HOW DID WE GET SO OLD?
There is a video I show to first year university students when discussing change and technology. It perhaps sums up the moment when someone fails to understand how technology around them has changed things I’ve always loved this video. Let’s face it, you don’t need to speak German to get it. But here’s the thing. […]
WHY YOUR BRAND SHOULD GO BOO!
Tania Luna runs a business called Surprise Industries in New York. The premise is quite simple. You buy a surprise for yourself or as a gift for someone else. And you get one. Maybe you get a ticket for an ice sculpture class, maybe a time slot for a zip line adventure across a canyon, maybe […]
MY WAY OR THE HIGHWAY: WHY PERSONALISATION IS KEY
A few weeks ago I was honoured to be invited to address some of the sharpest minds in digital retail and ecommerce in London. During this invite-only debate on ‘Personalisation in Retail’, kindly sponsored by Forge Rock, one thing was really clear. Personalisation is the future. For all brands, all retailers, and all industries. One would […]
WHY YOUR BRAND SHOULD GROW A BEARD
You’ll have noticed the beards. Young men sporting hairy things their grandfather would have been proud of. Hipsters they call themselves. 10 years ago their peer group would have laughed them out of the bar, but today you’re no one unless you are half cave man, half metro sexual. Being trendy is walking the fine […]
SHAREABLE EXPERIENTIAL EQUITY
The Millennial shopper demands more from retail. Whatever you call them > Millennials, Gen Y, Digital Natives – their needs and wants are fundamentally different to the shopper of yesteryear. Their shopper DNA is wired differently and they rightly expect more from their retail interactions. There are many significant social and cultural differences between the […]
PERSONALISED PROMOTIONS
Most grocery retail promotions are ineffective. Let’s say that again. I think it’s worth hearing twice. Most of the resource spent on promotion in store, mainly price based, does not really achieve much. Shoppers who buy on promotion stockpile or buy something cheaper than they had already planned to buy anyway. Even where a shopper […]
GAMIFICATION
Recently I came across a great example of innovative gamification. At Arlanda airport in Stockholm the Red Cross have installed three retro arcade games instead of the usual boring charity coin collection points. It is a stroke of genius. They are hard to walk past if you have spare coins jingling in your pocket, as […]
TEDX
In November 2014 I was invited to deliver a TEDx talk in Cyprus, a completely random invitation from event organisers I’d never met. The invitation landed in my inbox toward the end of a year-long personal experiment, one that challenged me to undertake a brand new experience every day, for a year. 365 things I […]
SPEAKING 2014
2014 was a crazy year for me on the speaker circuit. You know you are travelling too much when you are on first name terms with the security personnel at the airport. Or when you have no idea what country you are in when you wake up and have to check your travel documents for […]