CHATBOTS JOIN THE CONVERSATION
Trending right now in the digital marketing world is the ‘chatbot’. Despite Microsoft’s very recent and (I’m sorry, see sidebar) humorous TAY failure, the rush seems to be on to create bots that talk to humans on multiple web and social media platforms and over [...]
THE BEST MARKETING CAMPAIGN EVER
Today’s big breaking news in the marketing world is that the best marketing campaign ever is ending. Sort of. I certainly won’t be alone in saying that the Dos Equis beer brand’s ‘Stay Thirsty’ campaign, which will no longer include actor Jonathan Goldsmith as The [...]
THE END OF WORK, AS WE KNOW IT
The headline and photo on the cover of the Jul/Aug 2015 The Atlantic magazine was chilling, which is why I took so long to read it. What it predicts is not the end of work, but the end work as we have historically and currently [...]
CRAFT & AUTHENTICITY
The October 16th Globe & Mail Report on Business (online edition) carried an article titled “Beer giants’ merger comes as the industry tries to get its buzz back”. In it, and in the print version of the same story in the weekend edition following, Globe [...]
THE BRAD JAKEMAN BRAND
This post started out being about what the marketing industry should be doing, just like Brad Jakeman’s keynote presentation this week at the Association of National Advertising's annual "Masters of Marketing" conference. But just like Brad’s presentation/rant, this one got hijacked by another topic: the [...]
CREATIVITY, INTELLIGENCE & INSANITY
Trying to understand the relationship between creativity and intelligence has always been intriguing to me. As a young person, I assumed there was a direct relationship and my later interest may be a product of wanting to know how wrong I was. The rabbit hole [...]
SEISMIC CHANGE IN AUTOMOTIVE RETAILING
In late June of this year, ‘global growth’ consultant Frost & Sullivan published a report on the state of automotive retailing—automotive being a key practice area for the firm. Here are some highlights from the USD 5k study, [1] most of which I needed to translate [...]
HOW STEPHEN HARPER COULD WIN
There's something clearly wrong with the generally accepted theory that political marketing is different from any other kind of marketing. It isn't. Politicians and political parties are brands, though the party brand is closely related to its leader's brand. Yet for some reason, political parties [...]
PROGRAMMATIC: THE PROMISE & THE PROBLEMATIC
You know when a new (-ish) marketing topic gets serious coverage in the general business media, the topic is a fundamental one. The June 27th Globe & Mail Report on Business cover story was titled “How automation is shaking up the advertising industry” [1] and described [...]
THE IN-HOUSE PHENOMENON
The practice of companies building and using their own internal creative and media resources has been around for a long time. It has often been the starting point for small entrepreneurial companies and larger companies that focus a major portion of the marketing budget in [...]
MILLENNIALS & DO-GOODING
While you can argue that doing good has nothing to do with generations or cohorts, it is clear that First up – do Millennials give any more than previous cohorts? The answer is yes, but it’s a different kind of giving. Forbes recently did a [...]
THOSE PESKY MILLENNIALS, BY THE NUMBERS
Along with many others, I believe that demographics are the foundation of consumer marketing. Demographics help you define and understand your brand’s target group, which allows you to develop creative and media strategies and plans that maximise business results. When don’t demographics matter? When you [...]
RISE OF THE ROBOTS, THE REDUX
In November of last year, Emily Hare wrote an interesting, far-ranging piece for contagious.com under the same title as this post (which I obviously borrowed from her). The relentless progression of artificial intelligence (AI) development is both fascinating and frightening. For me, fear isn't born [...]
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 [...]
NIKE GETS ITS TIGER MOJO BACK
It took almost four years, but Nike finally got their Tiger Mojo back. So really, you can hardly blame them for telling the world as quickly, loudly and proudly as they did earlier this week. [1] I wrote about the Tiger-Nike relationship a few years back [...]
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, [...]