EQUINOX DOES A BENETTON
The winter solstice has heralded a new chapter in the advertising campaign for Equinox Fitness, the worlds largest luxury fitness club chain. As reported in Advertising Age, [1] here's a video synopsis of the creative, which actually works best in the print medium and/or single image [...]
THE JOY OF THINKING BIG
One of the things that gets lost in the day-to-day of the marketing business is the concept of thinking big. It’s one thing to think big when your client is Apple and you’re launching the product designed to save the company. It’s actually harder to [...]
THE PROBLEM WITH TRUTH IN ADVERTISING
Here's a head-scratcher. Canada’s non-profit, self-regulating Advertising Standards Canada (ASC) is currently re-running their 2010 “Truth in Advertising Matters” campaign. Now admittedly, working for any industry association is tricky. Have a look at the TV version, if you haven’t seen it: My issue isn’t with [...]
THE POWER OF THE GENERIC BRAND
Here’s something that I went by recently and then was drawn back to when I realised what it was. In the Aug 19, 2013 analogue version of Marketing Magazine, there was a full page ad for Kimberly-Clark’s Kleenex brand: click ad to enlarge Huh? One [...]
MARKETING XENOPHOBIA? THE FIRST REDUX.
Hudson’s Bay Company has slowly but surely transformed itself under the ownership of Americans Richard Baker and NRDC Equity Partners, who bought the company in 2008. This timeframe is also (roughly) the reign of Bonnie Brooks as President & CEO. I walked through the flagship [...]
BRAIN SURGERY & GETTING WHAT YOU PAY FOR
Some lessons in life and marketing seem to be harder to learn than others. Today’s topic, which has been seeking a voice (outside of my own head, that is) for some time now, is a perfect example. (see Note 1 for credit) Early in my career, [...]
CAN’T BUY ME LOVE
The article you just knew was coming to the mainstream marketing world arrived last week: The Buying And Selling Of Fake Followers. [1] Yes, there are multiple online sources for buying social media likes, fans and followers. And it’s cheaper than attracting them the old-fashioned way. [...]
THE ANGELS & DEMONS OF STARTUP
Whether your new business is Facebook or bake-your-own-granola kits, you are about to learn that the startup process is both very real-worldly—and not in the reality show sense—and very other-worldly. There are demons. There’s a bottom-feeding industry out there making it even tougher for the [...]
WEEKEND WITH AUNTIE E
Last weekend I had an unsettling afternoon visit with my usually delightful Auntie E. I introduced her to you a while back (THE GRACIOUSNESS OF "NO"). She turned 94 this spring, and it is with real sadness that I must admit she is slipping. We [...]
DECISION SIMPLICITY
A few months back Harvard Business Review (yes, but bear with me on this—HBR will seem like sissy stuff by the time we’re through all the references here) published an article that puts older marketing thinking in current context: “To Keep Your Customers, Keep It [...]
EINSTEIN, THE GREATEST CREATIVE
I'm not a fan of reposting the work of others without at least trying to move the thinking behind it farther along, but earlier this month I came across an article in Advertising Age that I loved titled, "Albert Einstein Would Have Been a [...]
THE TRUTH ABOUT WHAT WORKS* IN DIGITAL* MARKETING
In an alluringly-titled but complicated article published in Advertising Age last week [1], there is good news: Yes, Martha, digital does sell soap. Then, the asterisks and qualifiers start. But even in these, there is interesting learning. The general focus here is what the world’s biggest marketing [...]
THE RISE OF THE A$$HOLE
Reading Walter Isaacson’s best-selling authorised biography of Steve Jobs, released just after Jobs’ death in early October, 2011, was a surprise for me. Over the years, I’d had heard through the media (like everyone) of Jobs’ arrogance, but I figured he certainly earned some bragging [...]
WHAT RIM NEEDS TO DO NOW
My answer to this question started off as a tweet, but once again, the density of thought (see MW post DENSITY OF THOUGHT) required by the twitter medium escaped me. Forgive me. First of all, some perspective. We should acknowledge that very successful companies often experience [...]
A TALE OF THREE MARKETING JOURNALS
There is no denying it—February is one weird month. It starts with that truly odd North American phenomenon called Groundhog Day. I mean the “real” Groundhog Day, the annual event with the distinctly off-side Teutonic thread running through it, held in more than a dozen [...]
MOBILE, THE NEXT NEWEST THING
I’ve been avoiding talking about mobile marketing here for a while now. Not sure why that is, but it could be because I don’t feel like I’m done talking about social media yet. Or maybe it’s because when I went to tackle the subject 18 [...]
STEVE NASH IS… TOYOTA
As a business and marketing tool, celebrity endorsement is a double-edged sword, much like humour is (see MW post WIELDING THE SWORDS OF HUMOUR). The difference is that the cost, and therefore the stakes, for celebrity endorsement is usually much higher than they are for [...]
IDLE HANDS SPEAK SOCIAL MEDIA TRUTH
Things are clearly a bit slow (or depressing, or both) over in the creative department at Tribal DDB New York. Slow enough that they had the time to create the Wheel of Concept, Digital Edition. Take a spin by clicking here. Funny it is, but [...]
HOW TO RUN A MARKETING PARTNER REVIEW
I've been exposed to the full spectrum of review processes over the years, from sticking-needles-in-your-eyes to OMG-what-a-wonderful-relationship-that-would-be. Here's what I believe works best for all parties. Keep your list of participants as small as possible. A short list of three is ideal. If you can, [...]
HOW TO AVOID A RELATIONSHIP REVIEW
You avoid a relationship review by having a relationship review. Let me be more specific: You avoid the big, formal competitive business relationship review (which the agency world so colourfully, albeit inaccurately, calls the gang bang) by having regular little reviews along the way. These [...]