Category: Creativity

  • Three Charms But Four Alarms

    We humans love seeing choices or lists presented in groups of three. Three gives a natural balance to things, as does five or seven. But three really is the magic number for marketers and copywriters. A recent study for the Make-A-Wish Foundation sought to find the messaging sweet spot for securing charitable donations. They randomly…

  • How To Fly A Plane With A Hashtag

    It may be a barely veiled attempt to drive Twitter mentions, but you have to admire BA’s Race The Plane competition that’s running in the UK today. The campaign idea is simplicity itself. Twitter users can race (virtually) a BA jet flying from London to Toronto by tweeting with the hashtag #racetheplace. Presumably—although it’s not…

  • How to Write the Perfect Tweet

    I’d say this infographic from Neomobile was almost perfect. But I wouldn’t recommend always placing your links at the end of the tweet as that’s the first bit that’ll get cut off if people do an old style retweet or append copy to the start of a reply. It’s safer to put your links in…

  • Being Creative Coffee Shop Style

    Open plan office workers know how hard it can be to focus on work tasks when surrounded by the hustle and bustle of office life. But researchers at the University of Illinois have discovered that working on creative tasks amidst ambient background noise can actually boost our creative ability. In scientific tests carried out on…

  • What Social Businesses Can Learn from Improvisation

    Many years ago I was privileged to learn improvisation skills at a week-long business retreat. My teacher, Neil Mullarkey of The Comedy Store, has remained a good friend to me over the years and the concepts he taught me have stayed fresh in my mind. The recent emergence of more social businesses—where staff can openly…

  • 3 Simple Steps to Creating Daily Content Gold

    We’ve all been there; it’s every community manager’s nightmare. Staring at that blank screen, racking your brain for fresh ideas about what to post to your social networks today. When writer’s block strikes sometimes the best thing to do is to walk away and formulate a new plan on how to avoid an idea logjam…

  • Why’s Social Media Managers Go To Iceland

    It’s a longstanding campaign, but it still stands out in my mind as one of the most delightful ways that social media has been put to proper and effective use. Back in 2009, Takk Takk, a small marketing and communications agency in Iceland, was tasked by the Icelandic Tourist Board with finding ways to promote…

  • The Best Annual Report Ever?

    Warby Parker is an eyewear retailer based out of New York , USA. They have recently released the first Annual Report I’ve actually enjoyed reading. See for yourself at http://www.warbyparker.com/annual-report-2012. What a great way to engage an audience. Good work!

  • Microsoft’s clever “small demonstration”

    Some ideas just smack you between the eyes and make you wonder “why didn’t I think of that?” That’s how I feel watching this cute, short video from Microsoft Portugal. What better way to prove that a computer is really easy to use? [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ODFvy1mjoY&w=448&h=252&hd=1] Nice marketing! Thanks to my friend Faiz Rehman at Microsoft in…

  • Being Remarkable with Crap Wrap

    Twisted Twee is that rarest of online things: a delightful shopping experience. We’ve been fans of their esoteric designs for some time, but their email shot yesterday made us love them just a little bit more. Like all great marketing, this really doesn’t need a lot of introduction. Take a widely held consumer insight (most…