Laurence Borel

Honoré de Balzac  once wrote ‘Les devantures de boutiques sont devenues des poèmes commerciaux’ (1837) Store fronts have become commercial poems. I spotted these absolutely gorgeous store fronts in Paris, which immediately stood out from the mass-market world we’ve all become accustomed to. I’ll do my very best to translate their meaning in English. Louvre Bouteille…

I am sure you’ve all seen the lovely Sainsbury’s customer service letter that was doing the rounds in the social media world today. I’ve been doing a bit of digging around to try to understand how the story went viral; here’s my theory. If you Google ‘Sainsbury’s Customer Service Letter’ you’ll find 420,000 search results;…

    I spotted this NFC marker at a bus stop a couple of days ago.  NFC has been a bit of a buzzword since 2011, however there have been very few concrete examples of campaigns integrating the technology, in the UK anyway.   What’s quite interesting here, is that they’re essentially prompting marketers to…

I spotted those unusual tins of Heinz soup in Selfridges the other day, and whilst the packaging is iconic, the messaging is definitely unusual!         Following their limited edition ketchup last year, Heinz are  toying with social commerce again, by giving fans the opportunity to send a personalised tin of Heinz soup…

  I am not usually a big fan of prediction posts, particularly when it comes to social, but recently spotted a handful of predictions by industry experts worth mentioning.   Without further ado, here are a handful interesting social, search and mobile trends for 2012. These 3 disciplines are inextricably interlinked, yet too often siloed,…

  Photo via Dear blog, It is that time of the year where I should publish my New Year’s Resolutions for all to see. Wish me luck, and thanks James for inspiring me! Resolution #1: blog more  I’ve been suffering from blogger’s fatigue on and off since I started blogging back in 2006, which has…

I am a bit of a gadget girl and simply couldn’t live without my technology; they help me be more productive on a daily basis.   1) Macbook (13 inch in case you’re wondering)  - this is probably very basic and cliche, but my Mac is my everything! It’s my TV, my sound system, my blogging tool, my…

A lovely initiative from O2 who were sending Christmas messages recorded by Santa to influencers today. The concept’s now new (think Old Spice) but hearing Santa speak French put a smile on my face. Dear Santa, your accent is pretty good you know! Must have been all those years flying to France to deliver prezzies!…

Over the last few years, brands have increasingly been attempting to engage with bloggers with various degrees of success. Some bloggers have landed book deals on the back of their blogs, others have teamed up with brands to being to market new products  and services, whilst smaller bloggers live of advertising, affiliates or the occasional sponsored post (I…