Sweden, like most other civilised nations, has a national weather service. They go by the name SMHI or, to give them their full handle, Sveriges meteorologiska och hydrologiska institut. Very nice, as long as you don’t have to say the whole mouthful. Anyway as the saying goes ‘everyone talks about the weather, but no one does anything about it.’ Anyway SMHI are driving me crazy. Have been for several months. I mean I understand that trying to predict what the weather is actually going to do can’t be all that easy, but it is actually their job. And they don’t even come close by a zillion miles. I’d have a better chance of getting an accurate forecast by listening to my aged Mother’s daily predictions after peering into her morning cup of tea and watching the tea leaves. This morning was a good example. They predicted heavy rain and thunderstorms all day. I peered out of the window and the sun was shining brightly in the sky. I asked myself do they ever actually open the window and stick their head outside? Anyway, this brings me to a more relevant focus for this blog. Marketing. As these weather related thoughts were running through my brain at 6am this morning, I was reminded that when it comes to marketing and branding we all too often don’t stick our head out of the window. There is nothing like leaving your warm comfy office and actually getting out amongst where the action really is. I had a client years ago who insisted that before you could work on his account you had to spend several days walking the isles of a supermarket watching consumers taking his product, or not, off the shelves and really look the consumer in the white’s of their eyes. Very good advice I’ve never forgotten. I still find too many people expect to understand consumers from ‘lifeless’ market research reports. Get out and see it like it really is. And right now the sun is shining, so I’m going to pop outside and prove the weather men wrong. Again. Sale Windows 7 Ultimate Buy Windows 7 Ultimate Buy Windows 7 Ultimate Buy Windows 7 Ultimate Adobe Creative Suite 6 Master Collection Buy Adobe Creative Suite 6 Master Collection Buy Adobe Creative Suite 6 Master Collection Order Microsoft Office 2010 Professional Plus Discount Microsoft Office 2010 Professional Plus Cheap Microsoft Office 2010 Professional Plus