FMCG Blog FMCG Views and News

Contracting can best be described as the ultimate try before you buy!

Rather than jumping into a long-term commitment it provides an opportunity for an employee and an employer to work together to see if the fit is right for both parties. It can however be a double-edged sword. As there is no commitment either can pull out of the arrangement if things don’t go to plan.

In recent times we have seen a shift in how employers and employees feel about contract work. The demand for contract roles has increased as the workforce continues to change under new pressures. As companies respond to financial pressures, shrinking resources and ever expanding workloads often their demands do not reduce and they need to find a solution. Staffing is kept lean and mean with no slack for over-and-above projects. Sometimes the only cost effective way around this is to hire contractors to ensure timeframes are met on those non-negotiable projects. Read More…

Posted under Jobs, Marketing

Australia’s newest political party is after a slogan before they launch themselves onto the Australian public.

“The Australian Sex Party” does seem to already have a slogan – We’re serious about sex, but they are obviously after something a bit more catchy, meaningful, funny. I don’t know.

Anyway you can find the official press release here and make up your own mind.

Tim

Posted under Marketing, News

I have joined Nuffnang which is an Australian based Blogger Advertising community. I have been searching for a locally based pay per click system for my blog for a while and when I found Nuffnang I immediately joined up and added them to my site.

I am hoping it provides some value to my readers as it should link Australian based advertisers to my content and provide some relevant material. Also might ad a few dollars to cover my hosting costs.

As an early adopter to Nuffnang there are some advantages in that they are taking more notice of our opinions and ways in which the system can be improved. So if you are a blogger join up and share the wealth.

I searched to see who else is using Nuffnang to see if they have any feedback yet on how it is going.

Michelle seems to be making the most of the Nuffnang service on her site, it well worth a look at the moment, seems she is after a belt for Christmas.

Das Connection has even discovered there is a Nuffnang Christmas Party tomorrow night, anyone invited?

Karen Cheng an esteemed blogger based in my birthplace Perth is also using Nuffnang so that’s a ringing endorsement.

Anyway the real reason for this post if purely to will the Dell™ Inspiron™ Mini 9! Between my wife and 3 boys I am lucky to get near any one of our computers so to be able to sneak off into the bedroom and blog away on the mini will be a great Christmas present.

All the best Nuffnang.

Tim

Posted under Marketing, News

Technorati a leader in Blog search and measurement is up to Day 5 of its annual review, “State of the Blogosphere – 2008″ and has looked at the status of BRANDS in blogs. This is of obvious interest to us here at FMCGBlog because we live and breath Brands and Communication  strategies.

We are still in the early days of blogging and corporate bloggers are still experimenting with style and substance. The most successful corporate bloggers have the same characteristics as social bloggers, they are informative, passionate, topical and entertaining/funny.

The article on Brands while lacking any deep analysis does present some very interesting survey results based on Technorati research.

Some of the most interesting insights detailed by the authors were;

“Twice as many bloggers look to other blogs compared to TV, print, or outdoor advertising to learn more about products and services”

“More than eight in ten bloggers post product or brand reviews, and almost nine in ten blog about brands that they love (or hate)”

This leads to the next challenge, how do marketeers influence these people. Web 2.0 is a challenge for the corporate world because any interaction is seen as manipulation and fake. A corporate blogger or forum poster has to be open and show their cards or they will damage the brand when they are found out. But what influence can they have when they obviously come from conflicted point of view?

This challenge has led to, as the article states;

“one in three bloggers has been approached to be a brand advocate. Of
those, more than six in ten were offered payments of some kind.”

Crediblogity - I just invented a word, couldn’t find it on google anyway; The more credible a blog, the more influential its commentary on Brands will become. Get on that band wagon and free samples, holidays etc will follow.

What about Forum posting? Any Comments?

Tim

Posted under Marketing

Went to www.hitwise.com.au to see how my new blog site was doing in the ranking, haven’t made the Top 20 yet folks, whats the story!! Come on tell your friends, email my link, subscribe, make a comment, I’m feeling lonely here.

Anyway when I got over the disappointment I found some interesting stuff on the Hitwise Analysts Blog that relates to us here in FMCG land and the job world as well. Robin Goad – Research Director, Hitwise UK, is responsible for the two articles that interested me the most. Has the credit crunch killed ethical consumerism? follows the Hitwise philosophy that

“search behaviour is a great way of tracking consumer behaviour” Read More…

Posted under Marketing

I found this article today:

After looking at the Tesco emails, I thought it would be a good experiment to see if any Australian retailers/supermarkets are doing emails well. Coles is probably the best place to start as they have recently revamped their emails and also repositioned Coles Online to be Coles.com.au (I think that’s a great thing – one umbrella brand without any sub-brands, so easy for the consumer to remember when they are going online).Dominique Hind’s Collective, Sep 2008

You should read the whole article.

Posted under Marketing