When I was a child, my oldest brother used to put us to work in the garden. He was already an adult, with a son older than me, and when we visited, he would send the younger ones outside with instructions to rake leaves or pull weeds. We would scatter across the lawn, tools in […]
The marketing machine that runs and runs and goes nowhere Read More »
A few years ago, I went fishing on a Saturday and returned home with a healthy catch. Unfortunately, I also had to fillet the fish, which I am terrible at doing. I make an absolute mess of it. When I was done, there were more fish heads, guts and wasted flesh than fillet. At that
When something smells fishy, customers turn to ‘gut’ instinct Read More »
For years, Google search results have been the starting point for B2B buyers and search engine optimisation (SEO) meant fighting for page-one rankings, carefully crafting pages to match keywords. The more you spent the better your gains. While that world is still here, but it is no longer enough because AI search is changing how
AI search is rewriting the rules of B2B discovery Read More »
In Apartheid South Africa, there were so-called homelands, with Transkei (Nelson Mandela was born in Mvezo, a village in the Transkei region) being one of them. In the early 1990s, I was a reporter on the regional Eastern Cape newspaper, the Daily Dispatch – which was also circulated in Transkei – and one of my
When I was young, so much younger than today, I would chase my nephew (who is six months younger than me) around the house with the odd dead fish I got from my dad’s fish tank. Gaz couldn’t stand the texture of fish. One day, he got me back My mum loved curries and had
It was beneath a blistering sun – and later a cold moon – noisy with cicadas (when even the snakes were hunting shade beneath the thorn trees) that I learned the value of relying on community. I was 21 years old and a grunt in the army undergoing basic training (boot camp). One of the
It’s not Adwords, or social media or radio that make your marketing communications campaign successful – it’s what you say. A picture may be worth a thousand words, but a few well-chosen words will paint a picture. Your message is what gets the cut through. Take, for example, these words that changed the world (many
Words that changed the world: What they mean for you Read More »
I am a writer. A journalist. A wordsmith. A public relations and communications practitioner for more than 30 years. I build personal and brand reputations—I’ve been described as a master storyteller (I’ve written novels too)—but a small LinkedIn feature called a ‘non-instructional nudge’ or, as I call it, a ‘hollow prompt,’ has left me lost
Jared Fogle—once the face of fast-food chain Subway because he lost weight by only eating Subway sandwiches—was ultimately sentenced to 15 years in prison for child exploitation and possession of child pornography. Like most brands and marketers, Subway was seduced by what the man did—eat sandwiches—rather than his character and his reputation because behind the
How many times do brands make this Subway mistake? Read More »
Thoughts on how to achieve personal change in 2025 I was in my mid-20s when my dad became very ill with tuberculosis and emphysema. He would be sick for some years, but at almost every level (obliviously), I never accepted it—even though at one time my girlfriend had to talk my brother through CPR over
Lessons from loss: Overcoming avoidance in business Read More »