Technology creates pressures on marketers as well as the tools to relieve them. Reports, communications, planning, analysis and market research are all both more effective and more efficient with IT.

Unfortunately history does not seem to record whether, one morning in 1771, the one thousand German aristocrats who received an unsolicited sample with a circular letter from British potter Josiah Wedgwood were astonished.

Retail own-label share of UK grocery sales in 1981 was 22%. Today it is 47%. If the trend continues, manufacturer brands risk becoming a supporting actor, not the star of the show. And it's not just a UK issue.

I like aphorisms. Not for nothing are these compact little sayings the finest means of wisdom delivery known to mankind, in service since preliterate times to ensure the accurate transmission of ideas from person to person.

I've never forgotten the trailer for Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho. If you've never seen it, go to www.youtube.com/watch?v=EzAnE4zuYuA. Why don't they make trailers like that any more?

Looking ahead, there is definitely no shortage of big issues coming our way. Firstly, there is the macro issue of the freedom to advertise itself.

The Marketing Society defines marketing as 'the creation of customer-led demand, which is the only sustainable form of business growth' and puts marketing at the centre of this imperative.

'What do these three US retail brands share?' you ask? The answer is that all are looking at ways to improve your next retail experience. BREAKFAST ON THE GO

I don't believe that I am any more easily led or faddish than the next fella,

An agency colleague told us a story about meeting with the KFC franchise marketing board – a group that represented the restaurant owners and franchisees.