What’s holding London back?

If you ask Colin Stanbridge, CEO of the London Chamber of Commerce and Industry, immigration and infrastructure are two areas London needs to make changes if it is to remain a dominant capital. During our interview yesterday, Mr Stanbridge argued for another runway at Heathrow, high speed rail connections with Europe, and a relaxation of
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Big opportunities for video marketing innovators

“Video is one of the most powerful methods of engaging your audience whilst widening your brand presence. Yet, the majority of marketers have yet to take advantage of the opportunities it presents“ Client Bob Barker of Alterian, the client for whom we created Engaging Times TV, drew our attention to this quote from New Media Age.
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Front line accounts of the data revolution

I recently interviewed someone who thoroughly challenged my thinking. His name was Dr Manuel Aparicio and he’s the brains behind Saffron memory base technology – a data management system that “thinks” like a human brain. One person has dubbed it Google for the Database, we’re talking about technology that identifies connections between disparate data sets
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C-level video campaign achieves 40% watch rate

One yBC client is celebrating fantastic results of an outbound marketing campaign using our 1:1 marketing platform, VIP player. Campaign Emails Sent Click rate Watch rate Average watched A – Existing Contact 47 57% 32% 99% B – Existing Contact 61 18% 13% 91% C – New Contact 209 44% 39% 93% E – New
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yBC gives keynote for TopConsultant

Last week I was keynote speaker at TopConsultant.com’s annual conference of management consultants and industry recruiters. My job was to provide analysis on how the industry is using social media to get the attention of influencers and candidates. Despite the organiser TopConsultant.com having established itself as the UK’s leading job board for management consultants, my
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yBC hospitality tv readying launch

yBC’s hospitality channel is tantalisingly close to launch. Behind the scenes the yBC team has been busy interviewing leaders and innovators in this dynamic competitive sector. We’ve met some great people, and learned a lot about how businesses are making most of all sorts of opportunities that are emerging post global financial crisis. We will
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yBC covers cutting edge of digital marketing

This week I will be in London covering the huge Technology for Marketing & Advertising (TFM&A) show in Earl’s Court. Covering topics like the latest digital, direct, data and CRM solutions this is core business for yBC and I am very excited to see what people are doing as digital media increasingly becomes business-as-usual. Our
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Big ideas that got me thinking

  If you want to have your mind expanded about marketing issues I recommend you check out the shows coming out of Alterian’s recent Engaging Times summit in Chicago. Interviewing the likes of Don Peppers, founder of Peppers and Rogers Group, and advertising’s elder statesman Stan Rapp, Chairman of Enguage, I was blown away by the
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How to feel confident spending $10m

We have had many interesting conversations about the “value” of social media and ROI of engagement lately, some more interesting than others. One most insightful was with Sid Banerjee, Chairman and CEO of text mining software company Clarabridge. He pointed out that beyond the numbers, there’s a wider benefit which is that knowing what customers
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Back to basics marketing still works

Recently we interviewed branding guru Jonathan Salem Baskin and he made the point that really marketing – and in particular advertising – has gone awol. He argues that companies are effectively wasting huge amounts of money communicating the imaginary benefits of their toothpaste, when the consumer a. Can easily find out on the internet that this
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