Our blog
What's on our mind at the moment. Sometimes serious, sometimes not. Usually work related, however loosely.Marketing in the Boardroom
We've been in Paris, testing advertising concepts. Sad to leave this beautiful city we boarded the Eurostar for the short journey back to London. Little did we realise the events that awaited us. We found ourselves sitting across the aisle from four people: two quiet...
Amusing advertising
Funnily enough, it probably worked.
How could they get it so wrong?
No, not Uber, London's black cab drivers, who in general we've always liked. We first heard of the Uber cab booking app a while ago because London's black cabs were complaining about it in the media. As far as we can tell, there is nothing particularly remarkable...
They asked for a poster and we gave them a TV ad!
That's not strictly true actually. The story goes like this: You may know that we are in the middle of launching a creative business, which already has some clients, including the ENO. We recently produced this ad for them to announce Terry Gilliam's production of...
Rob’s DJing at Glastonbury!
In his spare time Rob DJ's at The Social, owned by Heavenly Records and one of London's most credible music venues. Here he is at work. (Something we rarely witness!) They're DJing at Glastonbury in the Stonebridge Bar and they've asked Rob to join them, which is...
World Cup advertising. Good…and not so good?
The World Cup has been a very low key event so far, and what little advertising has been based on it, has been pretty poor. Here's an exception. A well observed idea, immaculatedly executed. And not even a mention of the World Cup by name. Part of a good...
What people really want to see on LinkedIn
Now, I'll be the first to admit, I'm not a big user of LinkedIn. But I do occasionally look at it, and I've seen a few articles, most of which seem to be ludicrous pieces written by HR 'experts' telling us how to get a job: "Make sure there are no spelling mistakes on...
The first in an occasional series
Recently we've noticed a growing number of obviously stupid events that are pursued seriously, and so we thought we'd highlight some of them. We can think of no better first example than this. How can anyone possibly believe that a nine month old child could do any of...
Hard at work
James and Rob at a client's offices on Friday. They appear to be asleep. That's good: they can't say anything silly. (No, Rob's not a dwarf….although he did spend the night with one recently. We're not sure if his wife knows.)
A Christmas present for James
My Christmas was disappointingly disrupted, but it was improved no end when I got back to work yesterday. James had received this book as a Christmas present from another agency we work with. He says it was because he was asked to contribute to it. We're not so sure....
How we wish more advertisers would recognise the truth of….
….THIS Economist article about 'Thinking, Fast and Slow'. In case you're not familiar with the ad referred to, it's here: You can buy 'Thinking, Fast and Slow' HERE
We’re glad that wasn’t us!
We were asked to participate in a brainstorm by an alcoholic drinks company. It was being run by a specialist NPD agency who we like. We said "Yes". As it was a drinks company the brainstorm was to take place in the private room of a pub, on the Thames (above). It was...
NPD, as it should be
A long time ago I found the prospect of a Marketing career strangely thrilling. I'd done other things before that, that on the face of it were more exciting, but in the event they had proven to be less fulfilling than I had expected. As I moved from other careers to...
Focus groups mean nothing, apparently
We’ve been working in the US a lot recently. Whilst looking for a particular type of local partner we came across the website of a 'branding business' and their associate research agency. We read their websites with mild interest initially, but with increasing...
Am I the only person who doesn’t think the meerkats are great?
It's one of the UK's most high profile advertising campaigns in recent years, always praised by consumers in research, and I understand that the business has grown greatly since it launched. But I'm not sure it's quite as good as it is thought to be. I'm not saying it...
We need a new language
We're writing up some workshop notes. Across the room are a management consultant and her client. The consultant is saying that she wants to get the client to find alternative vocabulary to business speak. We agree that's a good idea. We've written about it ourselves...
“Reaching out”
The Marketing world, like many others, has always had it's fair share of technical terms: 'proposition', 'positioning', 'target audience' and so on. But in the last couple of years the use of technical terms has been added to by the ever increasing use of vocabulary...
Why do headhunters think that’s a good idea?
Why do they think what is a good idea? Interviewing people in private members clubs. We see it happen all the time. We can think of nothing more unnatural than being interviewed for a job in front of a room full of people, many of whom by the nature of the venue are...
The lost art of creative development research
The term ‘creative development research’ crops up time and time again, but when was the last time anyone really did any? Research is often decried by the advertising industry for destroying creativity. Most of us have worked on that side of the fence and we can...
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Examples of our work
(Click on the image for more info)
Nestle
Nestle impress us. Of the multinational FMCG businesses it is the most flexible and adaptable, maybe along with Pernod-Ricard.
We were appointed to identify portfolio priorities and define key brand propositions.
Minette Walters
Our first publishing project.
Defining audience, brand, and communications plan.
Very successful.
Stella Artois
Stella Artois has long been one of Britain’s most successful beer brands. But it hasn’t always been plane sailing. It has gone through several periods of decline.
We got involved during the last one. A repositioning was planned. The ad agency wasn’t sure that was right. They suggested we have a look.
V&A
Big initiatives hadn’t resulted in big growth in visitor numbers.
We were appointed to find out why and propose actions.