Brand Focus: The fear factor
The second in a three-part series on best practices to focus your brand's offer and communication.
One of the primary tasks of strategic marketing is helping brands focus both their message and their target audience.
Brand Focus: It's just good customer service
The first in a three-part series on best practices to focus your brand's offer and communication.
One day I decided I needed a bluetooth headset. So I popped into my local phone shop to pick one up. I was confronted with a wall of over 30 identical-looking, PVC blister-packed, bluetooth headsets. "Which is best for me?" I wondered.
Getting your brand found online
There are only three ways new prospects can find your brand online, be sure to use all of them.
So you have set up a brand website with helpful content for your prospects, perhaps you have an online store, your CEO posts weekly to your thought leader blog...
Nine ways to adjust your brand strategy to work online
How to bridge your brand strategy into a digital strategy that will drive content marketing and social engagement
A premium fashion brand is unsure if it should follow back on Twitter or remain aloof like its competitors do. An industrial door brand...
The fallacy of global brand positioning
Is it really possible to define a brand position that works globally?
When Jack Trout and Al Ries penned the marketing classic, "Positioning the Battle for Your Mind," most of the examples they used in support of their theory were domestic US cases. That never occurred to me until I began developing positioning statements for global brands. It wasn’t going well.
Time for marketers to stop talking about branding
Many business people are openly dismissive of “branding” as meaningless fluff. I agree. Twenty-odd years of brand consulting has convinced me that they're right. The word "branding" itself has no more substance than a dust bunny and about as much impact on the bottom line. That’s why if brand management means anything to your company, take this advice: Ditch the word “branding.”
5 Tips for taking your brand abroad
What are the opportunities and challenges facing brands who wish to market themselves internationally? This was the focus of "Amerikadagen." I was thrilled to share the stage with some of the sharpest thinkers in international marketing and brand development and thought I'd share a few of their insights with you.
Positioned for Success: How SME brands can rule the world
International brand positioning tips from the Amerikadagen forum on marketing small and medium enterprises abroad. I was honored by the invitation to speak at Amerikadagen, an event that addressed the opportunities and challenges facing small and medium enterprises (SMEs) that wish to market themselves abroad.
The DOs and DON'Ts of strong brand positioning
Have graduate students outgrown the classroom?
Frank Oppenheimer was right, “The best way to learn is to teach”. In this post I hope to share what three years of teaching master's students has taught me.
If the traditional ad agency is dead, what will take its place?
It was 17 years ago this month that McKinsey & Company published a strategy paper called “A revolution in interaction”. It was a look forward at the likely economic impact of the internet and the mechanisms that would drive it. In 1997 few of us had any idea about the changes that were about to transform marketing or how quickly the business models that defined our industry would become obsolete.
The real reason your content is not engaging online
Are your social media or content marketing efforts under performing? Before you spend any more time tweaking your content strategy and online tactics, ask yourself honestly: How engaging is my brand? Content doesn't engage an audience, brand identity does. And that is the first place you should look if you're not getting traction online.
Coke takes the social out of media
The problem with passion
Wanting to do something with all your heart is great. It can bestow extraordinary focus, drive and fortitude. That’s always been the case. But in recent years this sentiment is increasingly being confused with business strategy. The word used to fuel this fallacy is “passion”.
Why content marketing is more than publishing content
The Cure for Content: Part II (read part I)
If content is really king then why do most organizations still treat it like the court jester?
The Cure for Content: Part 1
Why better tactics are unlikely to solve online content and engagement woes.
Brand Beyoncé shows marketers how it's done
Beyoncé’s latest album release shows us how audience power is changing the rules of marketing and creating new possibilities for brands - if you are able to see it
Marketing in 2014: The audience imperative
As marketers continue to increase their own online publishing endeavors they should take care not to dismiss traditional media but rather embrace it as a role model for their own online marketing success.
Why games make sense for brands online
If you have ever lived with a two-year old, then you probably know that a) anything can be turned into a game and b) it’s often the most powerful tactic you have to motivate new behaviors. What you may not have considered is that our predilection for games doesn’t really go away when we get older. Thus, the rise in recent years of “Gamification”.