Nintendo calling...

Just read that Nintendo are releasing their latest hand held console the DSi in April. Apparently this allows users to listen to music and take photos.

This aligned with other features such as 'brain training' and the ability to purchase & read novels over the DS will no doubt help to continue building appeal beyond it's predominantly youthful audience.

This extension beyond it's core functionality of gaming brings to mind the expansive development of mobile phones.

Which then got me thinking...Nintendo already has the capability to connect people together.

Together with its widening utility and appeal, could Nintendo be seeking to become the ultimate 'hub in the hand' device by entering the mobile phone market?

Undoubtably it won't possess the same 'know how' of existing mobile operators but the same could have been said of Apple...and just look at the response to the iPhone.

A Nintendo mobile phone device with all the qualities and capabilities of the existing product has the makings of widespread appeal.

A time for the hunter to be hunted perhaps?

Existing mobile operators beware.

Much ado about something

I stumbled across a great blog from Dave Trott, a leading light in the world of marketing and also the 'T' in GGT a great ad & dm agency of old I'd previously worked for.

Never worked with the man himself, but reading his blog I wish I had.

'Nuff said.

Compelling ideas

As a planner how do you persuade clients to 'buy' your proposed strategy or idea?

Let me share with you the overlapping viewpoints of two well known planners:

#1 You can't bore people into buying an idea - you need to be interesting
#2 It's better to be interesting than it is to be right

Now let me add into the mix an extract from another well known planner, Malcolm White:

'...planning today is more about interesting ideas than it is about the right idea...[however] as Jeremy Bullmore put it: "we need to be intuitive, instinctive, scared and lucky AND we need to be rigorous, disciplined, logical and deductive".

...we need more of these sorts of people and less of those who are just interesting'

Coming back to planner #1 and #2. It is absolutely right to 'be interesting ' in helping gain a clients attention and buy-in. However this mustn't be to the detriment of ensuring those ideas are also robustly developed. After all the best ideas are those that not only see the light of day, but that also deliver.

So as planners it is our duty to be compelling. In other words we need to provide both the sizzle AND the sausage.