Changing the brand context
There’s a tendency to see disruption and innovation as huge moments of significance that shake the status quo to its core. Ultimately though neither is about that at all. It’s often about having the...
View ArticleHow does a brand outgrow its defining characteristic?
Twitter was built on 140 characters. Even though the limitation was serendipitous, it remains a defining characteristic of the brand in the minds of many. Concise thinking, hash-tagged to provide...
View ArticleRefresh or rebrand? Critical brand decisions
Every brand must change, but the extent of the change, and the size of the calls that accompany those shifts, are very different. So when should you revamp what you have to bring it up to date, and...
View ArticleFinding your brand’s tone of voice
The language of a brand is really decided by two things: where you are looking to position your brand in the marketplace; and the personality that you choose to adopt. Brand leaders speak with...
View ArticleThe ironies of brand attitude
If you’re a brand leader and you’ve been one for a while, there’s a good chance you know your market and that you monitor and are highly aware of your competitors. All the market intelligence you have...
View ArticleHow to respond to social media feedback
In an age where brands are increasingly seen as shared, companies can easily be lulled into treating social media as polling booths for their strategy. That’s not a good idea. However, there are times...
View ArticleThe road to brand greatness: A Long Virtual Coffee™ with Denise Lee Yohn
Denise Lee Yohn is one of those people whose been part of my brand conversations for some time. I first encountered her no-nonsense approach to brand when she published an excerpt from her book What...
View ArticleJudging your brand distance
Distance is an interesting concept in brand positioning terms. How closely you look to cluster with others and how determined you are to remain some way away depends on your strategy and what you stand...
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Your customers shouldn’t have to report to your processes
We shouldn’t even think of the term “customer service” as being about something that is valuable to customers. In fact, customer service is worth next to nothing. The reasons are simple. We live in a...
View ArticleDo you really want to be a famous brand?
In a world where popularity is the ‘it’ metric for so many marketers, have you really thought through how your brand would cope if all your wishes came true? If your brand strategy is based on building...
View ArticleBlinkpoints
Reading Time: 2 minutesPaul Marsden’s piece on “Thinking Fast and Slow” (thanks Hilton Barbour) raised some great marketing implications from Daniel Kahneman’s work that are well worth reading. I loved...
View ArticleBuilding a better business case for brand internally with CFOs
Reading Time: 4 minutesIt’s an old bias but a telling one. Finance people accuse marketers of only spending money. Marketers accuse finance teams of only counting it. It’s another re-run of the...
View ArticleCoffee to go
Reading Time: < 1 minuteI walked into one of my favourite haunts and they were busy – OK, frantic. Waiting staff were running everywhere trying to get things done, serving people they didn’t know,...
View ArticleA simple value equation
Reading Time: < 1 minuteMarketers put a price on something and call that its value. They arrive at that amount through a bunch of internal references – cost, margin, goodwill, disbursements … Then...
View ArticleThe Rule of Three: why profitable brands are usually very big or very small
Reading Time: 3 minutesThis article from some time back by Jagdish Sheth and Rajendra Sisodia sheds fascinating light on the business case not just for expanding brands but also shrinking them as well....
View ArticleBrand personality: how does your brand respond to parody?
Reading Time: 2 minutesTalk by Starbucks this week of “next steps” following a Comedy Central prank that parodied their name raises the question of what should brands do when the borax is poked? Aaron...
View ArticleTell your customers the history of your attitude
Reading Time: < 1 minuteIsn’t this such a great thought? “Don’t build a product, then try to market it. Instead, build a customer attitude, then build a product to match that attitude.” It’s part...
View ArticleCustomer retention isn’t just about more selling
Reading Time: 2 minutesIt’s occurred to me recently that the interesting changes in customer attitude that accompany brand commitment are not necessarily on the radar of enough companies. Consider...
View ArticleAlways be interesting
Reading Time: 4 minutesSome years back, Paul Dunay wrote a post that has always stuck with me. Be what interests people. To me, that is everything a brand strategy should aspire to, captured in four...
View ArticleBrand loyalty: do you have customers or passengers?
Reading Time: 2 minutesIt’s amazing who we forget and how quickly. I don’t remember any of the people on the bus last week. Who did I ride home with last Thurday? My mind goes blank. It’s nothing...
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