CIM GLR

Hi there!

We are well and truly into autumn now and it’s still dark at 5.30am now so harder to get out of bed in the mornings! But life is ticking along here down under.

For today’s update I thought I would give you an insight into the marketing industry here in Brisbane at the moment.

Marketing – smart recruitment or not?
On a marketing front things are slowly picking up work and employment wise but it is still proving a difficult nut to crack for marketing peeps out of work especially for those with many years of experience. It’s very much an employer’s market which is great for employers but not for people trying to get jobs. I would imagine it is the same in London?

Many people that I know are actually taking lower level jobs simply to pay the bills and what this is producing is very happy employers but not necessarily employees! Why you may ask…well my theory is they figure that they can get someone completely over qualified for a position which means they are not only filling the position but are then hiring someone that they can tap into for their higher level expertise, all for the grand cost of a lower level salary.

Read on…

Well what a weekend it has been. I went to the coast up to Bunderburg and my husband and I got caught in all the Tsunami warnings for South East Queensland. So on the way home we drove inland and discovered some tiny towns that we never even knew existed such as Goomeri – the winner of the ‘neatest town’ award, Ban Ban Springs which I got excited about and then discovered there were no springs, and Nanago which was a very small country town and made me feel like I was really in the outback!

The latest news in Australia hot off the press at the moment is that Kmart has decided it wants to go against tradition and open on Anzac Day which is a memorial day that Aussies take very seriously over here – so there is a public outcry at the moment. It will be interesting to see how it affects their brand in the long term.

Australian market recovery
Things are looking up here in Australia economy wise with Reserve Bank Governor Glenn Stevens recently reporting that Australia’s economy is stronger after the GFC which is very positive – see the article for more details.  In addition Stephen Long of ABC News recently reported that Australia is showing encouraging signs of economic strength, with new figures showing a 5.5 per cent increase in new business investment in the final quarter of last year. See link. At the end of his article Long remarks that the Reserve Bank is worried that Australia is entering a new economic upturn with spare capacity.

Read on…

Hi, I hope you all had a happy Christmas and New Year! I heard it has been very cold which seems weird to me sat here in a summer dress – sorry!

Glad to inform you I now have air conditioning and no hole in my ceiling. So I am very grateful for that since it was reported by the Bureau of Meteorology today  that  Australia had the second warmest year on record in 2009. Read on…

Hi from Brisbane.

Well, we finally got our air conditioning put in, but can you believe two of the guys that installed it fell through the ceiling!!

It was very similar to an RACQ Insurance advertisement going around here but believe me very real!! So as a result we are now waiting for the plasterer to come and fix our hole so still don’t have air conditioning and it’s 36 celcius today!!!

So how is your Christmas shopping going? I’ve done mine now phew! So now I am ready for the silly season to begin. Read on…

Zoe Gell

The social media scene in Brisbane is rife with Facebook, MySpace and Twitter groups to join and get involved with and jobs are also advertised this way. In fact I read when I first arrived into Brisbane that it is the Facebook capital of Australia, and more recently a survey by Scientific American Mind revealed that Australians rank 17^th in a worldwide study of top social networking users. 

Digital Marketing in Australia

Australia is really embracing the digital age especially where marketing is concerned, with many companies now expecting to see digital resumes with examples of work in the marketing arena as well as candidates with their own websites and wacky ideas about how to get themselves noticed. Read on…

Katharine Wilson looks at mentoring.

Talking about your ‘career’ always makes it sound terribly grown-up; like you’ve thought everything through and have a long term plan about what you want to do and where you want to go.

I don’t think I’ve ever had a career plan. I couldn’t say that it was my explicit intention to work in marketing when I left university with a degree in American Studies. Like many people, it was more luck than judgement that I fell into marketing as a result of a natural evolution of roles; starting with my first job working for a publishing and events company. Read on…

Nicola Austin

Recently some colleagues of mine had the unexpected honour of a phone-call from the Harvard Business Review asking if they would submit an article. Why? Well, it turns out that their approach to understanding the post-recession consumer is something of a rarity. Read on…