OpenAI & THE MODERN PROMETHEUS
off-topic alert This post was going in a different direction until last week’s OpenAI news. It was going to be a cute analogy where ChatGPT is the child prodigy, Sam Altman and the coders at OpenAI are the hockey parents expecting their kid to go [...]
MARKETING COURAGE & CRAFT BEER
Experience has taught us that two of the most difficult things for today’s marketers seem to be: Sticking to a successful brand strategy in the long term. Meaning longer than five years. Returning to a previous successful brand strategy when the current one fails. Doing [...]
LEARNING FROM UNDERWOOD № 5
ramble alert The Back Story I’ve been slowly working away at fixing my grandfather’s typewriter (just like everyone). It’s an Underwood № 5, built in 1914. The same year WWI started. Somewhere around the time of WWII, it was ‘refurbished’ to add a wider carriage, [...]
WHAT ELON MUSK DID & DIDN’T LEARN FROM PORSCHE
Genius is a curious phenomenon: It seems to be narrow in focus. As far as we know, no human has ever been a genius in all things. This means there are many distinct areas of genius. There are degrees of genius as measured by IQ [...]
AI: THE GOOD, THE BAD & THE UGLY
First question: Does the world really need another AI blog post? ChatGPT is (strangely) equivocal when asked this question. I guess it hasn’t been coded to have an ego. So here’s our take on where we’re at with AI, the good, the bad and [...]
CRAFT MARKETING – A TALE OF TWO WINES
verbosity alert Throughout human history, winemaking has been a craft industry, ruled by artisans and run by families. In modern times, we believe that categorisation applies even to the big producers in traditional Old World winemaking countries [1]. They got big one of two [...]
WHAT ChatGPT & NUCLEAR FUSION HAVE IN COMMON
The marketing world is currently all aTwitter about ChatGPT, a newly-released AI-driven chatbot technology, and what it will mean for the future of marketing. The wider Western world is all aTwitter about a nuclear fusion experiment in a California-based laboratory that has created a ‘net [...]
THE RYAN REYNOLDS SHOW
rabbit hole alert In 2018, after a truly amazing rise to Hollywood A-List [1] stardom following his breakthrough role in Deadpool two years earlier, Canadian-born Ryan Reynolds co-founded a production-company-cum-ad-agency called Maximum Effort. According to Reynolds, it was created to support the launch of Deadpool [...]
WHEN GREAT BRANDS BREAK OUR HEART
It doesn’t happen very often, but every once in a while, a brand you really love will break your heart. VW and Loblaws are brands beloved by consumers for decades of quality products and services. Also beloved by marketers for decades of great marketing [...]
FAIL BETTER
There’s a great phrase often used by entrepreneurs, startup founders and those who consult for them: Fail Better. Like so many phrases in modern business lexicon, it is of curious origin (see sidebar). For the purpose of this discussion, let’s assume it means learn from [...]
THE WORLD’S BEST OLYMPIC STRATEGY
The Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games have certainly been interesting. There were many great individual stories and surprises, but the top 10 medal-winning countries were the usual suspects. Canada came in 11th in total medals. We know who the world’s best decathlete was in Tokyo, Canada's [...]
POST-COVID CREATIVE RENAISSANCE?
We’re starting to see this idea in the marketing industry media and we’re hearing it from some of our peers. The idea that the marketing world will enjoy a post-COVID creative renaissance is a lovely thought. Then came Canada’s record-breaking award haul at Cannes 2021 [1]. [...]
AS THE COOKIE CRUMBLES – Chap 4
The story that started here as GOOGLE’S DÉJÀ VU will have lots of future twists and turns as the (third-party) cookie crumbles. We decided to follow the chapters that we actually understand and think are important in the Marketing Wilderness context: “Google Grants a [...]
AS THE COOKIE CRUMBLES – Chaps 2 &3
The story that started here as GOOGLE’S DÉJÀ VU will have lots of future twists and turns as the (third-party) cookie crumbles. We decided to follow the chapters that we actually understand and think are important in the Marketing Wilderness context. Let’s do this in [...]
ASTRAZENECA’S VERY UNFORTUNEATE BRAND FAIL
From a product development point of view, the Oxford–AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine is a miracle. It is the world’s best single hope in defeating the COVID-19 pandemic. But it’s also a marketing failure. This is significant because it means people have lost trust in the vaccine, [...]
ONCE A MAC
In one of the most critically-acclaimed and popular North American advertising campaigns of all time, actor Justin Long was… a Mac (computer). Apple’s four-year, 65+-spot ‘Get a Mac’ campaign was previously highlighted here: WIELDING THE SWORDS OF HUMOUR. Have a quick look to remind yourself [...]
GOOGLE’S DÉJÀ VU
In January, 2020, Google advised the marketing world that it was doing away with the third-party browser cookie by 2022. Then came the pandemic. So earlier this month, when Google (Alphabet Inc) announced it would not develop its own replacement for third-party cookie data, or [...]
HOPE AND THE PORSCHE EXPERIMENT
At the very end of 2020, a story appeared in multiple automotive news publications that seemed, at the time, to be not-so-significant automotive news. It initially caught my eye because it involved the Porsche brand, an old client of ours. But the varying headlines made [...]
MEC: END OF A CANADIAN BRAND ICON
MEC, formerly Mountain Equipment Co-op, is one of Canada’s most trusted and beloved brands. Beloved by me personally, but also by many Canadians. Over the last five years, it has consistently ranked in the top two most trusted brands in Canada [1]. So last week [...]
AUNTIE E CONFESSIONAL
I continue to visit my centenarian Auntie E, but these visits don’t really generate marketing-relevant content, so they aren’t reported here. Here’s the history of my past off-topic indulgences: Post Date Title Auntie's Age Jun 6, 2010 THE GRACIOUSNESS OF 'NO' 92 Sep [...]