A recent investigation by The Times revealed that the Government has commissioned 984 public consultations, since May 2010. Of these, 301 have closed without any Government response while a further 73 are still open and awaiting a response. The latter category includes an ongoing enquiry into ice cream van chimes, and the optimum volume and time of day thereof. Meanwhile, the economy teeters on the brink of a record, triple-dip recession… Read more »
I don’t know about you, but I’ve had quite a busy week, what with one thing or another.
So in this post, I’m going to write about something completely uncontroversial: Sir Jimmy Savile. Read more »
It’s getting close to that glorious time of the year: the advertisers’ holiday. Yep. It’s Super Bowl season. In less than two weeks, we’ll be privileged (or horrified) to watch a parade of ads that will doubtless, at the very least, be entertaining.
Everybody’s rightly been gnashing their teeth about the potential demise of London’s Blue Plaques. The scheme’s been going for 147 years and has been copied all over the world but current backers English Heritage say that the initiative is no longer financially viable. There are hopes that another organisation might step into the breach and if they do, I hope they take the chance to do a complete overhaul – and not just apply another coat of blue paint. Read more »
Never short of an opinion on how to achieve high performance, Sir Clive Woodward is always worth listening to. His recent article in The Sunday Times on ‘in game analysis’ sparked a thought on how this kind of approach might one day be applied to the sometimes random art of pitching.
Performance analytics is the ‘new term’ according to Woodward. The art of predicting what will happen in a match and doing so in real time, based on gathering data as events unfold. Read more »
Like many people, on 1st of January I found myself with a considerable hangover writing my New Year resolutions’ list. Over a quarter of people in the UK make New Year resolutions, probably calling on the ‘New Year, new me’ mantra, vowing to lose weight, run 5K, spend more time with their family or like me, quit smoking. However, good intentions alone are not enough, as a not very encouraging study from Bristol University found, around three quarters of those who make resolutions fail.
I have tried to stick to my resolutions before, but they have never lasted past the second half of January. This year I am determined to avoid failure, be smoke free and live happily ever after. Experts agree that writing down resolutions, tracking your progress and sharing goals with others can help you achieve them. Fortunately for me, there is an app for that – or more accurately, over 200 apps promising to help me succeed in my quest to quit. Read more »
I wrote a piece for this week’s Marketing magazine, about the Census.
While I was researching it, I found that the questions have changed since the survey was introduced in its modern form in 1801. I particularly liked the direct approach of the 1871 version, which asked whether there were any “idiots, imbeciles or lunatics” in the household. Questions of political correctness aside, it’s a shame that this question wasn’t repeated in future waves of research, as the data would have been fascinating. Is the British public becoming more or less idiotic over time? Which towns and regions are particularly imbecilic? Is lunacy closely related to certain professions (“you don’t have to be mad to work here, but it helps”)? And so on.
I’m back from holiday and note a number of unread emails summarising the best ads of 2012. But 2012 is so over. Welcome to 2013 instead, with all of the pleasure of anticipation of exceptional creative that it offers. At least once we get past the ‘healthier you’ comms that will litter this month.
If you’re reading this, we avoided the Mayan Apocalypse (which, incidentally, sounds like a very nice bar of high-cocoa-content chocolate), so Happy New Year! But it also means that we’re straight into ’13 which, as we all know, is liable to be unlucky for some. Read more »
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