{"id":244,"date":"2013-12-17T10:14:03","date_gmt":"2013-12-17T10:14:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bjanda.com\/blog\/?p=244"},"modified":"2013-12-17T10:14:03","modified_gmt":"2013-12-17T10:14:03","slug":"the-last-post-14-random-thoughts-for-2014","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bjanda.com\/blog\/the-last-post-14-random-thoughts-for-2014\/","title":{"rendered":"The Last Post – 14 Random Thoughts for 2014"},"content":{"rendered":"

The first Cog Blog appeared on 2nd July 2013; which means our 6-month birthday is January 2nd<\/sup> 2014. \u00a0As I won\u2019t be posting then I thought I would share some of those things that have caught my eye this year as a novice blogger. You\u2019re welcome; consider this a (rather cheap) early Christmas present.<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Sponsored tweets generally mysteriously appear 3rd<\/sup> on my inbox. Maybe it\u2019s like choosing wine: not top (too expensive?); not second (too cheap?) but third. They can\u2019t fool me; I report the lot as spam and block them. I also block the Twitter Ad account and report it as spam. I wondered if by doing so I would rip the time space continuum but so far so good.<\/li>\n
  2. Sponsoring the \u2018report and block\u2019 facility on Twitter would be a good way of reaching the discerning consumer. Twitter is missing a trick here I feel.<\/li>\n
  3. Facebook\u2019s ad algorithms seem to get no better. I\u2019m still offered a selection of things, none of which I could possibly need or want (although the thoroughbred gelding was tempting).<\/li>\n
  4. LinkedIn endorsements are if anything even more annoying (if being complimented can ever be annoying) than Facebook ads. And equally useless.<\/li>\n
  5. The fact that so many UK retailers now run John Lewis-style long-form, emotionally-driven TV Christmas ads makes them all less impactful. Meantime John Lewis itself appears to have turned into Disney.<\/li>\n
  6. The Google Chairman Eric Schmidt\u2019s pronouncement of the death of commercial TV, on May 1st<\/sup> 2013 was a perfect manifestation of the inward-looking, self-obsessed nature of so much of the online media world. Plus he was wrong. Obviously.<\/li>\n
  7. Also wrong were those people who kept on relating the time consumers spend with a medium with the amount of ad dollars spent on it. If this relationship were true, outdoor would be the largest advertising medium on the planet. I\u2019m just amazed that analysts and commentators don\u2019t pay more attention to those who know what they\u2019re talking about.<\/li>\n
  8. The AdContrarian (www.adcontrarian.blogspot.co.uk) is a brilliant blog. I want to be Bob Hoffman when I grow up.<\/li>\n
  9. The topic that has generated the most heat (and the largest audience on the Cog Blog page) is the future of market research (www.bjanda.com\/blog\/market-research-whos-asking). Fearlessly, I plough on despite the threats to my cohorts.<\/li>\n
  10. If you want to maximise the audience to your blog, include a celebrity in the title. Or the words \u2018Royal Baby\u2019; or (strange though it may seem) ensure the words \u2018Market Research\u2019 and \u2018Future\u2019 appear somewhere.<\/li>\n
  11. According to Google Analytics Kenneth Williams no longer counts as a celebrity. Although Jack Myers, who reposts the Cog Blog in the USA says this was his favourite of my posts (www.bjanda.com\/blog\/kenneth-williams-might-have-been-right).<\/li>\n
  12. The coveted Cog Blog award for the best of the media agency tweeters goes to Paul Frampton (@paul_framp) of Havas. Most of the others just shamelessly promote their agencies which is just not very interesting for the rest of us. Or (we suspect) for those working in the agencies doing the self-promoting.<\/li>\n
  13. Using social media forms to praise your staff is naff beyond words. Why not write them a personal note. Or send chocolates. Or money. Any of these will work better, I promise you.<\/li>\n
  14. If a media form is lagging, try renaming it. \u2018Contextual messaging\u2019\u2026not interesting. \u2018Native advertising\u2019, now you\u2019re talking.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    I hope you\u2019ve enjoyed at least some of the last six months\u2019 posts. Thanks to all those who have taken the trouble to comment, email, like, retweet or republish. It\u2019s great to receive feedback \u2013 even the negative stuff!<\/p>\n

    The Cog Blog will be back mid-January. Meantime here\u2019s wishing you and yours a Happy Christmas and a most successful New Year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    The first Cog Blog appeared on 2nd July 2013; which means our 6-month birthday is January 2nd 2014. \u00a0As I won\u2019t be posting then I thought I would share some of those things that have caught my eye this year as a novice blogger. You\u2019re welcome; consider this a (rather cheap) early Christmas present.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bjanda.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/244"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bjanda.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bjanda.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bjanda.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bjanda.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=244"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.bjanda.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/244\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":251,"href":"https:\/\/www.bjanda.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/244\/revisions\/251"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bjanda.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=244"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bjanda.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=244"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bjanda.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=244"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}