WH Smith needs to buck up its corporate communications. It has been hit by two mini scandals: It is charging up to 50% more for the same goods in its WH Smith hospital shops than on the high street; and It is not refunding vat at it airport shops and pocketing about £10 a year Read More
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Five top tips on better writing
Nationwide personalises direct mail with intelligent printing
Excellent piece of corporate communications by Nationwide Building Society using direct mail. It has used intelligent printing to put the forename of the recipient on a cup of cappuccino. This one fell through the letterbox addressed to my son, Michael. Plenty of direct mail comes through the door. But with this neat personalisation the chances Read More
Heinz screws suppliers and leaves a nasty taste
Heinz is, or rather, was a great brand. Tomato ketchup, probably the best in the world next to Amoura’s. Tomato soup, delicious with a sandwich for lunch. And I can’t beat cold Heinz baked beans straight from the can. Doubling the time to wait for payments But is has shot itself in the foot, according Read More
Eurostar should train its train crews to handle bumps in the track
Eurostar does not seem to learn from its mistakes: it has had another disaster. Things go wrong. But it’s how a company reacts when they do go wrong that shows its skills at corporate communications. This time power lines failed outside Lille stranding 1,200 passengers on 2 trains overnight. One of them got to Brussels Read More
Netto puts ball into own net
The fierce supermarket stores in the UK continue to throw up examples of good and bad corporate communications. The latest one is a bad one from Netto. It has returned after leaving the UK 4 years ago. It could not find its footing despite being here for 14 years. Per Bank, CEO of Netto’s parent Read More
What’s in a name: everything, so what is TNT doing changing to whistle or is it Whistle?
The mail operation of TNT, delivering post to your door, has decided to change its name to Whistle, or is it whistle? Not sure in its marketing statements which it is, capital or not. Be very careful about changing names or choosing them in the first place. It is a key part of corporate communications. Read More
Top Tip: get the bad news out soonest and make it personal
Tesco CEO Dave Lewis made the right choice today: admit publically bad things have gone on and talk about them. The lesson is: do not hide from the bad news in corporate communications and respond quickly and personally from the top. That’s your pension going down The profits may have been overstated by £250 million. Read More
As we always knew, less IS more…
“Facebook posts with less than 250 characters get 60% more engagement.” So ran the headline on a recent LinkedIn post. I’m sure you’ve also seen similar claims. It seems that as the volume of content proliferates, our attention spans shrink and contract. As writers, we need to be very careful about how much stuff Read More
Think it? Write it.
I was talking the other day with a friend. About the democritisation of music. The access to great music-making tools. The ease of distribution. How anyone with a tablet or laptop, thanks to tools like GarageBand, can create and produce great sounds for themselves, their friends, and maybe even the great listening public out there… Read More