There’s a great article in Fast Track “Why Tech’s Hunger For Overnight Hits Is Bad For Business  : Tech is becoming a hits-driven business. This isn’t a good thing.” http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/166/tech-hits-and-misses In it, Farhad Manjoo argues that a crop of quick-fire megahits presents a danger for the tech business as there’s now a growing subsection of [...]

Here at The Value Engineers we’re a pretty multicultural bunch – we speak 19 languages, have worked in 39 countries over 5 continents, and are drawn from a variety of different backgrounds, from South America to Eastern Europe via Nigeria and Newcastle, and lots of places in between.   So, we’re always happy to share [...]

If schadenfreude is ‘the pleasure taken in the misfortune of others’, surely there must be a word for ‘coming up with a witty, powerful comeback line too late for it to have any discernable impact’? It’s a feeling we’ve all had, in a meeting or at a dinner party, perhaps, when we’ve been the brunt [...]

Last week Habitat launched a new initiative called ‘Platform’ – a design space in the Kings Road store to champion creativity and remarkable design. Great to see a passionate team putting so much energy into reviving this well-loved British brand. Platform will showcase different designer’s work, and help make Habitat a focus for creative discussions [...]

Amidst continued turmoil on the high street, with Clinton Cards the latest to give up the ghost, the sun is shining over Sainsbury’s where pre-tax profits soared 7.1% to £712m in the 52 weeks to 17 March. CEO Justin King attributes much of the success to the supermarket’s Brand Match initiative: the guarantee that if [...]

Life imitates art, I don’t know where I heard that but I definitely heard it somewhere. In marketing we are often told that we have to do it the other way round. That is not to try to suggest in a grandiose way that marketing is an art form, it’s a dark art at best. [...]

One of the themes to which we return again and again in our work with clients is that in today’s world, easy access to previously unparalleled levels of information means that, in many cases, businesses end up asking the same sorts of questions of the same sorts of consumers – and getting the same sorts [...]

A litter of hungry pigs pushing and shoving, trying to get fed, seems an unlikely source of inspiration for one of the most important innovations in modern retailing, but according to Willaim Sitwell, author of ‘A history of food in 100 recipes’, it gave Clarence Saunders an idea. In 1916, Clarence was on a train travelling [...]