Blog

May, June and July seem to have rapidly become ‘speech time’ as I’m giving talks at events almost every week over the next few months, but I’d like to highlight three of them. May 24th I’ll be at a destination marketing event in Jönköping calledSmartaPlatser. Here I’ll be talking about the marketing of destinations and [...]

I’ve been down in Switzerland for the past two days at a client’s company meeting, in a small Swiss town in the pre-alps. I always enjoy coming to Switzerland. I gave a  presentation yesterday on “The Value of Brands” and obviously Apple came up as an example. It struck me just what a debt so [...]

Over the past two or three weeks you’ll have noticed, unless you’ve been walking around with your head in the clouds, that the technology world has had the equivalent of some pretty huge seismic events. The acquisition of Motorola Mobility by Google. HP throwing in the towel in the personal computing business. The knowledge that [...]

Following on from my last blog approach of  ‘Good Artists Borrow, Great Artists Steal ‘  this month I happily embezzle a few words from a person I have the great pleasure of knowing well – John Simmons. John is an inspiring creative business writer, who was one of the founders of the Dark Angels writers courses.

Splashy print ads.  Blogs.  Riveting press releases.  A “kick-ass” Facebook page.  These assets are all elements of a marketing strategy.  Who wouldn’t want a “winning” social media presence, or even one-eighth of Charlie Sheen’s Twitter followers?  But do they fit within your overall business strategy and goals for your company?  Do these tactics fit the [...]

This morning when I woke up, I heard the dripping of rain on my roof. It gave me a warm feeling: it reminded me of camping in France, when I was a child. Which proves that sound and emotions walk hand in hand. When I got invited to join UP*, what struck me was that [...]

Today Barcelona is one of Europe’s, if not the world’s, most successful destinations for both tourism and as a business location. People even talk of adopting the Barcelona model when it comes to redefining a post-industrial location. However, it was all very different forty years ago. In the 1975 series “Fawlty Towers,” Manuel, the hapless [...]

A month or so ago I was fortunate enough to attend a creative business writers course at Merton College Oxford. The company behind the course is called Dark Angels a UK based organisation dedicated to improving business writing. There were just eight fellow writers attending, amongst them some of the most creative business writers I’ve [...]

Getting ahead of time, a rare opportunity that exists when you work in different time zones. The “I need it NOW”  is easily accomplished. I work when you sleep. I dream up ideas while you dream.

For me, UP* Understanding is about understanding humans and their behavior, values, emotions and life styles in everyday life. UP* Understanding is consumer centric, that is looking for both broad and deep insights about the consumers, and position’s the brand on both an individual as well as a micro and macro social level.