Your bad jobs are hurting the economy You may take issue with the above statement. After all, with unemployment going down, surely you’re doing something right? In theory, but as is often the case, the numbers don’t tell the full story. More people are in work, but fewer people are enjoying their jobs. And as
[vc_row 0=””][vc_column 0=””][vc_column_text 0=””]For a couple of years now advertisers have been gradually leaning more towards in-house services and away from agency outsourcing. A recent ISBA study has translated this trend into numbers, and put forward the main reason behind it: agencies thought to be too slow. The advertisers’ issue centres around urgency. They want
[vc_row 0=””][vc_column][vc_column_text 0=””]In light of IBM’s decision to repeal their famous ‘work-from-home’ policy, I hope you’ll forgive me for asking the question: have they completely lost the plot? According to Geoffrey James of Inc., they may well have. He writes, ‘You’d think that IBM’s executives would realise that the company’s unparalleled record of financial growth
You have to hand it to the advertising team at Heineken for managing to scrape together a five-minute commercial with social and political (and, I suppose, drink-related) themes at its centre and avoiding disaster, especially when you consider the fact that it was only a month ago that Kendall Jenner and the creative types at
In years gone by, the sales process was simple. We all learned about the so-called sales funnel: at the top, at the widest point of the ‘funnel’, was ‘awareness’. It’s at this stage where the prospect stumbles across your website or finds it through Google or an advert or a social media post or some
On May 19th, one in five NHS trusts were victims of the global ‘WannaCry’ cyber-attack, freezing computers used to share patients’ test results and forcing the cancellation of operations scheduled for Monday at a number of major hospitals. The National Cyber Security Centre soon after warned that more cases were likely to be reported at the
We should all have been surprised to read that a third of all organisations based in the UK have no digital transformation strategy whatsoever. We weren’t, of course, and not only because a further 21% of respondents said they were ‘just getting started’ with their own strategy and another 24% said their strategy was, if
Have a skim over any corporate Twitter feed and you’re likely to encounter a healthy dose of diversity messaging. While few are doing anything as disastrous as Pepsi’s recent faux pas, much of what appears is little more than a box-ticking exercise with no real substance behind it. For me, this represents a huge missed
[vc_row 0=””][vc_column][vc_column_text 0=””]Until just a short while ago the concept of ‘AI’ was just that – a concept. A stimulating conversation piece, but little more. Well, in 2017 this is no longer the case. AI and its applications have been a key industry talking point this year, and for good reason. Huge strides have been
Life at a fast-paced brand and communications consultancy is anything but typical and neither is the day-to-day of the people who work here. Senior account executive Abby Fox took some time out of her busy schedule to chat about what she does at JPC. What’s working for a marketing agency like? It’s intense, but lots
Everyone enjoys a ‘good experience’. It may sound vague, but the underlying principle is true. Although clients are divided by ‘B2B’ and ‘B2C’, every customer is united by a shared appreciation for something new and exciting. In the same way, there is a correlation between a business giving customers the chance to try a new
At the risk of disrespecting Carter Wilkerson, you probably haven’t heard of him—-assuming you have heard of him––because you’re a member of his thriving and expansive social circle. Carter Wilkerson is the proud poster of one of the most liked, retweeted and replied-to tweets since the birth of Twitter in 2006. The wording of the
It would be hard to claim that marketing content is always readable. Marketing language is so riddled with jargon and unnecessary complexity that it’s been vilified in newspaper articles and online listicles (and it isn’t as if journalists aren’t liable to throwing out a little of their own ‘journalese’ now and again). We articulated the
Why are so many millennials quitting the well-paid and well-regarded jobs they worked so hard through uni for? That’s the question Lucy Kellaway tried to answer in her piece in the FT last week, Don’t blame millennials if you can’t hang on to them. Kellaway blames the ‘widest gap between expectations and reality that the
It probably hasn’t escaped your notice that a man was dragged from his seat on a United Airlines plane on Sunday evening because his flight, which was bound for Kentucky, was overbooked. An eyewitness said the man was a ‘Chinese American doctor’ who refused to leave his seat when asked because he had to be
In 1946, George Orwell––novelist, essayist, journalist and critic––extolled the virtues of simple writing in the essay ‘Politics and the English Language’ and condensed his guidance to writers into six rules: 1. Never use a metaphor, simile or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print. 2. Never use a long word
Pepsi’s short-lived controversial advert shows why values should drive diversity How did Pepsi get their latest advert so wrong? Criticism for the ad ranged from ‘absurd’ to ‘disrespectful’ and even ‘a sick joke’. Some have called for a boycott of all Pepsi products. The ad begins with Kendall Jenner modelling at a photoshoot while a
What does a good agency look like to you? Pretty much every agency website you visit promises to deliver simplified content, engaging designs and strategic responses. So, do you go for the disruptors, the innovators, or the safe pair of hands? The answer is: none of them. You should be on the lookout for the
‘Simple Thinking: How to remove complexity from life and work’ by Richard Gerver When a book comes out with a title so close to our very own ‘making the complex compellingly simple‘ heart, how could we resist checking it out? Sadly the similarity ends with the title. Richard Gerver makes some sound points, but the book
