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UK retail chains have been in fierce competition for winning the biggest sympathy for their Christmas advertisements. For a number of years, John Lewis was considered THE spot to wait for, its first viewing eventually has become a yearly social event.
This year, the competition is fierce. Having looked at the films of John Lewis, Waitrose, Sainsbury and Marks and Spencer, declaring a winner seems a matter of individual choice, but one thing can be surely noted. The social content of these films is on the rise, some of them touching a truly sensitive chord with society........
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It seems that handling of consumer complaints comes from two distinct schools. There are the old, switchboard type systems, where it seems even the customer relation managers themselves would do with some advice. The other extreme is dominated by the highly sophisticated, automated systems.........
To make customer satisfied and to have systems that build the company image, customer problems need to be solved, instead of repeating constantly the procedural steps........
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B2B newsletters are a prime way to keep in contact with one’s business partners. However, often they do not reach the right audience. This is first due to a high number of bounce-back letters, as a result of incorrect or outdated e-mail addresses. Content also might have its hiccups, the newsletter misses the tone or the content that would be relevant to their readers.
To make a business partner oriented B2B newsletter a success, one needs to bear 5 points in mind...........
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Approaching the 1st anniversary of the Volkswagen emission scandal I have come across the 2014 Sustainability report of Volkswagen AG. A masterpiece to see an example for claimed sustainability becoming obsolete so quickly. On page 14, in the lead of the chapter on strategy, Martin Winterkorn, the (then) Chairman of the Board, writes as follows: ‘We know that growth can only take place hand in hand with responsibility and environmental protection – more than that, in fact: in recent years these factors have become genuine value drivers.‘
I can sense a strong murmur or even laughter from those who have followed all what has happened with VW during the last 11 months........... |
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With hardly a few days after the European Football Championship and a few weeks ahead of Rio Olympics, it is worthwhile to have a look what lies behind the fans’ often inexplicable crave for success, and what lessons there are for communication practitioners.
For many, love for sport has become the synonym of national self respect. ’The better our football, basketball, or table tennis players are, the more we are worth. Their success is ours. Media is full of their wins and for many, outstanding sport results contribute to valuable nation branding...........
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As much as I would love to, I can not share the optimism expressed in relation to a recent Deloitte study, about the unstoppable development of CSR awareness.
Deloitte CE_CSR_Managers_Report-2015.pdf
The research claims that 76% of the CSR heads of corporations in the Central Eastern European region ’view future development of responsible corporate management positively and a third of them believe that it will reach a level where it becomes an integral part of the business model, about how to handle social and environmental issues.’ I can not judge the methodology of the research, though I do suppose that people usually like to believe their own work is safe and secured, so CSR heads would usually trust the further development of CSR. However, one can not help noticing that during the last 6-8 years, as dire times have arrived, corporate budgets spent on CSR have been cut........... |
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Two years ago American based Shift Communications researched what the best and the worst times for issuing press releases were.
The study, based on the analysis of several thousand press releases came to the conclusion that Monday and Tuesday morning releases resulted in the highest number of publications. Consequently the agency then suggested to issue releases later those days or choose other days for outreach to journalists. This year’s research has built on the work of 2 years ago but stepped further as well........... |
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I wonder if the personal brand of Mr. Toyoda, President of Toyota will suffice to stop the fury created by the drug smuggling charges against the newly appointed PR head of the company, Julie Hamp.
The recent story of her bringing of painkillers illegal to Japan might have various interpretations. Shear ignorance, neglect of the local laws, simple mistake, stress of moving from the US to Japan, whatever can be the reason. What is for sure though, is that President Toyoda did put in his personal integrity and credibility to outweigh all of this.......... |
