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Big Cat Group - Marketing, Creative, PR and Event Management Consultancy - Birmingham and London, UK
Sunday 25 January 2009
Wednesday 14 January 2009
Even in his 200th year, Darwin has never been so relevant
As anyone that hasn’t been living in a cave is aware, it is 200 years since the birth of one of mankind’s favourite sons, Charles Darwin.
Any self respecting scientist/atheist/human being will agree that his theories have completely changed the way we view the world and ourselves, but I think sometimes we forget how survival of the fittest really does apply to almost everything we do.
The simple mathematics that anything that is not good enough dies out, and therefore brings about constantly improving standards and fresh competition, has never been more evident than in today’s credit crunch.
For a long time, businesses have been getting away with poor bookkeeping and financial management, keeping themselves afloat by revaluing their property or topping up their loans. This basically cheated the ‘survival of the fittest’ system and it has now come up and bitten back in a big way.
To survive in the new climate, companies need to adapt to the situation and use the crisis to their benefit.
As an example, my family has been selling their milk (we’re farmers) to a company that was top heavy in management and basically inefficient in how they balanced their books resulting in them charging over inflated prices to cover their backs, leaving a huge amount of disgruntled farmers in their wake.
Here’s where evolution comes in.
A few months ago, a representative of a new dairy turned up on our doorstep. The dairy saved money by having an efficient staff model and not spending money on expensive chemical tests (that search for harmless bacteria and butterfat) and could therefore offer more money for our milk as well as an effective sales transfer and good customer service. Needless to say where my family now takes its business. The said dairy is currently cleaning up with business and set to make an absolute fortune over the next few years, by adapting to the situation and, more importantly, DOING IT QUICKLY.
Businesses have got away with inefficiency for too long in the world of easy credit and now only the sharpest and easily adaptable businesses are going to survive the crisis.
With respect to everyone that has suffered as a result of the crisis (all of us), there is a slight silver lining that industry standards and practice are sure to improve, because if they don’t, they’ll be gone before you can say ‘0% interest’.
Wednesday 7 January 2009
The Big Cat blog has now moved
Please visit www.bigcatgroup.wordpress.com to read more insightful and generally lovely blog posts.
Mining for internet gold
The UK’s social media industry is like the goldmines of the USA 200 years ago. Basically, online is the future; for how long we don’t know, but it is about to arrive in a big wave and engulf everything that came before it.
As with early American prospectors, the first one to find the first rich seam and sell it is likely to become a very rich person indeed.
Although the web has been a prominent part in our lives for over 15 years, we still haven’t answered the age old question of how do people make money from it? Obviously Google, Yahoo etc have been making money for donkeys, as have website designers and such like, but how does the common agency use social media to make money?
Twitter, Stumble, Wordpress, Friendfeed, Digg and Flickr are almost days away from being the new marketing tools for businesses and a playground for marketing and PR agencies. For as long as we can remember, PR and Marketing agencies have used newspapers, magazines, radio and television to position clients in the public eye. Editorial and adverts would be placed within these domains and the better the domain, the more horses would be brought to the water, so to speak. The internet has now overtaken newspapers and radio, second now only to TV as the most popular way to access news. The ‘apps’ above have the potential to be highly effective marketing tools to reach large target markets and individuals, linking them to a chosen blog, website or platform.
In short, there is currently a huge race on to find the best way to market companies in the online space and whoever can reach (or build) the biggest number of fans/followers/advocates/customers through these apps and sell their services to clients first will be the modern day equivalent to the 19th century American prospectors.
As with early American prospectors, the first one to find the first rich seam and sell it is likely to become a very rich person indeed.
Although the web has been a prominent part in our lives for over 15 years, we still haven’t answered the age old question of how do people make money from it? Obviously Google, Yahoo etc have been making money for donkeys, as have website designers and such like, but how does the common agency use social media to make money?
Twitter, Stumble, Wordpress, Friendfeed, Digg and Flickr are almost days away from being the new marketing tools for businesses and a playground for marketing and PR agencies. For as long as we can remember, PR and Marketing agencies have used newspapers, magazines, radio and television to position clients in the public eye. Editorial and adverts would be placed within these domains and the better the domain, the more horses would be brought to the water, so to speak. The internet has now overtaken newspapers and radio, second now only to TV as the most popular way to access news. The ‘apps’ above have the potential to be highly effective marketing tools to reach large target markets and individuals, linking them to a chosen blog, website or platform.
In short, there is currently a huge race on to find the best way to market companies in the online space and whoever can reach (or build) the biggest number of fans/followers/advocates/customers through these apps and sell their services to clients first will be the modern day equivalent to the 19th century American prospectors.
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