Simon Mainwaring

We First provides consulting and training to help companies tell the story of their good work in ways that build their business

Simon Mainwaring

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For a long time advertising has operated on a conceit that brands and consumers were in dialogue when, in truth, brands were dictating consumer behavior, pushing messaging on the public and often exploiting their trust or gullibility. Phrases such as “We’re here to help you”, “We put you first” and notions like customer-centric companies sounded […]

For a long time advertising has operated on a conceit that brands and consumers were in dialogue when, in truth, brands were dictating consumer behavior, pushing messaging on the public and often exploiting their trust or gullibility. Phrases such as “We’re here to help you”, “We put you first” and notions like customer-centric companies sounded …

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This week’s giveaway book is Sally Hogshead’s newly released, Fascinate. Inside Sally does a fantastic job of articulating exactly how and why fascination works and how you can use it to your advantage. Sally divides fascination into seven universal triggers: lust, mystique, prestige, power, vice, and trust providing an in-depth study of each. She then …

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Ordinarily I wouldn’t write about this sort of thing as it’s so close to home but it’s such a wonderful example of how a brand can use service to its advantage. At Christmas I went home to Australia to visit my family. At LAX, my daughter was wandering through a store while waiting to board …

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Few companies launched on twitter with more bang than ad.ly. As an in-stream advertising platform that enables users to publish content and be paid for it, their arrival attracted a lot of discussion and exponential success. Sean kindly shares what they’re up to now, their new analytics tools for publishers and their plans for the …

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Steve Jobs didn’t just launch the latest ‘must have’ consumer accessory last week. He unleashed the latest assault on everything we thought we knew as marketers. Faris Yacob responded the iPad launch with a great post about its impact on languaging. Appropriately entitled ‘The Medium Isn’t the Message’, he questioned – to paraphrase him – …

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Twitterville is the first book in my new giveaway-extravaganza-bonanza-athon. Now I hear giveaways can get problematic so I’ll post some guidelines on my site shortly. But the goal here is just to keep going ideas flowing among us and to say thanks for your support. Here’s how it works. Every two weeks I’ll review a …

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