Where the Wild Things are

Definitely one to take the niece and nephews to. Trailer feels a bit like Donnie Darko for kids.

Never Mind the Sizzzle… where’s the sausage

I was recommended this book to me by Nick (see here for his own review) as a really easy way of getting an understanding of brand building in a light hearted way (on the cover it is described as the 21st Century’s answer to ‘Who Moved my Cheese‘ – another book I would whole heartedly recommend). The book basically takes you through a year of Bob Jones who has seconded from sales to the marketing department and as much through the incompetence of the stereotypical ‘Dinosaur like’ Marketing Director as well as his own common sense he takes you through the substance of brand building (I have been astounded through my career how much of what we do is common sense). The book contains many practical tips as well as some nice examples of how to rethink your brand as well as the activity you are doing to support it. As with most good books in the field of marketing these days, it is also backed but an ongoing blog.

Anyway here are some of the interesting things I took out of the book:
1. How you can use your own passion for your product to grow a brand – Innocent being a fantastic case in point
2. How important it is to ‘be the consumer’ – Nike being an extreme example whereby they only employ people who love sport and are actively involved. It is for this reason we include someone from the target audience in all of our own brainstorms
3. How you should consider every single part of the experience of the brand – Geek squad being an excellent example
4. How service is still fundamental in building brand affinity. Pret is a fantastic example of this

Kaws 4ft dissected

Amazing release from Kaws with the 4ft release of Dissected. Would be an amazing item to add to my existing collection of Dissected Companion’s but think the price tag is going to be just too high. No release date published yet but likely to be released on Kaws One.