MBA Geek

A lot has been written about how effective a proper marketing campaign can be; however the corollary of that is also very true. A botched advert can turn people away, negatively damage your brand and have long term repercussions on the life-cycle of your product. You tend to see companies taking evasive action from this sort of negative marketing when a celebrity has been disgraced and Marketing Advertising companies start pulling out their contracts. For example, Kate Moss lost an H&M deal a couple of years ago because the company did not want their brand associated with that person (this was following an alleged drug incident)

A poorly planned campaign can have just as damaging an effect and companies need to make sure they don’t end up under the spotlight for the wrong reason. It’s important to gauge the climate an advert will be launched into and take into consideration political, economic and social factors. Don’t get me wrong; I’m not saying you need to thread on eggshells. But one needs to be aware that any advertising campaign is not released into a vacuum but into a rich environment where supporters will rally behind a product and competitors will try and use your efforts against you.

Interesting topic huh?

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We’re off to Edinburgh next week as my graduation date has finally arrived. I’ve been looking through the Heriot Watt website to get more information about the event and now have all the flights, accommodation and gown booked for the big day. My parents are coming too, so really looking forward to it.

We’re spending an extra couple of days in Edinburgh to catch the sites and have a look around. None of us has really spent any tourist time there, so I’m looking forward to it. The thing about exploring a town like that we really want to stay on the touristic route rather than end up in the more commercialised side of the town. I don’t really want to be looking in shop windows and finding adverts for IT automation or cerebral palsy lawyers! I much prefer being able to visit the parks and spend some time at Edinburgh castle, but I don’t really know what sights there are to see.

Have you ever been to Edinburgh? Where would you recommend we visit?

An interesting question that came to mind today was whether it’s easier to market a product or a service. I was thinking that product benefits may be easier to articulate; but a service may be something that is easier to persuade a customer that they need. For example .. it isn’t too hard to persuade someone that they need life insurance and persuade them to get some life insurance quotes. At the same time, if someone needs to buy baby clothes, well, it’s a need that you have to fulfill, there’s no way to get around that.

I suppose it does depend on what sort of product or service you’re selling, but personally I would prefer to be pushing a product that people need .. than a service that no one really wants.

If you live in the UK you might have heard of Faster Payments, an initiative the banks are putting in place to speed up inter-bank transfers. Previously bank transfers used to take 3-4 days and using Faster Payments a transfer can be done in a couple of hours. Not all banks are taking part in this yet, so a useful resource to know about is one where you can check if a bank is participating in the scheme. Just type in the Sort Code into the Faster Payments Sort Code Checker and you can find out if you can use it or not.

It works pretty well; and you can use it whether you’re paying for Moen faucets or even for your online hosting. Definitely a step in the right direction.