Duck-walking.
If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, and sounds like a duck, it is probably a duck. How easily some of us can be led to believe that what we are looking at is something other than what we see. The old saying about the duck has never been truer than in the...
The market of one.
Customers do not always fall into the easy demographic segments so favored by marketers. They think, and react to a range of stimuli that have little to do with their age, sex, family situation, education, where they live, how much they earn, and what job they do....
The science and art of branding.
Isn't the marketing job done by the Canterbury Bulldogs on Hazem El Nasri about the best branding game in town at the moment? Forget that he is an athlete, and that his personal credo appears to be beyond reproach, Canterbury have done a great job of branding for the...
After the crunch.
The world will look different when it emerges from the crunch, as we appear to be doing currently. The globalization and connectivity of the world are trends that will not go away, and the chaos of the last 12 months will have enabled trends at the fringe to build...
“Easy fix” is usually “poor fix”
Management activity often seems to be telling people what to do, then fighting the fires when it is not done, or not done to a standard you deem acceptable, or not done on time. A simple human reaction: "tell me what to do, and I will do it, but if you do not tell me...
The “useful meter”.
Having a good strategy scores 1/10 on the useful meter, the other 9/10 are allocated for implementation, adjustment, and learning. That is not to down-play the difficulty of developing a good strategy, and the crucial value of such an investment of resources, it is...
Nothing like free mailing.
At an industry round table a short time ago, a general conversation was bouncing around amongst a bunch of relatively senior executives about the uses their businesses had made of the internet as a marketing and communication tool. Few were vocal advocates of the web,...
Marketing has changed, have you?
# There is no longer a "mass market" in every market, so mass marketing usually leads to mass wasted resources. # Most customers who may be in a market are no longer anonymous, they can be "connected " with individually. # Your message only reaches people who are...
The tortoise and the hare.
It has become pretty obvious over the last 9 months (if it was not there for all to see before), that those businesses with conservative financial management, irrespective of size, are the ones that have the opportunity to prosper during the downturn, taking advantage...
Employees are your best marketing assets.
What happens when you meet someone…? "where do you work" is a common conversation starter. Someone who responds enthusiastically, extolling the virtues of their employer and the products they produce, will have a positive impact on those they meet, and the "word of...