MARKETING COMMUNICATION DIGEST

In a recent article, Sarwant Singh forecasts a year of "smarter" everything; AI, IoT, money, media, automobiles, phones and even robots. This is to be expected; after all, isn't this what the last decade was leading up to? Smarter is better. There is no dispute about that. Smartcar These days, the definition of smart continues to evolve. This is exciting for consumers. As employees or employers however, these changes are invigorating. We can live and work smarter, faster, more intelligently, and more easily. Smartphones Has this unending emergence of consumer-based-intelligence and information-based-automation, caused us to overlook one critical evolution that has been quietly brewing in the background? The convergence of Marketing and HR has happened!. And here is why it matters, and what we need to know about it. In 2017 we acknowledge that the battle for brand and share-of-wallet has moved No longer does it sit inside brick and mortar store...

Larry Page, CEO of Alphabet (the company formerly known as Google), has a quirky way of deciding which companies he likes. It’s called “The Toothbrush Test.” When Page looks at a potential company to acquire, says the New York Times, he wants to know if the product is, like a toothbrush, “something you will use once or twice a day.” Page clearly understands habits. But what if your product doesn’t pass his Toothbrush Test ? Perhaps you’d like people to use your product or service frequently, but it just doesn’t make sense to do so. Nir Eyal was hired to present at a gathering of 700 real estate agents, some months ago; and the MC made a gracious introduction, saying, “Now we’ll hear from Nir Eyal, an expert on Consumer Habits. Nir is going to teach us how to make home buying and selling into a habit!” Opening, Nir had said: “I’m sorry, there must have been some misunderstanding. There is no way I am going to teach you how to make home buying and selling into ...

Everybody's working for the weekend, but how you spend your two days off may say something about how successful you are. What you get up to doesn't really matter, per se. If you prefer lounging around the house to spontaneous adventures, that's great! You probably need that time to wind down. When it comes to weekends, the main thing that separates ‘successful people’ from ‘unsuccessful people’ is   mindfulness . Are you planning ahead and truly thinking about how to spend your free time this weekend? This is why I’m publishing this piece on a Thursday to help you consider ahead how to spend those two free days, Saturday and Sunday. Here are 11 things that   unsuccessful   people tend not to do over the weekend - and why to do them: Not every minute of every hour of your weekend needs to be planned out, but it's good to have a general idea of what you'd like to do or get done. That will allow you protect your time, and maybe even schedule in ...

Nokia 3310 2017 The Nokia 3310 has long been considered one of the world's greatest phones, and much to the delight of old school mobile users, the device made a comeback at the Mobile World Congress, MWC, in Barcelona this week. Expected to carry a $52 price tag when it hits stores later this year, the new and improved handset now sports a colour screen, rather than the monochrome display of old. Saying that, it still looks to please those that prefer the simple life - reminiscent of a time without the likes of disappearing selfie videos, emojis and augmented reality filters. Here are your first impressions of the new version: Design The funny thing about the 2017 version of the Nokia 3310 is that you find yourself liking the things that you'd usually hate in more modern smartphone offerings. I mean, it wouldn't feel like the 3310 if it wasn't made of a nice and cheap-feeling plastic, so I was oddly pleased with how ...

The folks over at BalogunMarket.ng are building an app that’ll make it easier for users to buy goods from merchants via chat. They call it BuyChat ; the private and public beta testing had already started since 2016. BuyChat was inspired by BalogunMarket.ng, a startup founded by Olayinka Oluwakuse III, after an epiphany at a restaurant. According to Yinka, “Nigerians will go online for what they know and are used to with just Word-of-Mouth advertising, or "Conversational Marketing" , if you like. BalogunMarket.ng is an online marketplace that was launched so users could buy goods from Balogun Market (that’s actually a market in Lagos, Nigeria) without having to go through the stress of visiting the market. Few months down the line, and Yinka and his team figured out a way to connect buyers and sellers on Whatsapp. Haggling is a major feature of commerce in Nigeria, and this new feature brought the entire experience online; hence the term, “conversational commerce...

We all want to find a dream job that’s enjoyable and meaningful, but what does that actually mean? Some people imagine that the answer involves discovering their passion through a flash of insight, while others think that the key elements of their dream job are that it be easy and highly paid. After a review of two decades of research into the causes of a satisfying life and career, and drawing on over 60 studies, not much evidence has been found for these views. Instead, six key ingredients of a dream job were discovered; and they don’t include income, neither are they as simple as “following your passion”. In fact, following your passion can lead you astray. Steve Jobs was passionate about Zen Buddhism before entering technology. Condoleezza Rice was a talented classical musician before she started studying politics. Rather, you can develop passion while doing work that you will find enjoyable and meaningful. The key is to get good at something that helps other peo...

Ad agencies often fire their best employees Not long ago, a Director of Human Resources sent me a person she called a star. I asked why she would be sending me such a high quality employee. Her response was startling - this person’s account was leaving the agency and she was so good that she wanted to help her find new work quickly. The person she sent me was an account supervisor; she was at a large agency where there were actually many, many people at her level. Surely she was better than others with her same level and title. When I asked why a star would not be placed on another account, I was told that that kind of move required too much effort. About two weeks ago the same thing happened with a much more senior person. He had been with his agency, one of the top ten, for about twelve years. He was promoted about every two years and was responsible for running several major accounts and had been rotated to run a new business pitch; the assumption w...