Alex Woodruff Biz Buzz

Two recent examples of how listening to the much revered customer does not always go right – especially if they take over your marketing for you! And using Web 2.0 and inviting online junkies to define tactics …? Online geeks hijack P for Product.Source: flickr We’ll start in Australia. The Land of Plenty. This includes [...]

Companies often use things happening in the news to inject their products with interest and move forward the AIDA process. But this recent idea caused a bit of a cafuffle. Obama Fingers. Yes, you read that right: OBAMA fingers, like fish fingers only with chicken. What the ….? [Image source: spiegel.de] What in heaven’s name [...]

The Germans are dying out. Ok, they’re not really dying out, but the birth rate has plummeted. In fact it’s been in decline for decades. Bad news if your core target group is babies or kids. By 2035 each working person will be funding another German’s pension. Teds for grey markets To respond to the [...]

While more and more people in west European countries complain about the rising number of immigrants, some marketing departments are recognising the demographic shifts and responding to the opportunity. In the States this started happening a long time ago. The Mexican population alone numbers more than 15m – that would be a whole country in [...]

If you ever have any type of business dealings on an international level, you’ll know how easy it is to have misunderstandings. Speaking the same language helps, but it only allows you to understand interactions, not cultural motivations, beliefs and fundamental assumptions underlying those interactions. Much work has been done on cultural differences, spearheaded in [...]

If you know German advertising, you’ll be familiar with the long-running campaign for the coffee brand Melitta. The slogan “Melitta macht Kaffee zum Genuss” (literally “Melitta makes coffee an indulgence”) has little to do with the content of the TV ads though. For years it’s shown a young father with his son, who regularly shirks [...]