We have posted our first blog post! Let

We have posted our first blog post! Let us know what you think.
http://ow.ly/5pnO9

Our First Blog Post

As this is our first blog post, I felt it appropriate to start with an introduction. The philosophy underpinning everything we do at Marketing Matters flows from my belief that empassioned marketing can only be effective if it is understood throughout the value chain. Each link in the chain from raw material suppliers through the various functions within the business, to the retail channels and finally the end user must somehow be engaged in the brand vision. Should this not occur, then discrepancies in behaviour between the vision and the delivery or experience of the brand start to surface, thereby jeopardizing the success of the brand/company.

You may also wonder about the picturesque visuals of an eastern nature that appear on the website and this blog. These represent my belief that there are excellent strategy tools available to us that are derived from ancient Chinese teachings. The key books that I have studied over the years are Sun Tzu’s “Art of War”, and Musashi’s “Book of Five Rings”, and the IChing. These books contain teachings that have been guiding governments and major corporates for over 2500 years. We are lucky to have them available in a number of excellent translations, which make their wisdom accessible to our modern day strategy dilemmas.

The “Iching” is, more philosophical or symbolic in nature. This is an ancient tool of divination, which has also guided theactions of leaders throughout the ages. However for my purposes it symbolizes the manner in which strategists have to look at the signs of the times in order to chart a course into the future. The information we have available to us at any one time is incomplete and subject to interpretation based on our own sometimes narrow perspective. Strategists of great vision however are able to interpret the various signs from the economy, government, social and technological trends and create strategies for business that change the course of history. We just have to think of people like Henry Ford, Jack Welsh, Oppenheimer to name but a few.

In this blog we would like to share some of our thinking together with old & new Ideas. We would appreciate your feedback as to the usefulness of the content and any topics you would like us to address. Blog post