Christmas ads 2019: A KISS review
With the BIG day in just two days, the KISS team gathered around the TV, fought for a spot on the sofa and popped open a bottle of bubbly to vote for their favourite Christmas advert of 2019.
Are we measuring the right things?
As leaders and company owners we spend quite a lot of time measuring things like gross revenues, margins and operating costs, or costs of sales. But are we measuring the right things? We try to encourage clients to think wider than this, and frankly at KISS I think we need to try harder ourselves sometimes.
Most Contagious 2019: Sustainable global consumption
At my recent visit to Most Contagious 2019, I wasn’t expecting global consumption to be the emerging trend of the day, however this was a topic that came up time and time again at one of the UK’s biggest marketing conferences.
Brand ambassadors – a dose of authenticity
As I contemplate today’s results, one number stood out to me during the UK election campaign : voter registrations spiked by 236 percent on the final day, and a huge number were aged under 34. Grime artist Stormzy’s final-day tweets probably helped and this got me thinking about the power of endorsement, its strengths and weaknesses.
I bought a Tesla Cybertruck
What? You paid crazy money for a Lego brick on wheels that clearly isn’t fit for purpose when its shatterproof glass failed – to not shatter…
How to make influencer marketing work for your life science organisation
KISS is collaborating with One Nucleus, the not-for-profit Life Sciences & Healthcare membership organisation, to host an event in Cambridge on January 29th offering insights and advice on influencer marketing within the life science and biotech arena.
Crystal ball gazing and car crash interviews!
Nobody can have escaped the recent controversial, toe curling interviews we’ve witnessed lately – Prince Andrew, Jeremy Corbyn – to name a few. They’ve been generating some pretty meaty conversations here at KISS, especially debates about how useful media training and crisis comms could have been and of course, following both, the relevance of damage control and reputation.
Irrational thinking and behavioural science
I recently attended a talk by the brilliant Rory Sutherland, Vice Chairman of global marketing agency Ogilvy. He discussed his first book “Alchemy: The Surprising Power of Ideas That Don’t Make Sense’, which blends cutting-edge behavioural science and a touch of branding magic.
A sense of purpose
Sarah Reakes, Managing Director at KISS, writes: I’m sure I can’t be the only person who feels the need for some clarity and direction in my life right now. It feels as if the country, indeed the world, is being buffeted from one side to another and without direction I could be buffeted along with it.
APG Noisy Thinking – is it possible to plan long-term anymore?
Last week, strategists of all persuasions assembled at Google HQ’s to attend APG's latest event, which focused on the balance of long-term and short-term planning. We listened to great minds from Saatchi & Saatchi, Mother and Adam&Eve during the firestorm of misbehaving technology. Great to see the pratfall effect in full operation here!
The audience you can’t do without
Today’s news is generally depressing and often divisive. As I write, the obvious candidates are Trump, Brexit and the climate. But there are enduring lessons here for us as brand marketers.
World Cup Lessons
I really enjoyed the Rugby World Cup, and we should be pretty proud of how England played. I’ve always disliked sports analogies, and I’m not a rugby fanatic, but it got me thinking about the strategy paradox: how important it is to have both a clear, consistent strategy AND a plan for how to change it.
Influencer marketing – it’s as easy as 1 2 3
I was recently at the EMEA PROI conference in Prague and was asked several great questions around influencer marketing and my opinions on how to do it the right way. It got me thinking - and I don’t believe there’s a universally right way go about it - each case, and each brand, is unique and requires something a little different than the next. However, as a starting point, I think…
KISS team continues to grow
KISS has announced the appointment of David Isaacson to the role of Head of Strategy, Laura Ketteridge as Senior Account Manager, Lamour Nash as PR Account Executive and Olivia Halpin as Junior Designer. All four appointments follow a strong end to the agency’s financial year and form part of KISS’s ongoing plans to grow and continue to meet the needs of clients within the science, technology and…
Managing your brand in a ‘fake news’ world
‘Fake news’ isn’t even news any more. Donald Trump is right in one way: as online ‘news’ sites proliferate daily, and the regulations lag behind the times, fake news is a reality. So, it’s important to think about which news sites you can trust and what to do if you suspect a ‘fact’ isn’t true. And since, in the fight for attention, news and advertising are inextricably linked (finding news is a…
Admitting weakness is not a weakness
I recently had the pleasure of reading Richard Shotton’s The Choice Factory, in which he outlines 25 behavioural biases that influence what we buy. As a junior planner myself, I would thoroughly recommend reading this book – it gives you practical advice on how to apply behavioural science in your work and is full of great anecdotes and case studies.
Proud to be a member of the Public Relations Organisation International (PROI)
Last week three of us headed over to the EMEA PROI conference in Prague. This year’s theme was centred on ‘Building Trust’ – with a particular emphasis on the current scenario playing out across Europe – and how agencies can support clients within this field.
Storytelling needs to be at the heart of what you do
At KISS we’re firm believers in the power of engaging with audiences and doing this through emotional brand storytelling. We host workshops with clients to help them tell their own brand story, however a couple of weeks ago we had the pleasure of being participants in one – rather than the facilitators – and it was very refreshing!
Declutter your brand
I recently read another piece on decluttering your home, as espoused by clear-out guru Marie Kondo. This got me thinking about how powerful it is when you declutter a brand.
Social credit is starting to bite
YouTube bristles with ‘Black Mirror’ reviews, some deciding which of its dystopian views of tech gone wrong is nearest to coming true. Surprisingly not all include Series 3’s ‘Nosedive’ where ‘likes’ are lifeblood – people give and receive ratings for all interactions. Characters’ entire lives are determined by their rating and a bad score from one place sticks around. But it’s closer…
Time Out and brand extensions
Recent experience in the first-ever Time Out Market in Lisbon got me thinking. Why a food hall, why now, and what can marketers and Boards learn?
Don’t ditch the media training!
I’ve lost count of how many times in my (very lengthy!) PR career I have recommended to clients that they should be media trained, only to be told that ‘the marketing budget won’t stretch to it’ or ‘we don’t think we need it’.
Growing buildings? Three ways this tech story got me hooked
I was blown away by this article about advanced UK research into growing buildings – yes, buildings that are actually alive! Despite being really busy at work it got me scanning the article and thinking about innovation – why we need dreamers and pragmatists, and (as a confirmed pragmatist) what makes great communication that dispels tech’s negative image and gets readers doing what you…