The Power Of Small Ideas

Ask any young person being interviewed to join advertising and s/he will tell you how s/he is attracted by the possibility of producing big, world-changing ideas. Managers and planners have often tried to inspire their creative teams to go after big branding ideas. Yes, our business has been built around the possibility of producing something [...]

Ikea’s Instore Hotel

A bit late reporting this one, interesting nonetheless, IKEA has opened its doors to shoppers who want to spend a night in one of their Oslo warehouses. From Guardian.

Doom Days For Traditional Direct Marketing

Reports from UK suggest that direct marketing seems to be the worst hit in the time of the downturn. “Direct marketing budgets have seen the largest fall in eight years in the first three months of 2008, according to the Bellwether report, the quarterly measure of health of the marketing industry.” . Wonder if all [...]

Japan Reads More Newsletters Than You Do.

A cheap, shameless plug, trying to promote the readership of this newsletter. Here guys take a leaf out of what most Japanese do. Most Japanese (67%) subscribe to between two and ten newsletters. Go figure.

Inventions And Banking

Dynamic changes in the banking sector are happening ever too often now. But what has steered the route of this business over time? At Finextra, Dean Procter lists nine inventions over the last millennium that have contributed most to the evolution of Retail Banking. The author also invites you to add your own.

Make Way For Cash

Finextra reports that in Great Britain, the economic slowdown is resulting in a shift from plastic to physical money. Customers are reluctant to spend money that they may or may not have the month after, through a credit card. Interestingly, one may come to the conclusion that people are now taking charge of their finances [...]

Lending Hands

Check out these five services that allow you to lend money online. Some of these have been talked about in detail in our previous posts, like Kiva and Prosper. Whether it is helping out family or an unknown person in need in another corner of the world, web technology today allows people to reach out [...]

The New Direct Bank

While most banks are still struggling to woo customers to their internet divisions; M&T Bank Corporation, one of the largest commercial bank holding companies in America has come up with a unique idea – OnBank. OnBank is their online-only banking division which operates almost as a separate bank. To open an account, customers can apply [...]

Partnership Marketing

This is not a new idea. Really. It’s been around for decades in some form or the other. Affiliate Marketing Programs abound on the web making focussed targeting possible. In the physical world, there have been many great partnerships.
From simple relationships, like when Mini Cooper and Apple iPod came together [...]

The Green Issue

With the environment taking centrestage, companies are hopping on to the bandwagon hoping to show off their green credentials. Is it real or a bit of Greenwashing asks Rob Walker in NY Times.