Chris Arnold

Author: ‘Ethical Marketing & The New Consumer’.
Creative Director & Board Director of Saatchi & Saatchi.
Board member of Europe’s largest marketing trade body, the DMA.
Chairman of both the DMA Agencies Council and the Creative Council.
Founder of The Feel Agency (left 2009) and more recently, a new generation of ad agency CREATIVE ORCHESTRA (world’s first ‘not for profit’ ad agency) www.creativeorchestra.com.
Blogs on ethical marketing issues on Brand Republic.
Written for many titles, including Creative Review, FT, Third Sector magazine, Canvas 8, and many more. Writing books on ‘Maverick Brands’ and ‘THUNK (a different way to think)’.
Written several micro books, ‘Why Women Shop on Venus & Men Shop on Mars’, ‘Open Minds’ (D&AD) and writing 100 Cals.
Appeared on TV many times as advertising and brand expert – BBC Watchdog, BBC Working Lunch, BBC 4, Channel 4. As well as several online TV programmes.
Lectures around the world on advertising, branding, ethical marketing, and creativity.
In my spare time I play in the ‘plunderphonics’ band The Perrinormal.
Lives in Crouch End.

Observer Ethical Awards – Joanna Lumley & Lenny Henry wins the public vote. But mine goes to Unseen Tours.

This year’s Observer Ethical Awards were as ever inspiring. Proving that real good is being done not by the big brands but the small ones.

The death of QuarkXpress?

Finally this week I’ve hung up my old QuarkXpress and accepted it’s had its time. None of my printers use it anymore and even my junior creatives say, ”Quark who?” It’s more Quark eX than Xpress for me. To keep up I’ve finally switched to InDesign.

Is marketing a science, an art or a faith?

What do you believe in? God, football, politics, vegetarianism, ethics… don’t say you don’t, we are all hard wired to believe in things. The trouble is, sometimes those beliefs deserve a little more open mindedness.

Greening up music festivals

This year, how green will the festival you are going to be? Festivals are getting greener and one is even banning commercial giveaways to reduce wate.

The Art of Brand Suicide. Or how indulgent creatives sometimes go too far.

Shock may work well for artists with little talent because it gets you noticed, but when ad agency creatives indulge themselves with insensitive mock suicide scripts, because they can’t think up a really good idea, you have to question if they should keep their jobs.

Saving a life an hour, now that’s what I call CSR.

Every day 200 kids die due to dirty water. P&G and Asda are running the campaign across all 1,200 SKUs (including Pampers, Arial, Oral B, Gillette, Pantene) and are pledging to provide purifying equipment that will produce 2 litres of clean water for each product sold. Their aim is save a life an hour.

M&S proves that even good ads can’t sell a donkey.

While their food range is selling well, with like-for-like food sales growing 4%, their clothing range is in trouble with a 3.8% decline. So what’s Plan B?

Justin Bieber’s faked up Twitter fans raises questions about Fakebook too.

The revelation that half of Bieber’s 37m Twitter fans are fakes comes as no surprise to many of us. We’ve all known for a long time you can buy fake Twitter and Facebook fans. The question is, how many brands are doing the same?

Great minds think alike – the secret of why top brands sell.

John Hegarty and Martin Sorrell have both upset those with different beliefs. But instead of debating the rights and wrongs of Twitter and data, maybe we can learn from what big brands are doing right and refocus on good old selling.

Trend spotting in food and drink – new ideas from the IFE show.

Having spent a long day at the IFE (International Food & Drink) show, it’s always interesting to see new trends in the market place. My pick of the best new products is Cho! Drinking Gazpacho.

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