Key performance indicators (KPIs) help you to determine whether or not you are on the right track toward reaching your marketing goals. If you haven’t already, develop your SMART goals today. You must define success in order to attain it. Depending on your goals, there are a number of ways to monitor and track your [...]

It’s nearly the end of the year but it seems that 200 of Europe’s largest companies have finally  reached the same conclusion that blur Group has postulated since the start of 2011 – marketing costs too much. It seems that there is one big area of the business which could benefit from efficiency savings – [...]

Human Media Fundamentals, the concepts which define the way to a new form of communication, one that represents the end of the Social era in its pure state of art. It’s time for everything to be placed on a map and coherently drawn – thank you Luis Calabuig. Human Media makes it possible for a company to offer [...]

Some time ago we talked about those moments when a CMO is in a bit of a hole and needs to get out of it, preferably unscathed. The scenarios that we see every day on the Creative Services Exchange as our approach works so well when things need doing differently, quickly, cost-effectively, with a new [...]

For many businesses November is seen as the last full ‘sales’ month of the calendar (and sometimes fiscal) year. Recognizing that buyers move into holiday mode as soon as the first baubles are spotted, activity levels become frantic.  Marketing rushes to deliver campaigns, the sales teams hit the phones, customers see special promotions arrive in [...]

There’s been no shortage of interesting marketing stories that have caught our bloggers’ eyes this week. We wrote about the problematic nature of measuring influence on Twitter in the results of a new study. In the shifting world of social media, users place their trust in apparently ‘objective’ ratings of popularity and influence. Unfortunately, the [...]

Marketing professionals are never at risk of boredom. There are constant new challenges : new delivery channels, new initiatives, new data and our favourite topics, accountability and measurement. CMOs recognize that to drive brand further forward it’s going to need people who are innovators and strategists, the people who see the why rather than the [...]

A new study suggests that widely accepted Twitter strategies may be misguided. The report, Measuring User Influence in Twitter: The Million Follower Fallacy, rejects what it calls the “modern view” flows according to interpersonal connections among ordinary users, and the general marketing willingness of a community to accept an innovation. Rather, it seems that information cascades down [...]

We love deadlines at the Creative Services Exchange. One of the advantages of having over 12,000 creatives from around the world is that as one working day finishes, another starts. It’s 24*7 creative delivery. So if you really have an urgent deadline, then someone will be there wanting to respond to your brief. And ready [...]

Some oldies from England (that’s your blog writer in case you were in any doubt) may remember an ad for a chocolate biscuit with the stuttering catchphrase of p-p-p-pick-up-a-penguin. In today’s business the outsourcing option is often about picking up a person to fulfil a marketing requirement. The drivers for this are predominantly down to [...]

As a marketer, what do you think are your core traits that make you successful? Creativity? Planning skills? Operational excellence? Lateral thinking? For most marketing heads in business, they have to add responsiveness to the list of the characteristics. Marketing is the interface to everyone in the organisation and to the external customer and stakeholder. [...]

As we talk to marketing directors the world over it’s clear that people have very different ways of approaching their requirements to source and buy creative, marketing, advertising campaigns. Agency, in-house, a combination. And the fact that sometimes something else is needed. There’s no doubting the fact that one size really doesn’t fit all, so [...]

Our latest ‘no alternative’ scenario is possibly a little uncomfortable for some of us. It’s that moment when you realize your choice of first tier agency may not have been quite as perfect as the lunch at Nobu suggested. But the commitment is a long way down the line. An increasing number of agencies no [...]

It’s not uncommon for marketers, when hearing about the Creative Services Exchange for the first time, to be slightly incredulous. A creative campaign? That easily? Just submit a brief online and then everything else happens online – according to my timescales and my budgets. After years of heavy reliance on others telling you budgets, giving [...]

With less than a year to go to the London Olympics, those of us based in that city are now being thrown a daily feast of news items, connected marketing and several marketing rules and regulations. Occasionally there’s even a connection to something sporting. Never missing the chance to equate our core business with topical [...]

Butlins is one of the most iconic British tourism brands. It epitomizes the English beach holiday and shouts out summer fun. It’s also an innovative marketing business and as such, has become one of the latest organisations to brief the Creative Services Exchange. Like most large consumer brands much of the activity is above the [...]

Within the ‘best practice’ advice that is available for businesses adopting social media, there is a fair amount of  ’don’ts’. Most of these are obvious in terms of misrepresentation of the brand. Classic cases like handing over your entire social strategy to someone who popped in for a couple of weeks work experience and shared [...]

The old double-edged proverb “May you live in interesting times” resonates particularly loudly with everyone at the moment, and with marketing decision-makers it has especial relevance. News from the CMO Council suggests that marketing heads are expecting budgets to increase, but are also most aware of economic factors affecting their ability to receive and act [...]

As the future of advertising continues to engender debate, it’s time for the marketing department itself has to make changes. A tighter scrutiny of budgets,  a plethora of channels, the ongoing global-local centralised-dispersed discussions all miss a fundamental point – that the marketing department has not had a makeover for some time. So let’s consider [...]

It’s one of those moments you’d rather hadn’t happened. It’s when those best laid plans didn’t go to plan. The metaphorical moment when the ship is ready to set sail and the champagne bottle won’t break. Yes we’re talking about the little events in the lives of marketing professionals that turn the well-oiled machine into [...]

It’s no exaggeration to say that the Creative Services Exchange has come to the rescue of more than one CMO since its launch. We show time and time again the great benefits of giving CMOs great value,  immense choice with the 11,000+ creatives available to pitch and efficiencies in terms of process and timeframes. But on [...]

The latest figures show that the advertising industry is now worth $500bn and continues to grow. This flies in the face of a perception that all is not well in the mad bad adworld. But are the figures telling the whole story? Is the spend on advertising actually a reflection of superb service from the [...]

From the moment that time management became a must-have discipline, we’ve been obsessed with making better use of our time, streamlining processes and priorities and boxing our day so that more gets done for less. When Apple started the ‘there’s an app for that‘ campaign, it played beautifully into this mindset that we want everything [...]

If you looked behind most marketing campaigns, one of the main motivations is standing out from the competition. Companies try to stay one step ahead – with price, product offering, customer service or any number of small advantages they can add that set them apart. They focus on matching and beating their rivals, and as [...]

Over the last 12-18 months blur Group has been quietly sowing the seeds of a Creative Services revolution. We’ve explained how Crowdsourcing is a technique that corporates can embrace and that creatives don’t need to fear as a loss of revenues, but rather the way to find high-value work that they’d otherwise never encounter. We’ve [...]