Comments for Listening to stories

Comment on The All-New Path-to-Purchase by phil bonanno

phil bonanno — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 22:53:27 +0000

great post, James!

Comment on Building brands through “frequent, lightweight interactions” by The All-New Path-to-Purchase « Listening to stories

The All-New Path-to-Purchase « Listening to stories — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 22:48:40 +0000

[...] channels should be considered as springboards for conversations, for the frequent, lightweight interactions that are vital in today’s socially networked [...]

Comment on Should ad agencies advertise? by James Welch

James Welch — Fri, 11 Nov 2011 00:20:48 +0000

Interesting comments from the Australian ad industry on this article from when an edited version of it was republished at mumbrella:
http://mumbrella.com.au/should-ad-agencies-advertise-themselves-63773

Comment on Computing made cool by The post-Jobs post: feet back on the ground « Listening to stories

The post-Jobs post: feet back on the ground « Listening to stories — Mon, 10 Oct 2011 02:14:27 +0000

[...] very bright and very convincing. Well, almost always. And now I feel a little silly about my last post, Computing Made Cool. You know, the one where I quoted a Jobs quote. In Adland, the Jobs quotes are as ubiquitous as the [...]

Comment on Computing made cool by frontfootconsulting

frontfootconsulting — Thu, 06 Oct 2011 07:42:13 +0000

yes, truly an inspiration person.

He has left us all for dead in terms of creativity, imagination and actually making it happen!

Comment on Supermarket brands are not trying hard enough by James Welch

James Welch — Thu, 16 Jun 2011 11:45:01 +0000

Hmm – a whole piece about supermarkets without mentioning my pet project: data in retail.
For a self-proclaimed great article on data in supermarkets (datadriveseverything!) see this article from 2009: http://listeningtostories.wordpress.com/2009/06/07/retail/

Comment on Wake up Retail Australia! It’s about timing not location. by Supermarket brands are not trying hard enough « Listening to stories

Supermarket brands are not trying hard enough « Listening to stories — Thu, 26 May 2011 02:37:49 +0000

[...] what’s more, from the details outlined in my last post, retailers should be telling stories about the new convenience and new way they can provide value, [...]

Comment on Cheap not classic by Anton

Anton — Tue, 10 May 2011 21:36:41 +0000

Insightful – no. Or is it. It’s a milk drink that tastes good. We adv folk over engineer and over think so much advertising. It’s not rocket science, world peace or pretending to solve Pakistani ineptitude in hunting the most wanted man and falling for the oldest trick in the book (hiding right near where the military are as they’ll never think I’m that stupid). I digress – simple ad, works on impulse for me. Matter of fact that’ll do for morning tea today!

Comment on Agencies Should Be Measured On SUCCESS not just VALUE by James Welch

James Welch — Sun, 19 Dec 2010 23:19:53 +0000

Thanks for dropping in, Darren! I was being flippant (again) and you should know that I’m aware of the value of your tool – only Aprais always comes with third party (objective) feedback and evalu8ing, I understand, is normally sold as a standalone, do-it-yourself product. I hope more clients start to afford to buy it along with your team’s consultancy hours.

Value is a vital measure of success. Agreed. And that agencies & advertisers need to have the tools to measure their worth (aka value) to CFOs is not being questioned. But clients should count value as one measure of success (albeit heavily weighted to give it due importance).

Another vital measure of success is trust. The former Toyota marketing head honcho, Peter Webster, at that AANA hothouse also talked about trust as a measure of succes. Perhaps when trust is gone it’s time to end the relationship. I wonder if that’s why he left his job. Trust is measured in feet – when there’s not enough trust the feet start walking. But that’s a whole ‘nother subject.

Comment on Agencies Should Be Measured On SUCCESS not just VALUE by Darren Woolley

Darren Woolley — Sun, 19 Dec 2010 22:26:47 +0000

James, relationship and performance tools, like all tools, are only tools. The benefit is what you do with them. And having a process for measuring and managing relationship performances is better than none, or having one you never use. Like the friend of mine who has a full tool shed but then stands inside it reading as an excuse to get away from his family.

As to value is only part of success, I would be interested in knowing what you would use as a measure of success in a commercial relationship? If you are not in the business of advertising to add value to your clients business, what are you doing? And if your clients are not in the business of marketing to add value to the business and shareholder value in listed companies, what are they doing?

Of course there are other things in life than just financial value, but for a commercial enterprise this is the universal measure. It is not the only measure but it is a better starting place than having no measure at all.

And currently many CEOs and CFOs see marketing and their agencies as a cost, because there is no obvious contribution to value.