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Ray Beatty

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Ray Beatty is a veteran ad man and regular Anthill contributor. He runs MarketingSolutions, a consultancy advising companies on how to turn around their unsuccessful advertising campaigns. www.ebeatty.com

Obama’s knife edge: from Messiah to spammer

How frequently can you email someone before you become a spammer? This is a question that has plunged Barak Obama’s spinners into a dive. This is a warning light for businesses, too. Even the mighty can slip if they don’t handle their online marketing with finesse.

Can you remember the first time you used a computer?

Do you remember the first time you used computers? If you're under 30 that's like saying, "Do you remember the first time you drew breath," so obviously I'm talking to my older demographic. If the experience was not traumatic, you are a rare specimen, indeed.

Something’s rotten in the state of radio

There is frustration in radioland, much tearing of hair and beating of breasts. Nothing they do seems to make much difference to generally dismal ratings and they showed a national decline in revenue at the end of last financial year.

In the ad race, it’s horses for courses

You'd be hard-put to win the Flemington 1,200 metre sprint riding a Clydesdale carthorse. But that's the way some companies go about their advertising, thinking that because the solid plodder can pull a mountain of beer barrels, it must be also capable of moving nimbly. That's silly, says Ray Beatty.

How to score Grandad’s dope without being busted

Take absinthe. For much of this century the world treated it like cocaine or LSD, declaring it a dangerous hallucinogenic. But in the past...

To understand the generations, you have to learn your XYZ

G’day Anthillians. Everyone’s yakking on about Gen this and Gen that, trying to figure out the perfect pitch that will make them rich. But...

Cargo cult economics

Has our recent prosperity all been one big, furry hallucination stoked by our collective sense of millennial transcendence? Whatever happened to living within your...

Advertising trails behind the naked front

Walk through your local shopping centre and you will be accosted by countless near-naked ladies showing off their underwear or their fancy perfume from...

Can a successful business be moral?

G’day Anthillians! Is it really possible to be a successful business person and a paragon of moral virtue? Resident Antagonist Ray Beatty looks back...

Maccas goes down the drain

G’day Anthillians! Crafting a compelling advertising message is hard enough without the bleeding-heart regulators tut-tutting over your shoulder. But as Antagoniser extraordinaire Ray Beatty...

How the money flies by

When will large corporations understand that stinging customers for every cent through gotcha technicalities is commercial idiocy? Ray Beatty wants to know. Now.     Last week...

For miracle sales, get a halo

It seems like every bus shelter you pass features a back-lit silhouette of a dancing girl or boy with wires coming out of their ears. You don't have to read the logo to know that it's another ad for iPod. But did you know that the ad is doing wonders for Apple PCs?

The power of tittle-tattle

Greetings Anthillians! I've been sipping a glass of fine wine and contemplating the grapevine. Word of mouth has to be the most powerful form of advertising. How else could a brief conversation by the water cooler precipitate the purchase of a $300 dollar bottle of plonk? Professional antagoniser, Ray Beatty, is on the case.

Why John Howard and I agree

Supervillains come in many guises. For Superman it was Lex Luthor. Batman's enemy was the waddling Penguin. But to any civilised reader or writer the greatest nemesis, the most galling of the supervillains, is the Phantom Apostropher!

How long is a piece of spin?

G'day Anthillians. These are troubled times, but nothing some good PR can't fix! Antagoniser extraordinaire, Ray Beatty, considers exhibit A: the brand new Hardest Job In The World. (Hint, it's not W's.)

Don’t worry, be happy

You may well ask, “What’s the point of getting up in the morning? What’s the point of carrying on with our business and affairs...
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