Case Study: MapSherpa
"We have been fortunate enough to have worked over the past nine months with Francis Moran and Associates to deliver virtual CMO services for our company, and so far it has been highly effective. With this relationship, we get access to a level of experience and expertise which would be unaffordable to us if we were to hire a full-time equivalent." Dave McIlhagga, Founder and CEO
Case Study: Singletouch
"When I hired Francis Moran to lead our marketing efforts in 2011, I had very high expectations. We needed to completely rebuild our marketing from the ground up. Francis and his team not only met those high expectations but exceeded them. He brought a very high level of strategic thinking, professionalism and creativity to our organization that will be felt for many years to come in our quest to build a successful IT company." Marty Hilsenteger, Founder and CEO
By inmedia
Today’s Marketing daily headlines feature included this piece that caught my eye: “Trees rejoice as Astral creates paperless annual report.” This initiative not only does the right thing by the environment, but also reduces clutter and provides a competitive differentiator for the company that’s doing it. It will be interesting to see if this trend catches on.
By inmedia
The Register reports today that Google’s philanthropic arm will invest tens of millions of dollars in renewable energy.
“Cheap renewable energy is not only critical for the environment but also vital for economic development in many places where there is limited affordable energy of any kind,” Google co-founder Sergey Brin said.
In true tongue-in-cheek Register fashion, the reporter notes, “Google’s founders believe the firm’s experience in data centres and bot-vs-bot advertising mean this relatively small investment will nonetheless overturn the established energy economy in short order.”
By Peter Kemball
If you think your business requires tough decisions, you would agree that they are trivial compared to the late President John Kennedy’s during the 13 days of the Cuban missile crises. The world teetered on the balance of massive nuclear explosions and a wrong decision would have killed millions of people in Canada, the USSR and the United States. Nor was this the only time. On at least two occasions, military officers faced the apparent prospect of incoming missiles. For them the decision to retaliate or not had to be made in minutes. In one case, the officer wondered why there were only five US missiles on his radar screen. The answer was that he was looking at five birds!
Recently Ted Sorenson, a key advisor to Kennedy during the missile crises, set out his view on how a leader makes tough decisions in the face of conflicting advice. Speaking in Ottawa and Toronto a week or so ago, Sorensen advised executives to picture their options creatively. For example, Kennedy didn’t call it a “blockade,” which would have meant that any ship sailing towards Cuba would have been turned back. He labelled it a “weapons embargo,” thus allowing key non-military supplies to reach Cuba and make it clear to the world that Cuba was not the enemy. A nice byproduct was avoiding the alienation of people elsewhere in the Caribbean whose lives would have been disrupted by a blockade’s automatic triggering of wartime marine insurance rates. Reach out for support, Sorenson advises. Kennedy sought cooperation from all nations. And communicate directly with your opponent rather than through agents.
Above all, Kennedy was a realist. When the crisis had passed, an aide urged him to use his status to intervene in the Sino-Indian War. “But you are 10 feet tall,” the aide said. “Oh, that will last a couple of weeks,” Kennedy replied.
Technology executives may face just as much uncertainty as Kennedy did, and need to apply the same creativity to their problem solving.
Peter Kemball is CEO and founder at Acorn Partners, an innovative firm that helps B2B SMEs finance their success.
By inmedia
What used to be a safe haven from the reach of internet advertisers has finally crumbled under the pressure. The BBC reports Adobe has signed a deal with Yahoo! that will see dynamic adverts being displayed in online PDF documents.
“Dynamic adverts can be changed for particular audiences or rotated to make sure that a particular user never sees the same advertisement twice.”
Thankfully, “The advertisements will not appear if the PDF document is printed.”
By inmedia
Bloomberg, a provider of business and financial news, is a regular target for us for our clients who are looking to communicate their business stories and successes. Wondering what is it really like at the head office of this media giant in New York? The company lampoons itself and the popular TV show “The Office” in this clip created for the Financial Writers Association’s “Financial Follies,” presented earlier this month.
November 27, 2007 by Danny Sullivan
By Danny Sullivan During the five-year period in my life when I made my home on the Western side of the Atlantic, I was always interested to note the subtle differences in the way that the general population responded to marketing when compared to my native Britain. The UK is a generally more sceptical country […]
Read more... -November 26, 2007 by Francis Moran
By Francis Moran We heard this one again last week. Generating effective coverage of a client’s story is not all about the relationship I have with reporters; it’s all about the value of the story I have to tell. This has long been the top-ranked of Francis’s Favourite Fictions, and for two good reasons. First, […]
Read more... -November 23, 2007 by Francis Moran
By Francis Moran Canada’s national broadcaster, the CBC, is airing a special series on its national radio news programs called, “How may I help you?” I caught the first in-depth piece yesterday evening and I so badly wanted to call in immediately and share my endless stack of customer service horror stories. Many fellow listeners […]
Read more... -November 23, 2007 by Danny Sullivan
By Danny Sullivan ScotlandIS, the trade body for the Scottish IT sector has been in the news this week as it seeks to drive more students to take up IT-related courses at University. As the Scotsman reports, “Figures showed a 47 per cent drop in UK applications to university courses in IT between 2001 and […]
Read more... -November 23, 2007 by Danny Sullivan
By Danny Sullivan Just as we thought we were starting to get a handle on Web 2.0, the next installment, imaginatively titled “Web 3.0,” is emerging as the next big Internet thing. I read a couple of articles this week that helped make things a little clearer. First, Yahoo!’s Julien Lecomte wrote Is This the […]
Read more... -November 22, 2007 by Jill Pyle
By Jill Pyle Lately, I’ve had the opportunity to work with several clients whose PR programs have an analyst relations component. It’s been a great experience getting to know the ins and outs of analyst relations and learning about the many ways it can create value for a client. We reach out to technology analysts […]
Read more... -November 21, 2007 by inmedia
eWeek just published an article about companies that are using wikis to share and manage knowledge. According to the article, “Wikis’ flexibility and versatility make the technology a potential solution for an array of business requirements. From bare-bones content collaboration to Web-based project management, wikis can adapt to the team requirements of many organizations.” The […]
Read more... -November 21, 2007 by Linda Forrest
By Linda Forrest Media relations is a collaborative process. The client and the PR agency should clearly define objectives for the program at the outset and a plan should be formulated to reach those goals. It’s important to consider that one of the predominant reasons for outsourcing the PR function is to gain efficiency. We […]
Read more... -
Twitter
Tweets by @FrancisMoranRecent Comments
The Future of A&R – Walabe : [...] http://francis-moran.com/marketing-strategy/top-10-questions-every-strategic-communicator-should-ask... [...]
Traditional Marketing is Dead – Long Live Bikini Waxer Marketing | Scalexl : [...] pointed out by Alexandra Reid on the Francis Moran website content marketing is becoming more and more like journalism. So, it is not just about the content, [...]
It’s Summertime…and the Networking is Easy? | THE MERRAINE BRAIN : [...] In fact, summer is perhaps one of the times least used to network, yet at the same time has shown to be the most productive time to network. People tend to be in a brighter mood compared to during the gloomy winters-especially where I am from in England! Networking needs to be fun and not approached as another chore, like mowing the lawn. (http://francis-moran.com/marketing-strategy/social-media-strategy-why-meeting-in-the-real-world-matt...) [...]