A Contrarian's View of Marketing, Media and Branding
Today brand marketers have to recognize that we’re dealing with groups of empowered consumers or business customers that have the ability to ignore our brand messages, recast them to suit our own needs or perceptions, and also the ability to “broadcast” them to other potential prospects and customers well ahead of our own attempts to [...]
The more I read John Morgan’s book “Brand Against the Machine” the more great nuggets I come across like “No one woke up this morning and said, “I hope someone tries to sell me something today!” It is far more effective to give something of value away before you ask for the sale. Most businesses try [...]
People don’t read the Internet they skim it. Think about that for a second. Today who has time to really read all the information that’s out there online, especially when sites are wordy. Most likely you skim pages unless you’re looking for specific information or conducting research. In other words you need to communicate quickly [...]
Time is the new currency. Want more proof ? According to a paper published by professor Ramesh K. Sitarman of the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, viewers begin to abandon a video after a two second delay, with six percent disappearing per second thereafter. Two seconds ? That’s right in this age of broadband viewers don’t [...]
Although the iPad is a runaway hit Steve Jobs was concerned that the iPad was “that while it’s a lovely device for consuming content, it doesn’t do much to facilitate its creation.” Computers, especially the Macintosh, had become tools that allowed people to make music, videos, websites, and blogs, which could be posted for the world [...]
There has always been a belief that great content will drive engagement but there are some instances where even the best content may not drive consumers to read or share your content. It all comes down to to the fact that consumers just don’t have the time to consume every bit of information on the [...]
There is an interesting article in the new issue of Fast Company called “Starbuck’s Leap of Faith”. The byline is that the worlds largest coffeehouse chain regularly launches products before they’re perfect and the author wants to know why such a risky approach to innovation works so well. He feels that company “courts risk in [...]
Yesterday I had a long talk with a CPG senior executive about marketing. One of his biggest complaints was “why in the hell should I care about Facebook’s or Twitter’s sales forecast ? What does that have to do with MY business ?”. He explained that while they are using social media he is still [...]
According to Stephen Reily is founder and chairman of Vibrant Nation in a recent survey of more than 700 women aged 45-65 what makes them more likely to try a new product for the first time, and the most effective methods are: consumer reviews and articles, free shipping, and free samples. They look for this content [...]
Millennials consist of people born from 1980 to 2000. To put it more simply for them, since they grew up not having to do a lot of math in their heads, thanks to computers, the group is made up mostly of teens and 20-somethings. At 80 million strong, they are the biggest age grouping in [...]
I love the challenge of marketing today because consumers have a wealth of information at their disposal 24/7/365 via the Internet. Over the last 17 years I have worked on some great brands including Sony's Discman, Canon Video products and consumer pharma brands like Cialis. I have learned a lot and continue to apply what I have learned via new learning.
Pharmacists may suggest alternate medications to patients who either complain about co-pays or medications side effects. Remember that some pharmacists can and will call a patients physician to get their Rx changed.
If the reality is that your M L R teams are limiting your digital marketing you can either fold up and work within their confined thinking or you can be a change agent to win them over. The choice is yours..
It’s not hard to search the Internet and come up with a real treasure of good free research and data. You can add nice looking charts to your Power Point presentations but there is a real serious disconnect when it comes to obtaining data and knowing what to do with it for most organizations. Data can only tell you so much and can often send you in the wrong direction. There is no...
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