Alex Woodruff Biz Buzz

Yes, a joke. A huge problem with seasonal markets is, well, seasonality. People complain about Christmas goods appearing in the shops in September but it’s the only way to push stock into the trade (and out of the factory) to answer the huge surge in demand. So what happens for the rest of the year? [...]

Following on from my previous post on direct response advertising with the new QR codes, how did it go…? Moving target Well, the answer is: pretty badly. First: It was on a moving poster that rotated different ads up and down. Every time I got the code in my viewfinder (not pictured here, this is [...]

Addicted? Plug in and suck. I’ve recently had two bizarre products pointed out to me. Both leave me shaking my head in disbelief. The first is the e-cigarette. Yes, you heard it here, the cigarette that isn’t actually a ciggie, it’s an electronic device pretending to be a ciggie. As they say on some of [...]

Not quite the right mug shot I know a publicity stunt when I see one. This Chinese company has not “accidentally” put a picture of Prince William’s brother on their souvenir mug, as the Telegraph newspaper claims. They did this on purpose. Surely. The only question is, why? Maybe they will actually sell quite a [...]

A number of posts on this blog have demonstrated how loud the voice of customers is now becoming – especially with the internet here as a mouthpiece. Some try to use it to their benefit – eg, Mattel and Marmite. Others have been attacked by the loud voice. BP suffered the first major oil spill [...]

Anyone involved in advertising and creative development will tell you that it can be a painful process getting any aspect of a campaign right. From the initial creative strategy to messaging, execution, layouts, branding and, not least, wording. Being involved in writing advertising copy nearly every day now, I know many of the English pitfalls [...]

The German civil engineering giant STRABAG describes itself as Germany’s number one road builder with a tradition going back 80 years. That may be so, but when I’m walking to the tram in Stuttgart and see one of their signs, am I, a man on the street, interested in who they are or what they [...]

Click to magnify a magnificently simple idea This is not a criticism of German retailers, but shopping in some countries is made soooo easy compared to here, where some shops feel to me like they got stuck in a rut in the 1980s. I’ll take an example from France where I dropped into a colossal [...]

It’s common for companies to use the news to capture people’s attention, as we’ve seen in the past with the World Cup, and even the advent of Obama. So when Paul the octopus started predicting World Cup results it came as little surprise to see the international media flocking to cover the story. And this [...]

Giving me a warm feeling. I sometimes wonder if designing packaging in the old days was easier than it is today. No long complex legal declarations, simple layouts, less competition. I recently came across an old product from an even older German company in the “health and well-being” market, Beuerer. When I was lent this [...]