Chartered Financial Planners great marketing communications campaign

It takes quite a lot to get me excited about marketing communications campaigns by the professions (I've seen way too many in my time) but I think Armstrong Davis - Chartered Financial Planners - are worthy of a mention.

that I came across I noticed a link at the end which said "How we saved our clients from huge losses in 2008" so naturally I had a look. It took me to their web site and a video which started with a series of media clips featuring their MD (Jonathan Davis) - including BBC News, Tonight and Sky News.

Interest aroused and credibility established I then watched/listened to more of the video to learn that they anticipated the property crash (forecasting a 35% fall in prices) and economic problems as far back as September 2007 and continued to repeat the message throughout early 2008.

Have a look and see what you think - www.armstrongdavis.com

Recovery? - Mixed messages for property and the professions

Taking a random sample of recent press reports it seems that there is still no consensus about what is happening in the market:

Savills, usually the darling of property performers, posted annual losses of £7.7m and cut its dividend. It reports a "very cautious" outlook for 2009.

Sir John Ritblat said "Only now are we seeing the first tentative signs of a partial thaw". He is chairman at Colliers CRE which reported losses of £10m for last year compared with profits of £7.9m in 2007.

Top 200 City law firm Hextalls was rescued from administration by its partners who entered a pre-pack arrangement organised by Begbies Traynor.

Meanwhile, BDO Stoy Hayward reminds professional service firms to look for growth in international markets (a strategy followed by many law firms for some time). He mentions S J Berwin and Ashurst launching Asia offices in Hong Kong, Olswang trippling the partner headcount in Berlin and Jones Day opening in Dubai (despite others recently withdrawing on the basis of speculation of its demise).

A recent survey by the London Chamber of Commerce found that 29% of London firms expect prospects to improve over the next year, up five points on the final quarter of 2008 and 15 points on early last year.

So I am still confused...

Top brands - Google and Microsoft

Brandz Top 100 Most Valuable Brands report indicates that Google is the world's first $100 bn brand. The league table is now:

1. Google (£68.5bn)
2. Microsoft (£52.2bn)
3. Coca-Cola (£46.3bn)
4. IBM (£45.6bn)
5. McDonalds (£45.5bn)
6. Apple (£43.2bn)
7. China Mobile (£42bn)
8. General Electric (£40.9bn)
9. Vodafone (£37.8bn)
10. Marlboro (£33.9bn)

Compare that with the 2001 Interbrand/Citibank survey which had Nokia, AT&T, Ford, Intel and Disney in the top 10.