Monthly Digest of Whiteboard Stories
Thursday 5 November 2009 at 11:25 Whiteboard is the Blog for our marketing sister company Pendry White. Every month we give As It Happens readers the chance to access its postings directly through our pages.
Pendry White has been promoting its products and services shamelessly. The most recent posting is a good basic summary of its overall approach to post-credit crunch marketing.
Earlier, it produced a more specific posting on what is now its YouTube & You product (designed to manage small video inputs not just into YouTube but across the internet).
On 22 October, the first guest writer, Rob Eastaway, a consultant on cricket and author, castigated the English Cricket Board for its short-termism - going for the fast buck on sponsorship and undermining the very base of its 'business' by denying wide public access to the game through terrestrial TV.
Most of our policy-related writings have otherwise remained on As It Happens but we published a challenging critique of the a-moral promotion of credit that was written by one of our younger mid-management team. This resulted in further comments on Linked-In.
Some took a hard line on personal responsibility over debt but most shared our position that an exploitative system had been put in place that was based on short-termism and greed. It had seriously disadvantaged the younger generation and Government had taken its eye off the ball.
As a matter of policy, Pendry White (and TPPR) have decided to take a moral stand and not take on clients that promote cheap credit to vulnerable groups. Meanwhile, Whiteboard decided to concentrate much more on giving practical advice to its readers.
One theme has been that of getting down to basics and sweeping away verbal obfuscation. In Pendry White's view, the days of jargon are over. Functionality is now key, with business cards being given as a practical example.
For further discussion of these and other marketing issues, go to Whiteboard for a chance to comment directly or contact Roger White, Managing Director of Pendry White, on +44 (0) 20 7549 1672 or via rwhite@pendrywhite.com
Reader Comments (2)
One observation I would make is that, purely subconsciously, a common theme has run through a number of our Pendry White Whiteboard contributions over the last few months - commercial greed and short-termism.
Ranging from the exploitation of fan-based markets, through cricket and other sporting environments to the great moral killing ground represented by the banks and finance houses, the unifying theme of all our contributors has been the lack of the old "farming" approach to business ie husbanding your markets and your customer base to ensure you have a healthy long term market and a loyal customer base that likes you rather than hates and fears you.
Even the "hunters" of old knew that you had to manage your natural prey to ensure a continuing supply. The message from our contributors seems to be that the sensible skills of old have been replaced with a senseless drive for money at all costs.
Interesting to see who survives in the long run!
That sounds like an ecological approach to capitalism ... maybe the subject for a policy piece in the future :-)