Alex Woodruff Biz Buzz

Cutting edge technology Dyson has already created ripples in the past by completely rethinking vacuum cleaners. Shame on the whole industry for traditional product-led thinking – and not re-examining what really gets on users’ nerves: the loss of suction. Dyson came along and solved the problem by thinking “problem > solution”, not “how do I [...]

Pick up better habits This example of conative marketing – ie, A for Action, caught my eye a couple of years ago. You see a cigarette on the pavement, pick it up, but then find it contains a message on how to quit smoking. It’s simple and effective. What really hits home though is the [...]

Don’t be a girly. Buy me. On my last visit to the UK, I was pleased to see an English brand reversing its positioning and using a trick that sometimes cuts through the competition more effectively than saying who you ARE targetted at. This chocolate is NOT for women. Another reason this ploy works – [...]

Me, thick? German electronics giant Media Markt has been plugging its stores for years with the challenging slogan “Ich bin doch nicht blöd”, which I’ll translate loosely as “I’m not thick you know”. The tag line is now used from Berlin to Barcelona, as you can see from the Spanish ad on the right (by [...]

Catch up competitors if you can. Here is a wonderful example of cobranding. Develey, Bavarian producer of sauces, mustard and condiments and supplier of ketchup to McDonalds in Germany, has a growing presence in supermarkets. McDonald’s has none. Develey has the technical and product know-how. McDonald’s as a franchise has, more-or-less, none. But Develey really [...]

The AIDA process for planning marketing is a useful aid, but it has one major failing: it stops after stimulating action – what about aspects of post-purchase behaviour? Customer relationship management (CRM)? Customer lifetime value (CLV)? Managing complaints? Post-sale service and support? And in automotive markets: aftersales management? Well, that’s why modern techniques of caring [...]

It’s rare for me to be so enthusiastic about a website that I feel like giving it free publicity, but this site really does deserve praise: http://de.statista.org/statistik/info/ In recent years more and more free information has been going online. Companies seem keen to ride the trend, using RSS to publicise themselves in the age of [...]

I’m used to seeing manufacturers play to current events to capture people’s interest – as they did in Germany during the 2006 World cup (click here to see what the Germans did in the supermarkets). But you don’t often see them completely redesigning the logo to capture the public’s imagination. Not unless they have such [...]

Grabbing attention at the point of sale (PoS) can be crucial in some markets. Especially highly competitive ones, where the first place the customer encounters you is not in the media – as you’d hoped – but standing on shelf, next to all your competitors just before the purchase decision is made. In such instances, [...]

Nice. Nice pun. Nice point. I like it. Explanation for non-speakers of German: “Miet” means hire For another neat word play, see here.