Government ministers pictured yesterday...

Does anyone know what is going on with the Fiscal treaty/Austerity treaty/Stability treaty. Do the government have any communications advice available to them. Certainly they are carrying some major liabilities. Michael Noonan is the bad cop with his budget gun out…Richard Bruton has made a major, major, major gaffe which even John Major would be proud off! (Enough puns) Enda is on the run presumably on the advice that Vincent Browne is too nasty to face, “face to face”.

In what world is this a good media relations tactic. We are predicting a close result but if the vote is lost it will have been lost by the absence of a single minded government strategy. Call us old fashioned but perhaps selling the benefits of a Yes vote to the Irish people would be a good strategy. Just be thankful FG and Labour don’t have an advertising agency otherwise the posters around town might have headlines like this:

Heinz Beans…buy them or we will make you come back to the supermarket again and again until you do!

National Lottery… it could be your only chance before the currency collapses

Cheese…its high in saturated fat and will probably kill you as you wait for 148 hours on a trolley for a grossly overpaid consultant to pronounce you dead!

And finally remember that as far as science is concerned Stability means: the ability of an ecosystem to resist change which puts in mind the old french chestnut (not Sarkozy) “plus ca change plus c’est la meme chose“

Now be like Roger Sterling and go and learn the names of the people you have to fire !!!

Sometimes you have to be brave to get results.

1. About 60%-70% of the population will not pay the household charge in time and they are not waiting until last minute!

2. The EU fiscal treaty referendum will be narrowly defeated.

How does the song go:

Talkin’ Bout A Revolution lyrics
- Tracy Chapman

A fella walks into a pet shop and says: “Give me a wasp.” The shopkeeper replies: “We don’t sell wasps.” He says: “There’s one in the window.”

* A fella said to the doctor: “What’s the good news?” “You’ve got 24 hours to live.” He says: “What’s the bad news?” And the doc says: “We should have told you yesterday.”

* My wife said to me: “If you won the lottery, would you still love me?” I said: “Of course I would. I’d miss you, but I’d still love you.”

* Someone threw a petrol bomb at Alex Higgins once. He drank it.

* I don’t think my wife likes me very much. When I had a heart attack she wrote for an ambulance.

* A guy goes into B&Q and says: “I’d like some nails please.” “How long would you like them?” “I want to keep them.”

* I rang British Telecom. I said: “I want to report a nuisance caller.” He said: “Not you again.”

* I was stopping in a nice hotel in Bolton. I said to the woman: “There’s a fly swimming in my soup.” She said: “There’s too much soup, it should be paddling.”

* A man goes into Boots and says: “Have you got Viagra?” “Do you have a prescription?” asks the chemist. “No,” he replies, “But I’ve got a photograph of the wife…”

To single out advertising and sponsorship is idiotic when you leave other influencers untouched.

Consider our favourite soaps Fair City, Corrie, Eastenders etc. hasn’t anyone noticed that everything revolves around the feckin pub…every social occasion… Christmas…Easter… etc. The mechanics in Corrie often go to the pub at lunchtime even though they are working with machinery!!!

And what about those endless gourmet food shows The Restaurant etc where wine is essential to every meal. The hard drinking portrayed in movies like Bridesmaids the Hangover etc.

BAN THEM ALL we say because that is the Irish government approach to everything the drinking equivalent of putting up Dangerous bend signs instead of straightening out the road. An Irish solution to a problem no one really wants to deal with.

Just a bunch of do-gooders tinkering piously around the edges and causing huge job losses and damage to the already beleaguered Irish marketing community.

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Pharmony/305659976116472?sk=app_172383002872524

The big pack shot

Cynical Moi?

Unilever reframes marketing

LONDON: Unilever, the FMCG giant, is attempting to reframe its approach to marketing, and to alter widespread perceptions of this activity as simply being “selling for the sake of selling”.

The company has developed a model called “crafting brands for life”, a strategy it hopes will offer clear benefits for consumers and help motivate staff.

“We want to make people believe that marketing is a wonderful profession again and make it noble as a way of serving the progress of people’s lives in a good way”, Marc Mathieu, Unilever’s senior vice president, marketing, told Marketing Week.

“I really believe that marketing is a wonderful profession and necessary tool of the way the world needs to work in the future … If we really believe that corporations have a key role to play in driving social, economic and environmental progress, marketing has a big role to play.”

More specifically, Mathieu suggested a return to the values that embodied many major companies when they were first founded would constitute an extremely positive move in this direction.

He said: “In the last few decades of the 20th century marketing has become selling for the sake of selling, but at its inception, marketing was inspired by the Henry Fords, the William Levers of the world – people with a vision to bring products to people that could create progress and improve lives.”

Unilever has been a pioneer in areas such as sustainability, as the owner of Marmite and Hellmann’s pursues the dual goals of halving its ecological output while doubling revenues.

Its advertising and marketing teams are seeking to find the right mix of “logic and magic”, and giving each brand a purpose, which can be social, but may encompass providing pleasure or enjoyment.

“I believe that marketing done well is an amazing profession. Some people do it more as a job, and some people do it more as a craft,” said Mathieu.

“It’s not just a process or succession of steps … marketing is at its best and much more interesting when you are thinking about real people you can improve the lives of.”
Data sourced from Marketing Week; additional content by Warc staff, 8 February 2012

Reinvests in Marketing

Up to $650 Million Savings Will Be Used for Brand-

Building, Commodity Costs

By: Natalie Zmuda Published: February 07, 2012

Just 48 hours before PepsiCo is expected to announce millions in additional marketing investment,Coca-Cola beat it to the punch.