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To create an online financial advice brand, become a follower of fashion
Having worked — off and on — with a number of UK financial brands in my time, something’s alway perplexed me: the default setting for the design of financial services is based on what other financial brands already do. Brands rarely seem to roam beyond the confines of the financial services archipelago for inspiration in service… — read more
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Monocle’s Soft Power Survey 2013
Monocle’s published it’s fourth annual Soft Power Survey – a topic that’s fascinated me ever since I listened to Professor Joseph Nye speak on the topic at the RSA in London in 2011 – and Germany’s toppled the UK from its top spot. Produced in conjunction with the Institute for Government, Monocle’s survey asks which countries… — read more
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Executive pay excesses spark Swiss movement
Interesting movement emerging in Switzerland – according to this report by Reuters – where campaigners are calling for a pay ratio of 1:12 between lowest-paid workers and top execs. That’s the kind of ambition that’s hard to argue with. Picture: JUSO Scheweiz | cc — read more
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The kind of unspun Papal spin that couldn’t be spun by PR spinners
A piece from The Guardian today that caught my eye: journalist Jonathan Jones claims Pope Francis ‘has renovated a damaged brand not in years, but months’. And how is this miracle being accomplished? Probably by not attempting to ‘renovate a damaged brand’. In fact, the universal truth lying at the heart of this epiphanic repositioning of… — read more
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The Bebanking talk I nearly gave at TEDxCheltenham
Back in October 2012, I was kindly invited to deliver a talk at TEDxCheltenham about the idea of Bebanking that I wrote about here last July. I’d meticulously rehearsed my lines – learning the the script off by heart – and was all set to deliver the speech. It went well – for about two minutes.… — read more
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Apple’s Tim Cook and the distinction between brand and branding
Away from the furore among analysts about Apple’s – apparently – disappointing results yesterday, the brand’s chief executive, Tim Cook, uttered a phrase which precisely states the distinction between brand and branding. He said: “We could put the Apple brand on a lot of things and sell a lot more stuff. The most important thing… — read more
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Are trade unions the answer to the economic crisis?
Perhaps it was inevitable that, with the rekindling of interest in the economic analysis of Marx and Engels on the crest of the current global economic crisis, the idea of organised labour as a force for good would emerge somewhere down the line. But a couple of columnists – Will Hutton in the Guardian and Nobel… — read more
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Britain’s brand: ‘this frail travelling coincidence’
It may sound like a glass-half-full definition but Frank Cotterell Boyce’s reference to this line from Philip Larkin’s The Whitsun Wedding, perfectly pinpoints the poignant curiosities of the British character that his script for the London 2012 Olympics Opening Ceremony so brilliantly conveyed. The Larkin reference is included – about 12 minutes in – in this… — read more
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Mr Miliband’s big moment
Last Saturday’s blog post by the BBC’s political editor, Nick Robinson, astutely makes a connection between perception of the present Labour Party leader, Ed Miliband, and Clement Attlee. Attlee’s legacy is formidable. Among other measures in a truly remarkable period in British government, he presided over the creation of the national health service, and established… — read more
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Ian Thomas 