Marketing Begins At Home

Blurb is amazing

Trips are one of the times when you take lots of photos. So when we went to Australia with a brand new SLR (see previous posts for details) it was pretty inevitable that I would take lots of pix.

This time, in addition to trolling through and selecting from over 800 pix, I decided to create a book. I went to Blurb.com, downloaded their software and then spent more hours than I care to admit playing with laying out my photos in a book.

I just received the book this evening and I think it is fantastic. The colour in the pix is great, the quality of the paper is great, and the hardbound cover with front and back pix is AMAZING. If you want to see what the content looks like, go to http://www.blurb.com/my/store/public and preview the book.

You can of course buy it if you like, but that's not the point. If you want a great way to keep and share memories, Blurb is the business. And if what you create is good enough, you could make some money by publishing it. Real books, Great quality, Great price.

Royal Academy does it again

I do really need to learn. Miró, Calder, Giacometti, Braque: Aimé Maeght and His Artists is an interesting exhibition with too much stuff crammed into the small display space at the top of the Royal Academy. It is also an interesting look at pieces that the Maeght family have bought from their favourite artists. I have some quibbles about the way that the layout works, particularly the inability to see some lovely Miro paintings through a hugh Calder piece.

But yet again, the money grubbers at the Royal Academy have sold too many tickets for the space. The result is miserable for the audience. £10 to peer around, through and over too many people competing to see the art on display. We went at 3 pm on a Friday. Heaven only knows how many people there would be on a weekend. Enough to probably break their fire regulations. New Year's Resolution - avoid the Royal Academy like the plague. Expensive and over crowded, with too much space given over to selling stuff and not enough on displaying art and managing people movement through their galleries. Shame.

A brand that is paying attention

A little while ago, I wrote two posts on my experiences flying the A380 on Singapore Airlines. What impressed the heck out of me was that the airline clearly do monitor the brand very closely in cyberspace and took the time to respond and write a comment on the blog.

http://marketingevangelist.typepad.co.uk/my_weblog/2008/12/great-customer-service-at-singapore-airlines.html has the original article and the comment.

I was impressed with Singapore Airlines before. But now I really think they get brand management in the Web 2.0 era. What are you doing to monitor your brand in cyberspace?