Knowledge is a pre-requisite, not a guarantor.
Deep knowledge is pretty common these days, the facilities to accrue it are readily and freely available, and it is no longer a key differentiator. However, what is still not common is what has always separated the run of the mill to the standout, organisations with...
Project collaboration paradox
Getting collaboration when you really need it, when the interaction can add value is usually at the beginning of a project. The closer you get to the completion of the project, the more the parameters tend to be set, it is the detail that changes, a much more...
Great strategy = concurrent mutually exclusive ideas.
Great marketing strategy is hard to develop, if it was easy, everyone would be doing it. The difficulty lies in the need to hold several often opposing ideas in the brain at the same time, very hard for most. First, where to compete. This may be geography, channel,...
Forecasting and demand planning.
Developing a forecast of what you need to make to sell is a different proposition to doing a demand forecast, it is much more than a semantic difference. A forecast is usually an extrapolation, sometimes very sophisticated, but an extrapolation nonetheless, of the...
Value, not price.
Value is an outcome of the price and the benefits delivered. Value = price + benefits As marketers, we are normally consumed by price, it drives our priorities, measures our success, and dictates channel and NPD priorities. Consumers by contrast, are generally driven...
A nice little pun
Band building is hard, it is about creating and nurturing the stories about the products that have a resonance with a section of the market to whom the story has particular relevance, that sustain the difference between yours and the others. I like a beer, and find...
Toyota quality paradox
Toyota has been lined up for a maximum fine of $16.4 million by US regulators for failing to report a fault within the statutory time. In the scheme of things the fine is a flea bite for Toyota, but the impact on the hard earned brand reputation of the current...
End of the outsider
It is a great pity to see Malcolm Turnbull pull the pin on politics, as he announced last night. Whatever your persuasion, it would be hard not to agree that having someone in the Federal Parliament who knows how hard it is to make a dollar, what strategy, vision...
iPad blitzkrieg
As you wander through the blogosphere, the pre-launch hype about the ipad is astonishing. There are many reviews, but as very few have seen one, they are all just speculation, or Apple insiders doing their bit towards the marketing blitzkrieg. Now it is launched, and...
The name of the game.
One of the huge barriers to success in many small businesses I see, is that they tend to think that because they have a great product, produced with care and attention to detail, they should be successful, that customers will find their way to them. By default, they...