James Mills is a web developer in the North East of England and founder of Refresh Teesside »
Mike Hughes is the Head of Business for the Evening Gazette. He will be blogging on all matters of importance to Teesside businesses - and some that are just worth knowing »
Jez Davison, business writer at the Evening Gazette, is a regular blogger on all things business - particularly finance, entrepreneurship and the state of the Teesside economy » 
Karen McLauchlan is the Evening Gazette's deputy business and features editor - with special interest in all things industry, property and arts related » 
Jeremy Middleton is a venture capitalist and the co-founder of FTSE-200 company HomeServe » 
Deloitte, which has 23 offices across the UK including Newcastle, is among the country's leading professional services firms » 
ClimateNE & Climate Change Schools Project support the move to a low-carbon, resilient economy and help businesses avoid risk and realise commercial opportunities. Posts by Jen Atkinson, Krista McKinzey and Harriet Thew » The other day I noticed Wispa chocolate bars are back in the shops. Apparently an online petition turned into a mass movement by sweet-toothed web users to resurrect the old Cadbury's favourite which was axed in 2003.
To me this proves two things. Firstly, they should never have got rid of it in the first place and tried to disguise the fact by creating Dairy Milk Bubbly (and when are Wispa Golds coming back by the way). And secondly, the internet is a fantastic tool for businesses to gauge the opinions of their customers.
Before the internet came along, the only way big companies had to find out what their customers wanted was by good old-fashioned market research.
An army of clipboard wielding women would stalk shoppers in city centres across the country to find out vital gems of information like their favourite crisp flavour or which detergent they used to get clothes whiter than white.
Of course, this still goes on in abundance today as a walk up Newcastle's Northumberland Street proves. But with so many online forums, blogs and social networks with appreciation or deppreciation groups, the customer's voice has never been so loud and it's up to businesses to listen.
Meanwhile, I'm starting a petition to bring back Tudor crisps, I'd climb a mountain for a canny bag of them.
- Post to:
del.icio.us
Digg
Newsvine
Nowpublic
Reddit
« Previous | Home | Next »