Building on their open and friendly approach, smoothie brand Innocent has just published its first annual report. It’s not a legal or regulatory requirement, it’s done purely to engage more with its passionate users and other interested folks.

It’s a fun and informative read. Plus it balances a discussion of their successes in 2007 by giving equal prominence to, well, ‘things they learned from’ (including being called out by BBC’s Watchdog for their exploding packaging, and that polarising deal with McDonald’s).

It’s embedded below but if you want to read it and don’t have bionic eyes then you can download your very own copy here.

Coinciding with its publication, Innocent also ran the first AGM…

‘…a day when we open the doors of Fruit Towers, ask our drinkers to come and hear what we’ve been up to and let them tell us face to face what we could be doing better.”

Here’s one of the videos from the event - we can’t imagine too many AGMs being this much fun

Series:AdTalk
Series:MarketingTalk

Part of our occasional Best of the Podosphere (BoP) series

Gary Bembridge is VP of global strategy & marketing at Johnson & Johnson and produces this promising Unleashed on Marketing podcast series in his spare time based on over 25 years in the marketing game.

We rarely listen to podcasts that just involve one person but there’s something about the South African accent (that’s how it sounds to us!) that draws you in (sic Joe Jaffe’s Across the Sound). And in this episode, ostensibly called “What makes you different?”, Gary brings together much of the latest thinking and discussion around creating brand meaning, doing good, having big ideas etc.

Quite long at c. 40mins but it is, IMHO, worth persevering.

 STARRING 

• Gary Bembridge, Unleashed on Marketing

(more…)

42mins | More JuiceCasts here and here

This is a video featuring the edited highlights from a roundtable discussion on how well and badly big brands innovate. Convened by BrainJuicer, it features the collective wisdom of both clients and staff. The conversation lasted almost two hours but we were commissioned to record the session and edit it down. Now, much as we tried, we couldn’t get it below c.40mins because of the amount of goodness there.

But the length gave us and Chief Juicer John Kearon pause for thought. How could we make it as accessible and watchable as possible? Well, here are a few tiny innovations that were inspired by that quandary

• John invited illustrator Bob Wagner along to capture seminal moments as cartoons. Not only are these embedded in the video, John’s also created a useful eBook teaser complete with enlightening quotes
• As usual you can find a list of the talking areas here, enabling you to quickly get to the parts that interest you most. This is one of the reasons we use Google video for streaming, because they allow you to go to any part of the video directly without wasteful buffering time
• For those who prefer something slicker, try the chapterised version of the video

 STARRING 

• Alexandra Wren, Global Consumer & Mkt Insights Mgr, Dove Haircare
• Dr. Alex Gordon, Founder, Sign Salad
• Ed Harrison, Senior Consultant, BrainJuicer
• Gaye Myatt, Founder, Fresh Insights
• Iain Carruthers, Author and Founder, Encounter Business
• Jaroslav Cir, Consumer Market Insights director, Rexona
• Jim Rimmer, MD, BrainJuicer UK
• John Kearon, Chief Juicer, BrainJuicer (Host)
• Linda Neville, Strategic Planner, Coca Cola
• Olaf Willoughby, Founder, The Willoughby Partnership
• Orlando Wood, Client Director, BrainJuicer
• Bob Wagner, Illustrator/Designer, Wagner Design (Illustrator)

This is a commissioned podcast which is published according to our yumminess policy

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 BRAND CAST  There’s sooooooo much talk and excitement over ethical brands and branding these days. In fact, fewer and fewer conversations seem to be able to avoid the issue

And as Dave Cobban mentioned in an earlier podcast, the FTSE 4 Good Index seems to be outpacing its mainstream counterpart, suggesting that ethically-driven brands and enterprises are actually very good business

In this, the first of a series of BrandCasts produced for GfK NOP, Chris Davis hosts an engaging discussion on the issues involved in creating and sustaining ethical brands. He’s joined by sustainability consultant and best-selling author Julia Hailes MBE, and Zoe Morgan from the Co-op, 2007 winner of the most ethical UK brand gong

This podcast was commissioned and content driven by GfK NOP. We have featured it because of its value and the fact that ResearchTalk had editorial control over the editing

Listen to other podcasts featuring Julia Hailes

 STARRING 

• Chris Davis, MD Brand Strategy, GfK NOP
• Julia Hailes MBE, Sustainability consultant and author, The New Green Consumer Guide
• Zoe Morgan, Director of Marketing, Co-Op Group

This is a commissioned podcast which is published according to our yumminess policy

(more…)

The fact that companies like Toyota and Tesco and Proctor & Gamble in many of its categories have shown that you can in fact keep improving delivery on the basics, shows that it’s not just a commodity…
(Patrick Barwise)

 BACK TO BASICS  The renowned marketing Professor Patrick Barwise is a relatively rare animal, an academic with commercial instinct and pragmatism. Here he talks to Michael Warren about the ramifications of his two most recent books, ‘Simply Better’ (which won the American Marketing Association’s 2005 prize for the best recent book in marketing), and one that he is currently writing with the working title: ‘Customer Insights - Beyond Market Research’. His ability to cut through marketing myths, hype and meaningless jargon using solid reasoning reinforces his position as one of the industry’s most valued thought-leaders

Listen to other podcasts featuring Patrick

 STARRING 

• Prof. Patrick Barwise, LBS, and co-author, Simply Better
• Michael Warren, research consultant

(more…)

The assumption is that by-and-large, individuals make decisions on their own. My Herd point-of-view is that people influence each other, often without realising it

Mark Earls’ latest contribution to life, the universe and everything is gaining traction. His new book rethinks how people make decisions and discovers as a result that much of current research practice is fundamentally flawed in its assumptions and interpretation of consumer behaviour. Quite fitting for this self-styled ‘Contrarian’. The book provides psychology underpinning for many recent phenomena such as social networking, engagement, conversations, ethnography, blogging and predictive markets by showing how we act as groups and not individually. Part of our monthly column for ESOMAR’s Research World magazine

 STARRING 

• Mark Earls, author, Herd: How to Change Mass Behaviour by Harnessing Our True Nature, Head Honcho, Herd Consulting

(more…)

 Sponsored by 
Our team of brand specialists tell us what’s hot in branding, why they love the iPod brand, and why staff need to live the brand and product experience to maximise brand effectiveness. Markets mentioned: drinks, electronics, financial, Internet, retail, social media, telecoms

 STARRING 

• Bob Morrison, Elephants Can’t Jump
• Peter Walshe, Global Brand Director, Millward Brown
• Rob Holdaway, Clear Ideas

This JuiceCast has been produced by ResearchTalk for BrainJuicer. BrainJuicer’s Chief Juicer, John Kearon, has kindly allowed us to host the podcast as a service to the community, to stimulate debate and innovation

(more…)

 Sponsored by 
Aimed at managers and HR folks, Anna Farmery and Daniel Wain take us through some practical ways in which to help employees better engage with their employer brand and hence realise their full passion and potential. As a former HR director and someone who is passionate about this issue, as evidenced by her excellent blog and podcasts, there’s no better source than Anna for this valuable advice. And in his inimitable style, Daniel shares his views, tips and initiatives from RI

 STARRING 

• Anna Farmery, The Engaging Brand
• Daniel Wain, Director of Learning and Development, Research International

(more…)

 GUEST  Kirsty Fuller, co-Founder and Chairman of the world’s largest qualitative consultancy, Flamingo International

 TOPICS  The new paradigm in branding (Jay-Z and Budweiser, co-creation, authenticity); The benefits of using intuition in research vs. being strictly evidence-based; EXCLUSIVE: Japan office coming soon

 NOTABLE MENTIONS  Andy Dexter, Apple, Budweiser, Chris Arning, Def Jam, Digg, Edny Tappy, Fiona Blades, Illuminas, Innocent, iPod, James Parsons, Jay-Z, Kate Moss, Levi, Maggie Collier, MySpace, Nike, Reebok, Simon Lidington, Top Shop, Truth Consulting, Walkman, YouTube

Music Brother Love and Martha Redbone from the PMN

Series:MarketingTalk Series:AdTalk
Series:Weekly