SHAG week in London

I spent a week in London on holiday (and partly on business:). But don't get me wrong - it wasn't a sex holiday! The "SHAG Week" I'm talking about is a marketing campaign slogan that I came across by the London School of Economics, a prestigious business school. It made me stop, raise my eyebrows, come back and read the banner once again more carefully. A perfect marketing solution that did exactly the kind of job it was supposed to do!

This particular banner is an example of Good Cases I referred to in my first posting on this blog. First, the slogan is ambigious and slightly misleading (I hope the title of this posting had the same effect on you; let me know - by way of comments - if it didn't:), which peforms the key function of advertising and marketing communications in general - to catch the readers', viewers', listeners' or browsers' - i.e. consumers' - attention.

It's no secret that we live in a highly competitive environment in terms of the volume of information and news around us. Therefore, it's more and more difficult for producers and disseminators of such information (i.e. marketers) to succeed in getting our attention. Once consumers' attention is (at least for a fraction of a second!) caught, then the next step is to communicate the necessary message in the most effective way.

The students' slogan "SHAG week" does grab our attention and it does it in a very effective way. Good job! And then it does communicate the message - the second line below the slogan, in a smaller font - promotes the sexual health awareness campaign. Well done! The solution, I'd say, is as if taken from a marketing text book. Congratulations, LSE students!

When I joined the glorious ranks of maketing communications professionals back in 2000, my boss then said: "Giedrius, marketing is not a rocket science." Well, it definately isn't. Basically, it's all common sense. But to be a good marketer, it also takes a little bit of creativity. Without it, you're just a sensible person.:)

More "Good Cases" to come from me in the New Year. Merry Christmas everyone!

London, December 2006. Photo by Giedrius CP.

The power of networks

"You don't need one hundred bucks, you need one hundred friends," says one old song.

So I've finished working for the international consultancy as Head of Marketing and Communications of the Lithuanian firm for quite a few years. It's the first week that I don't have to rush to work and do the 8-to-5 office hours.

Is it scary after so many years of office-going to feel unemployed (or rather - self-employed!:)? Well, believe it or not - not at all! I'm involved, together with business partners, in setting up a MarCom company and it takes a lot of energy, time and constant and instant decision-taking. I realised that every day is a full-time negotiation session.:) Negotiations take place with partners, potential partners, prospective clients and suppliers. It's tiring, challenging but very interesting! Each day and each hour brings new situations, issues and crises that need to be solved in a cool, reasonable and value/benefit-based manner.

Over these last weeks I've been meeting many people with different backgrounds, occupations and goals. It takes an experienced negotiator not to lose temper and get the results one needs. Am I a good negotiator? I don't know. You - my friends - could tell better. But judging from the results, I am not disappointed.:)

Most of the people I meet are people I've known for some time. I also meet new people who can direct me to the people I need for the benefit of the new company. And you know what - the power of social networks (personal and business contacts) is amazing!

Since starting this blog and announcing my career change, I've met some of you personally under various circumstances. All of you were very congratulatory, supportive and excited. That makes me very happy and assures that the "drastic" decision (according to some of you:) was the right one!

Most of you mentioned that you were about to post a "Congratulations!" comment on this blog but didn't want to sound boring and therefore didn't write any comment. Well, please do post your comments on this blog! They will show if the things I write about are of any interest to you. And they may start a healthy discussion with other friends and colleagues.

Come on, don't be shy - communication is an important part of life! As are social networks - friends, colleagues, business contacts, etc.

"On the road again", photo by Paulius Gasiunas

Key things in life

Finally, I've had a chance to continue my blog and write a new posting.

Right now I'm going through an interesting and challenging period - changing my job - but so far I'm doing very well.

Before I start my new job in January, I'll take a few weeks off to go away, relax and get ready for the next step in my career.
I will go to London and then will spend a week in Paris during the Christmas season and come back to Vilnius to take up new challenges. I'm setting up my own business in the marketing communications (MarCom) field. It's refreshing, tempting and very rewarding, and I look forward to this change immensely!..
"The more that you wait, the more time you waste"... (Madonna)

But today I sat down to write about other things. About the things that really matter in life: about being a Leader/Manager and about Will/Eagerness.

Over these last weeks I realised two simple - but key - things:
in professional life, everything depends on your manager and your will! As simple as that. But simplicity doesn't mean that it's unsophisticated/primitive. It's essential. It's overwhelming.

Many centuries ago, one clever man (Seneca? Aristotle?.. Ana, pls don't laugh at me!:) once said that everything depends on your eagerness and your supervisor. And I realised this simple truth myself - it's 100% true! And now I can see that I arrived at this conclusion myself (the joy of revelation!:) and I'm therefore absolutely sure about my decision regarding the change in my professional life. Good for me. :)

I will let you know the details of my career change in the coming months when everything is set, up and running. And I will do my best to be a good Leader/Manager because I know that it all depends on my wish and will how my business will develop and how my employees will feel about working for me. We will see.

And I hope to share my successes (and failures:) on this blog. Come back soon, read my postings and add your comments!

Photo by Paulius Gasiunas

Intro

While chatting with a friend over a cup of coffee in a deserted restaurant one late autumn evening in Vilnius, I was surprised to see how enthusiastic he was about blogging. He's a photographer and he posts his recent works on his blog so that others can see his pictures and comment them. He really was very excited about having a blog and showing his works to friends and colleagues.

Until that evening I was not sure about the whole idea of blogs. But being a marketer and PR practitioner, I had an intuitive feeling that I must also try this - so far unexplored - space. So here I am - early November morning setting up my first blog and writing the first posting... I have tried a personal website before but it didn't really work - if you're interested I can send you a link as the "website" is still on the Yahoo server.:)

I'll use this blog mainly to draw my friends' and colleagues' attention to events, phenomena and ideas that I find fascinating. Later on you will see such entries as "Good cases" and "Bad cases" - I will try and share my excitement or - to the contrary - disappointment and embarrassment regarding particular experiences. For example, under "Good cases" you'll see info about the seminar I attended recently and how I met fantastic colleagues with whom we, as a team, developed a MarCom strategy for one consumer electronics company in Canada (a real case study). Under "Bad cases" you'll read about one concert agency which brought Seal to Lithuania (Thank you!) but really messed up with ticketing...

Basically I will use this blog to exchange knowledge, experience and "best practice". I hope my friends scattered all over the world (Europe, US, and Africa) will enjoy it. The underlying motto of this blog: Only fools can afford not to learn!

View from Millennium Bridge, London, September 2006.

Photo by Giedrius CP.