IPO and tablet ... go digital

I see the words 'IPO' and 'tablet' in one sentence and I am interested. In this article all info on how digital will indeed be the platform. Forget media, be a medium yourself.

Beware of hijacked media – the changing language of marketing

The traditional framework of ‘paid’, ‘owned’ and ‘earned’ media is outdated, according to a recent report by McKinsey & Company (requires registration).

Two new media types need to be added: ‘sold media’, where a company invites other marketers to place their content on its owned media, and ‘hijacked media’, where a company’s asset or campaign is taken hostage by those who oppose it.

The emergence of newer media means that consumers are engaging more often in real-time conversations, particularly on social networks and other digital platforms. Helping consumers to express themselves is a scary and significant reversal of the control marketers and PR professionals have traditionally tried to maintain over brands.

The pitfalls of the English language

Europeans may think they know how to speak English, but they don’t. Marketeers seem to have a particularly hard time translating slogans into English (“Nothing sucks like an Electrolux”), but businessmen and politicians have made their fair share of mistakes as well.

But while the English might cringe at the occasional pidgin English of their European colleagues, Europeans are fascinated by the English habit of, well, not quite saying what you mean. For example, how many non-Brits could decode the irony (and literary allusion) which lies behind the expression “up to a point”, which is used to mean “no, not in the slightest”?

For anyone baffled by these differences, this handy translation guide has been doing the rounds on the Internet.

How to be digital

For many financial communications professionals social media is still a slippery slope. Especially for listed companies how to deal with the 'digital world' is not easy. Here some blog pointers.