Category Archives: Branding

01/06/2009 Posted in Branding, New business, New Zealand, SocialMedia, Strategy Leave a comment

Another Quiver to the HB bow

By Ben Kepes

I’ve always had a huge amount of respect for the team over at HB media – this isn’t just because I’ve been involved with them in past and present projects – long before my work with Idealog magazine I commented on their innovative business model that takes the (arguably) dying

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06/03/2008 Posted in Branding, IT 1 Comment

Unified Communications for dummies

By Ben Kepes

Check out this informative and succinct video. It gives a great introduction and overview of unified communications, an area with big development occurring almost everyday.

17/12/2007 Posted in Branding, Business, Design, New Zealand, Strategy Leave a comment

Another NZ success story….

By Ben Kepes

A few years ago, Campbell Gower, CEO of phil&teds, visited Cactus with some potential European distributors for our gear. Since then p&t has risen meteorically, they’re now selling in 2000 stores across dozens of countries, turning over a reported USD90mil retail value of product (which says nothing about profitability but

26/11/2007 Posted in Branding, Business, Efficiency, Society, Strategy Leave a comment

What really drives custom?

By Ben Kepes

An excellent opinion piece here by Chris Bell on the power of word of mouth. It seems there is a conflict in society at the momeent. Companies spend more and more money on marketing in order to sway consumers while at the same time consumers are less and less swayed

09/11/2007 Posted in Branding, Business, Design, New business, New Zealand, Strategy 5 Comments

Beer is entering the new age….

By Ben Kepes

Mauricio pointed out the new Stella Artois website which does a good job of verticalised marketing and building the network effects. Stella have identified the value in viral advertising, building a network and providing consistent offerings both on, and off, line. I’m a little involved in a startup along the

08/11/2007 Posted in Branding, Business, Design, IT, Strategy, Web x.0 Leave a comment

Facebook and ads

By Ben Kepes

Facebook announced its new advertising product the other day. Facebook CEO Marc Zuckerberg said; “Facebook Ads represent a completely new way of advertising online, for the last hundred years media has been pushed out to people, but now marketers are going to be a part of the conversation. And they’re

01/11/2007 Posted in Branding, Economic Development, New business, New Zealand, Strategy Leave a comment

3000% revenue growth? That’s mad (EnergyMad)

By Ben Kepes

And the winner is….. 2007′s fastest growing New Zealand company is EnergyMad – the energy efficiency company that brought us eco-bulbs (and is now trying to bring them to the world) With almost 3000% revenue growth between 2005 and 2007 they are a phenomenally hi-growth company Well done guys!

10/10/2007 Posted in Branding, Business, Design, Efficiency, IT, New Zealand, Strategy Leave a comment

Solve the customers problem and the rest is easy….

By Ben Kepes

Slingshot has just introduced their “Man in a Van” broadband connection service. As far as I can tell, the service is an end to end supply and deploy type deal for broadband to new customers. I’d assume that it’s targeting late adopters and is a one stop shop for connection,

09/09/2007 Posted in Branding, Business, Design, IT, Strategy Leave a comment

Why not a hardware model like SaaS?

By Ben Kepes

With a hat tip to Zoli for the mental stimulus, I thought I’d post about the new Lenovo Thinkpad Reserve Edition. Basically it’s a lovely Lenovo Thinkpad with increased loveliness (and elitist cred), by being encased in leather, being very limited in numbers, and having concierge service over the (estimated

24/08/2007 Posted in Branding, Business, Economic Development, New Zealand, Strategy, Waipara 1 Comment

Are wool exports real bad or is wine really good?????

By Ben Kepes

Interesting article this morning stating that for the first time ever, it looks likely that wine export earnings will outstrip wool export earnings this year. Leaving aside the earnings gained from adding value to wool (taking a raw material,  and creating a top end fashion garment from it -  a

The Author

Ben Kepes is an analyst, an entrepreneur, a commentator and a business adviser. His business interests include a diverse range of industries from manufacturing to property to technology. As a technology commentator he has a broad presence both in the traditional media and extensively online. Ben covers the convergance of technology, mobile, ubiquity and agility, all enabled by the Cloud. His areas of interest extend to enterprise software, software integration, financial/accounting software, platforms and infrastructure as well as articulating technology simply for everyday users. More on Ben

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