Yiannis Maos (pictured) wonders whether major brands can learn from independent retailers when it comes to providing the unique customer experience. 
When walking into an independent shop, restaurant or hotel, straight away the customer notices something: ‘This is like nothing I have seen before.’ That’s because they probably haven’t and this is one of the key [...]

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First published in DMI, May 2001.
As Postcomm has introduced new licensing regulations, the Postal Industry stands on the brink of change – Mark Woodcock (pictured) reports on the likely changes in International Postal competition.
There was a time when dealing with the post in the UK was a simple affair. 
There were few competitors, few options, limited [...]

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Death of the High Street? Highly exaggerated, reports Andy Wood (pictured): research reveals there’s a co-dependence of offline and online for the modern consumer.
The high street is still a vital stop in the customer journey – but it is rarely used as the sole channel for shopping.
On the contrary, modern consumers use shops as showrooms [...]

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The transition from e-commerce to m-commerce is gathering momentum as more and more companies are exploring the possibilities of mobile marketing. Pioneers include pizza chain Domino’s,  which reported £10m in sales via its mobile site and app since its launch, and British retailer Marks & Spencer, which delivered more than £1m in sales via its [...]

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Many people avoid launching products or services, or even revealing fresh concepts, on ‘unlucky’ Friday 13. But one UK-based print services firm chose the date especially.
This Friday, Bytes Document Solutions is airing its first viral ad: Ihateprinters.co.uk  
It’s good, but it’s not pretty!
The promotional film by the international firm – Xerox ‘Partner of the Year’ [...]

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Earlier this month, search engine giant Google launched changes to its privacy policy designed to make the Internet search process more intuitive for users, but the changes haven’t gone down so well with some users leading to a love/hate divide sometimes termed the Marmite effect. 
Recent changes mean that instead of operating under a number of [...]

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On The Edge – June 21 – London, Congress Centre 
Take part in a new journey of discovery at a provocative one-day conference and networking event being held in London in June: On The Edge will host the marketing industry’s leading figures, delivering insight guaranteed to get attendees thinking. 
Challenging theories and questioning creativity is just the [...]

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The current multichannel approach to sales and service must be mirrored by a multichannel approach to communication, says Claire Sporton (pictured), who has advice for the chief customer officer.
There can be no doubt that demand for customer insight is high on the corporate agenda. The number of C-level roles concentrating on understanding the customer experience [...]

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Valentine’s Day has long passed, but we should still embrace the postman, says Philip Ricketts (pictured): because there’s gold not ‘junk’ in the mail!
FACT FILE:

Ninety-two per cent of direct mail is opened
21.9 million adults have taken action, prompted by direct mail
Of these, 14.2 million bought something
Direct mail delivers £27 billion to the UK economy
There are [...]

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Uptake and usage of social media services remains very high among the British public, but people are now demanding more from these kinds of services – and social media’s potential as a marketing tool has room for improvement. In fact, fresh research from YouGov’s Media Consulting team reveals that, in fact, two in five (41%) of [...]

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