Posts Tagged ‘writing’

Expensive Shorts and Why Your Bag is an Important Part of Your Brand!

July 31, 2026

Brown Thomas shopping bag

I wrote this blog post initially for the Fuzion website but my younger colleagues pushed back at me and we got into a discussion about the environment. I admire them pushing back at me and I enjoyed the discussion and their perspective. For that reason I have reserved this blog post for my own platform – of course I am right!! (I might even have a chat with them about disposable fashion!!)

We were heading to London for the weekend to meet up with a few pals, so when I found myself with a few minutes to spare in town I decided to pop into Brown Thomas to see if I could buy myself something new to wear while I was there.

After some browsing and trying on various things, I settled on a smart pair of army green Hugo Boss shorts – they will work well with a black t-shirt I reckon.

I admit that I am a little bit of a brand snob and while I don’t shop very often, I don’t mind paying a premium for something that I like – €105 for a pair of shorts was a bit OTT but the sun was shining, my form was good and why not?!

The very helpful sales assistant who had found the shorts in the right size for me carefully placed them in nice paper and then asked if I wanted a bag.

“Sorry” I head myself say – I was surprised to hear the question as I assumed after many years of shopping in Brown Thomas the item would be automatically placed in one of their stylish bags (this was not a plastic shopping bag!) 

“Oh, they are 60 cents” she said.

I didn’t say a word.

She noticed I was already carrying a bag (a red paper bag from Golden Discs, which I wasn’t charged for) so she handed me the unbagged shorts and said “ah, you have a bag already”.

I stuffed my new fancy shorts into the little bag and completed my purchase including updating the points on my loyalty card via the app.

That felt weird and not very Brown Thomas.

When I went home I took the cheap Gorillaz t-shirt and the now wrinkled Hugo Boss shorts from the Golden Discs bag and put both aside for my suitcase.

I have no idea how many lovely paper bags that Brown Thomas uses in a year and even less of an idea about how much they cost.

Even though I am an accountant (yes, I can’t get away from it!), I think I would shoot the person in Brown Thomas who suggested that it was a good idea to start charging customers for bags – why would you allow the risk of shoppers walking out of your store with a diminished experience and effectively stop shoppers from promoting your store as they wander around town?     

Is this a concern for the environment (as my colleagues have suggested – I am way too cynical to believe that) or a way to make a few bob extra?

To be fair to them they do have a section of their website dedicated to Sustainability at Brown Thomas – to quote them “Our iconic Brown Thomas carrier bags are made from sustainable paper certified to Forest Stewardship Council and can be reused and fully recycled“

How about saying to the customer “If you don’t want a shopping bag we will donate 60 cents to an environmental charity“?

The nice stylish shopping bag is part of the well established Brown Thomas brand and however they decide to cover the cost (it is well covered by margins), diminishing the brand by charging the customer will ultimately cost them much more.

In my opinion!!

Greg

Greg is the Managing Partner of Fuzion, a Brand Communications agency in Ireland

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Posted in Accounting, Branding, Customer Care, Marketing, Retailing | Leave a Comment »

Greg, could I propose a partnership?

July 9, 2026

I get at least one of these emails a day from people I have never heard of.

The whole idea of someone you have never heard of reaching out to form a “partnership” is rubbish because this is the new word that they will use for selling a service into you.

90% of the time these emails are all about lead generation – they effectively will charge you a fee for randomly spamming businesses online with your service and thrashing your reputation in the process.

I wonder about the poor idiots who spend their time and energy creating email lists and firing off these meaningless emails to total strangers with little or no chance of success.

The most recent trend is that these emails all have an AI dimension to them, so let’s check out todays partnership offer …

Greg, Could I propose a partnership

Good morning Greg,

I’d like to put a partnership idea to you, around how AI can take over work that’s still done by hand.

Things like preparing proposals, reports or following up with clients still take hours, sometimes days. Today AI does most of this in minutes.

We’ve built automations that save teams more than 10 hours a week, time that goes back into the business.

If it makes sense, I’ll show you a concrete case of where AI would help most in your day to day.

We’re based here in Ireland, so it’s easy to work closely, in person too if that helps.

Would this be worth exploring? Do you have time for a quick call this week?

Kind regards,
Darlington Vincent
Ark Mind Tech

Hmmmm, a partnership?

I don’t think so!!

I will write back to him as an experiment and let’s see where it goes.

Dear Darlington,

A few points

  1. What list did you get my contact details from?
  2. This would not be a partnership – why do you think it would be?
  3. I would rather put pins in my eyes than write meaningless proposals using AI
  4. Work in person – would you like to pop down to Crookhaven in West Cork and we can have a cuppa to chat about your proposal?
  5. It would not be worth exploring if fairly sure.
  6. I’ll use the time instead to write a blog post about email marketing.

If you are going to use email marketing as part of your marketing outreach a few pointers

  • Research the audience you are sending your emails to
  • Say what it is and stop pretending it is a “partnership”
  • Turn cold calls into warm calls by gently connecting with your targets on LinkedIn
  • Quality is better than quantity

Yours sincerely.

Greg

I wonder what he will come back with?

Greg

Greg Canty is the Managing Partner of Fuzion, and Dead of the Digital Marketing Department.

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Posted in Direct Marketing, Email Marketing, Uncategorized | 3 Comments »

Peter Vandermeersch, AI and the Ability to “Review the Spew”

March 24, 2026

I am sure that we have all heard at this stage about the debacle at Mediahaus Ireland with their chief executive, Peter Vandermeersch being suspended because of his use of AI in articles of his, whereby “quotes” by people were used which never happened.

For those who aren’t familiar with this strangely named business, it is the Belgian company that publishes the Irish Independent, the Sunday Independent, the Belfast Telegraph, the Sunday World, Sunday Life, The Herald and 11 regional newspapers.

In the excellent article by Fintan O’Toole in the Irish Times about this debacle, he explains in detail the high opinion of this veteran journalist in the industry, who on many occasions had warned his own teams about not using the technology for shortcuts in their work.

Knowledge, Experience and Expertise

One of my big arguments against the use of AI to fast track your work, is that not everyone has the ability to decipher what is bullshit and what is not, when reviewing what the platforms spew back at you.

For example you would think that a veteran journalist such as Peter would have the knowledge, experience and expertise to carefully “review the spew”, edit it accordingly and transform it into something well written, very intelligent and accurate.

I would argue that you only acquire that knowledge, experience and expertise by doing the hard yards, punching in your time, learning and perfecting your craft – there are no shortcuts !! (despite being told there are by AI promoters).

Peter certainly has done the hard yards and hasn’t earned that excellent reputation overnight, but it still wasn’t enough to protect him from self sabotage at the hands of this technology.

Review the Spew

Conversely you would extremely caution young bucks who don’t have the knowledge, experience and expertise, about using AI in their work, because quite simply they don’t have the ability to “review the spew” and errors are extremely likely.

Now here is the big problem – If you asked any of us if we thought we would have the necessary knowledge, experience and expertise to “review the spew” and carefully craft wonderful pieces from the AI generated content, we would probably say “of course”, over estimating our own prowess.

If Peter can’t do it, then the rest of us shouldn’t even attempt to do it.

The Bad News

You will only get good at your craft by doing the hard yards. AI shortcuts will certainly give you more time, but you will learn nothing by taking them, they will be error prone, you will lose yourself in the process and could potentially land you in extremely embarrassing situations with all of your credibility lost.

Furthermore, if the content that you are required to produce doesn’t need your knowledge, experience and expertise then why bother with it?

Greg

Greg Canty is the Managing Partner of Fuzion, a Brand Communications Agency in Ireland with offices in Dublin and Cork.

p.s. I’m not a good writer, this piece could have typos and grammatical errors but they are all mine, 100%

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Posted in Communications, Ethics, Reputation | Leave a Comment »