Why ‘customer-centric’ is the latest designer label we all need October 8, 2018 I'M NOT NORMALLY a fan of surveys, but the Interbrand Best Global Brands Report is, for me, an interesting read. This year’s report has made the headlines because the top-performing sector is the luxury fashion and accessories sector, which has grown by 42 percent since 2017. Why are designers doing well, and what can my clients [...]
Don’t play FTSE with your reputation September 28, 2018 FIGURES FROM THE High Pay Centre recently revealed that salaries for the highest-paid chief executives in the UK have risen six times faster than that of the nation’s workers. This story isn’t new – earlier this year I remember reading how FTSE 100 bosses earned more in three days than a typical worker will receive [...]
Being an entrepreneur isn’t a real job – or is it? August 10, 2018 THE NEW SERIES of Dragons’ Den starts on Sunday, bringing with it an assortment of budding entrepreneurs, all pitching for cash investments from the beady-eyed “Dragons”. The show, now in its 16th series, is a brilliant opportunity – for the right candidate. Being television, naturally it has to be entertaining, which it is, [...]
Regulation didn’t wipe out Wonga – losing its reputation did August 7, 2018 WHEN PAYDAY LENDER Wonga launched in 2007, it was tipped to become a £1bn success story. Today, the company is worth just £23m and has only managed to avoid insolvency thanks to a last-minute £10m boost from investors. So what went wrong? Ultimately, it comes down to reputation. Wonga's public image first took a [...]
Failure is at the core of Apple’s success August 3, 2018 IT’S OFTEN SAID that, while success is celebrated in the US, in the UK it’s only done out of a churlish sense of wanting that person to subsequently fail. As a regular commuter to the States – I spent last week meeting with clients in New York, and I’m writing this in Soho House [...]
Silence is golden – someone should tell Thomas Markle July 30, 2018 DENIS THATCHER FAMOUSLY once said, “It’s better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to open one’s mouth and remove all doubt.” Clearly, this concept is not one that applies to Thomas Markle Senior, father of Meghan, Duchess of Sussex. His latest incendiary comments to the Mail on Sunday this weekend have [...]
#DeleteFacebook: How can the social media giant bounce back? March 23, 2018 THE HASHTAG WAS popularised by Twitter. Now it is being used to criticise the company that owns Twitter, on Twitter. #DeleteFacebook is only the latest proof that the social media giant is in trouble. Fake news, falling stock, glaring data breaches. A 9% drop off Facebook’s shares. Mark Zuckerberg’s world-beating platform is in the [...]
Sometimes, the CEO must fall on their sword March 20, 2018 ON MONDAY, CHANNEL 4 News broadcast hidden camera footage of Cambridge Analytica. The company is a political consulting firm based in London that boasts of being able to provide data and insights to ‘drive your voters to the polls and win your campaign.’. It says it has played a ‘pivotal role’ in winning US [...]
How a new ‘CEO’ can singlehandedly transform a brand March 16, 2018 THIS WEEK MARKS the fifth anniversary of Pope Francis’ inauguration. To Catholics, he is a divisive figure. Right-leaning Catholics have taken exception to his aggressive criticism of unbridled capitalism, which he called ‘the dung of the devil’. In 2014, Timothy Dolan, the Archbishop of New York, actually wrote a column in the Wall Street [...]
How a good metaphor means good PR February 28, 2018 THE CURRENT SITUATION over Brexit is nothing short of chaotic. It’s almost impossible to argue otherwise. Jeremy Corbyn, the Labour leader, backed a permanent customs union. Pro-European Union Tory rebels quickly took their chance to back an amendment calling for the United Kingdom to keep close ties with the EU after it leaves in [...]
