussain, Afghanistan and global warming (which means the North West passage is no longer a passage but a complete sea) I really felt a bit blasé about it all. What is it about being American that it always has to be worse there? ‘OK boys let’s do one better that Northern Rock, in the war of amazing cock ups we can win too!! So what did I do on this incredulous day? I went shopping, well not actually shopping I visited Top Drawer Autumn 08. This is a trade show in London which gathers together 800 plus manufacturers and distributors of top Christmas gifts. I was there looking at opportunities with a friend who is an expert in the retail business and we wanted to put a few ideas to the test. The show was a magnificent display of some really very nice stuff and everything on every stand nobody really needs; in fact nothing at all for sale would actually make any significant difference to anyone’s life. But you know what, even if with the amazing shadow of a global melt down, not caused by the nuclear particle accelerator in Cern creating a black hole, but greedy bankers and stupid home owners (me included) means that there will still be a lot of ‘stuff’ on display at the show sold in the 8 weeks up to Christmas and the reason why? Because we are seriously going to need to cheer ourselves up by then, the only problem? What retailers will take the risk to stock it, I don’t think they will and once again online will win because all those wholesalers and manufacturers will put all their stock up for sale on the web and ship it directly to you. They have already had to start production and probably can’t stop now. So all that lovely useless stuff will be available online even cheaper than ever before. It will be Christmas 2009 when the real problems will come home, those distributors and manufactures will be more cautious, they will not have the skills to judge the market directly as they will have less feedback and little flexibility on production. So what do you do if you are a distributor or manufacturer? Redefine your market strategy, start more in depth understanding of your end user customer, build your brand directly, get very very keen on your web presence and cultivate very close links with you top retailers who do 80% of your volume at the moment. Be tougher on credit and get ready for the storm ahead. If you do this you now you may just have time to be a bit blasé when the next American cock up arrives!!

Unhappy Sheds

2008-09-11T14:32:00.001+01:00

Is it over for the unhappy sheds?

So there I am, in the rain, trying to buy a last minute piece of technology for my daughter before she goes back to school. Why didn’t I buy it earlier, why didn’t I buy it online, well as a parent I think we all know how it works, guilt and pressure and finally giving up. So I arrive at a big out of town shopping centre, full of sheds with all the old world brands. The experience was even weirder than ever before. The car parks were packed, you couldn’t move on the roundabout but the other 'brand' sheds were all empty. The simple answer was that everyone was in the HUGE Tesco store, why? Well because you’ve got to eat and Tesco is running away with the grocery prize at the moment. But back to the real story. So I didn’t go to Tesco, actually I couldn’t get close enough because of the petrol queue. So I went into a big electrical store and you could see the problems everywhere.
The poor staff haven’t been trained properly, they are given scripts to read out to you from memory, they can’t let you play with the products, and finally they don’t have the stock, well only for the products on promotion which have been stuffed by the manufacturer. So we get a bad feeling about the whole thing and finally we realise the price is higher than the web as well. OK you've heard it all before but it’s only going to get worse in the current climate so what’s the future? I think Apple has the answer already, small boutique shops with highly trained staff, who don’t sell anything they just demonstrate the product and you then buy online either in store or when you get home. It’s just Argos (I hate Argos by the way) but much better (but you can’t have it NOW ...poor kids!!). Add a coffee bar and a few big screens and we have destination shopping. Now this could be done for everything even clothes, you just try it on in store and they send you a fresh one from the warehouse. But you ask, what about shipping costs and logistics? Will I be in when they deliver, what about returns etc? Yes none of what I have said is news or hasn’t been done before but if we add some broadband in here, some interactive TV and a bit of mobile all of which is coming along just nicely to keep us in touch the real change in the way we consume could be here faster than we thought (or maybe slower as they said it would happen in 2001!). It takes a downturn to turn the lights off and this could be it.

So thanks for reading so far, how can I help? Well when I worked with Fujifilm to produce the first website where you could upload pictures have then printed on a minilab and posted to you same day it was an obvious breakthrough then!! Ha Ha. Fuji sold lots of digital cameras and the consumer still got high quality photo prints and minilabs still had a business. It was an idea that kept everyone happy something which is essential if you really want to go BIG with your brand. Here at Greenfield! we strive for BIG ideas but also work hard to make sure we keep everyone happy - unlike the sheds. They make, the consumer, the employees, the manufacturers and the councils (who are trying to keep life going in town centres) very unhappy so to keep your brand happy call Greenfield!

BOGOF

2008-09-07T14:21:00.000+01:00

5th September 2008

'BOGOF'

So Amazon has backed the One Notebook, that’s the low cost notebook for Africa which the big chip manufacturers were very happy and then very unhappy about. What a great move I think for Amazon and great for education in Africa as they will promote a BOGOF, that’s buy one get one free (one goes to Africa). But when I first read about this I thought this would be a better deal for Google, just imagine, Google gets into hardware!!! Am I mad? How does that work, well Google started with a no revenue model and look at them now. So great for Amazon…I think… but the future begins to look like an interesting new set of rules emerging between Apple, Google, Chip manufacturers and the mobile boys (no mention of Microsoft you note). So how do you use this to leverage your brand communications? Does this change anything? How does your customer benefit??… Well start by ensuring you give them an EASY way to speak to you digitally… Let then text you, let them Blog you, and you should send the mesage by audio and video means… yes really you can and must, stop printing paper and start spending that budget in front of a camera or microphone. How call me today!! stuart@greenfield.co.uk