Love it or loathe it, you certainly can’t get away from Valentine’s Day. Brands have come up with some cracking ways to celebrate the ‘special’ day and drive brand awareness. Here are four examples of campaigns that have caught my attention. Feel free to highlight your favourites (or highlight some stinkers…) in the comments. IKEA [...]
Maybe you have a fantastic creative idea for a campaign, something that reflects your brand ethos, something that will really get fans involved. Great! But first, it’s best to check a few things, such as: is there a danger of the campaign offending too many people, and is the brand under attack from special interest [...]
This month, we look at coffee, planes, shopping and…bum parties?! Would you like corporation tax with that? Starbucks found itself in hot water this November (along with Amazon and Google), after the companies were invited to be grilled by the Public Accounts Committee about their corporation tax payments (or lack thereof). Now, many arguments have [...]
There must have been something in the water this August. Brands near and far were tripping over themselves be accused of sexism. Maybe some witnessed the brief national and social media anger that erupted over the Madhouse trousers back in March. I can just imagine someone chewing on the end of their cigar, thinking “I’ll [...]
July was a monumental month of failure, with brands tripping over themselves to dis-please. Over in the UK we had the pleasure of Barclays, and its Facebook campaign featuring hapless Dan clashing mightily with its rate adjustment scandal. Then there’s fashion site Celeb Boutique not checking hashtags before tweeting, and therefore thinking that when #Aurora [...]
Clearly, I’ve missed out on some big language revolution here. Do grown women really use words like FrooFroo, noonoo and lala when talking about their genitalia? Femfresh seems to think so. Now, personally, I don’t find the brand’s choice of language offensive, I just think it’s a bit stupid. I did, however, find some of [...]
Brands can never be completely sure of avoiding crisis situations. There are too many variables. Human error, fallibility, corruption, ambition and rivalries can cause considerable damage to a brand’s reputation and sometimes no amount of procedure can prevent this from happening. But the brand can control its response to the evolving situation. It can make [...]
