- Blog
-
Software stories
Anyone who does product design or marketing should read this entertaining and inspiring account of the history of a Mac software product called Audion. Why? Because a) more and more products will be made and marketed like software (and because more and more products will actually be software), b) because the Panic team’s passion and…
-
Explain this, then…
Wind forward about 38 minutes into this stream of tonight’s Westminster Hour (Radio 4) and you’ll find yourself listening to another programme all together – a programme that’s not on Radio 4 and, in fact, not even on the BBC. You’ll be listening to Jazz FM. How does that work, then? (Of course, they’ll have…
-
We’re here, we’re Royal, get used to it
If you’d been thinking, before all this media fuss about ambition and status and education, that maybe Prince Charles might make quite a modern monarch – someone a little less trapped by his origins and his status – then I guess you’ve probably had another think by now. Prince Charles is cut from the same…
-
No. The BBC does not have a Nectar Card
Fi Glover opened Sunday’s Broadcasting House on Radio 4 by saying, enigmatically, “No. We do not have a Nectar Card”. She offered no explanation and didn’t return to the topic so I took this as a piece of clever and sympathetic covert marketing for my anti-loyalty ‘No. I do not have a Nectar Card’ t-shirts…
-
Book Review: brand fanaticism
Understanding Mac users used to be quite easy. For a few years at the beginning (maybe 1984–1989) Macs were undeniably cool and undeniably better than anything else you could buy. I encountered my first Mac in 1984 or 1985. Apple had made a gift of first-generation Macs to my college (the Polytechnic of Central London).…
-
Gun crazy
Yesterday I was on the telly. I was invited (why? No idea) onto BBC2’s The Daily Politics to talk about the non-scandal of guns on eBay. It’s a non-scandal not because gun crime isn’t on the rise or because you can’t get practically anything lethal somewhere on the net but because poor old eBay (for…
-
Big Idea TV advertising
I love the way these advertisers have moved their brands by claiming ownership of human values only tangentially linked to their products. Nothing cheesy or aggressive about either, though – just clever, provocative marketing. I wonder if either one of them can show a boost to sales as a result. I hope so. Unilever’s Persil…
-
Peel and Day – more really good radio
You really can’t overstate the richness and usefulness of the BBC’s radio output. Not possible – honestly. A couple of brilliant examples: Peter Day does great business radio (against the odds, you might argue, in an environment like the BBC where business usually gets a pretty poor write-up) and has done for years. Here’s an…