I, like many others, was sad to learn of the hundreds of jobs lost when Australia’s biggest steel maker, BlueScope Steel announced the closure of its Port Kembla, NSW steelworks and its Western Port steel mill at Hastings just outside Melbourne.
Since then we have heard a litany of responses sheeting home the blame at everything from the high Australian dollar to the failure of Government to insist on Australian content clauses in resource contracts. During the debate we heard from many Australian engineering companies and smaller operators who should be prospering from the resources boom and are obviously not.
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I guess it’s true that retailers and I just don’t see eye to eye. Like a hungry stomach, I hear the grizzling mumbles of so many dissatisfied voices all bemoaning the fact that for one reason or another the retail business is on its last knees. Onliners have usurped their customers; shopping hours are too long, or too short depending on who you talk with; the GFC has robbed them of their bread and butter and margins are lower than a snake’s armpit.
It’s easy to criticise the failure of an idea after the event, but every now and again we are alerted to a situation where business is guilty of massive error. For instance, I cannot for the life of me understand why, some ten years ago the board of Coke gave a marketer the freedom to change the flavour of the world’s most popular drink. You’ll recall they attempted to change the flavour to ‘cherry’, and what a veritable cod’s head Coke made of that.
“If you build it – they will come” and they did – according to the movie ‘Field of Dreams’. Sadly, being in business is no longer akin to the miracles of a Hollywood fantasy. Today, building a business is recognised as a tough assignment and we are constantly being told “it begins at the first stages of preparation”.
Today, a silent battle is being played out across the supermarkets of Australia. It is the age old fight for the hearts, minds and credit cards of the every day man and women. I say silent because the real hostilities are not obvious to the public but well disguised as a war between the food moguls, using the staple necessity of milk as a weapon.
Fascinator of kids and adults alike, the balloon is a mysterious thing. Imitating slow motion, it moves gracefully, influenced by the currents of air which unpredictably control it’s pathway. Always a symbol of happiness, the humble balloon can quieten the hysterical child, excite the sleepy infant and variously produce moments of distress as it explodes and dies or flies into the atmosphere never to be seen again.
Ever watched a movie and missed twenty minutes of footage because you’ve fallen asleep? Annoying isn’t it? A friend of mine who loves the ballet once told me he received an urgent business call in the first interval of ‘Coppelia’ and when he went back for the third sitting he’d totally lost the plot. I guess it’s about continuity and it’s easy for me to see how this fits into most of the corridors of our lives. It is of course a vital part of advertising, despite the fact that most businesses do not consider the issues when they are planning their advertising