February 08, 2010
Without a visual hammer, an advertising campaign is almost certain to fail.
January 05, 2010
What's the No. 1 principle of marketing, at least as far as we're concerned? It's the principle of focus. You narrow the focus in order to own a word in the mind of the consumer. Without a focus, it's very difficult to build a strong brand. And without a strong brand, any company's future is in doubt.
December 07, 2009
Names are important. Too many marketing campaigns start off with high hopes and an impossible name.
November 09, 2009
Will the skillful use of TGIF -- Twitter, Google, the internet and Facebook -- make you a good marketing manager? I think not. TGIF is only half the story.
October 12, 2009
A recent trend in marketing is the downgrading of established brands by upgraded line extensions. Though years of hyperbole have wiped out the meaning of many of the words used in brand names and advertising, there are a number of examples of line extensions that could seriously damage the core brands.
September 07, 2009
Marketing is like steering a ship. If you don't wait long enough for a marketing effect to run its course, you can draw exactly the wrong conclusion.
July 27, 2009
General Motors' new advertising and marketing czar is Bob Lutz, who until April of this year headed global product development. According to CEO Fritz Henderson: "Bob's responsibilities beyond creative design will include brands, marketing, advertising and communications." Has respect for marketing fallen so low that the most difficult job in the profession (getting GM out of the ditch) can be given to someone with so little experience in marketing?
July 06, 2009
"Nobody's Perfect" is the title of Doris Willens' new book on Bill Bernbach and the golden age of advertising. And just to make sure you get the point of the title, the book explores every imperfection she could find in the career of perhaps the most famous person in the history of advertising. Fair enough. Nobody's perfect. But I think she failed to stress the essence of Bernbach's genius which, in my opinion, was his incredible ability to recognize a good idea.
June 08, 2009
Why do otherwise intelligent people borrow concepts from failing industries and think they will succeed in a different setting?
May 04, 2009
March Madness lasts only three weeks, but Metric Madness goes on all year long. What is Metric Madness? It's the notion you can run anything by the numbers, and it's become the hottest concept in business today. The marketing community eats this stuff up. Nobody generates more data than they do. Hallelujah!
April 06, 2009
Marketing is a long-term proposition. A company can get in trouble if it changes its marketing strategy to cope with a short-term problem.
March 02, 2009
"Love" has become a key ingredient in many marketing programs, and as a matter of fact, falling in love is a good analogy for the branding process.
February 03, 2009
To sell a marketing concept to management, marketing people should keep this principle in mind: Left-brain management will never understand right-brain marketing.
January 05, 2009
Are you building a business? Or are you building a brand? Silly questions, you might be thinking. Naturally, you are trying to do both. But that might be a mistake.
December 02, 2008
In 2007, the U.S. automobile industry spent $4.6 billion on advertising. That's 3.3% of total U.S advertising spending and 5.9% of total U.S. network TV spending. For all that money, you might think the U.S. automobile industry would have done a lot of brand building. I wonder.
November 05, 2008
Nov. 4, 2008, will go down in history as the biggest day ever in the history of marketing. With its reliance on consistency and simplicity in messaging, the Obama campaign has a lot to teach the advertising community.
October 01, 2008
Holism is the concept that the whole has a reality independent and greater than the sum of its parts. Marketing people should pay more attention to this concept.
September 02, 2008
Every country, every state, every city, every company should consider the long-term potential of sponsoring events that generate PR. They need not be particularly expensive, either. Since 1933, Rockefeller Center in New York has sponsored its annual Christmas tree lighting, which always generates a raft of favorable stories. In 1964, the tree-lighting ceremony became an annual TV special.
August 04, 2008
The rampant proliferation of flavor variations has a downside. Consumers are getting confused. A number of research studies have shown that the more choices a consumer has, the more likely that consumer will be unhappy with the choice he or she does make. (The only people who are getting excited about the proliferation of product flavors and variations are the vice presidents in charge of slotting fees.)
July 03, 2008
What's more important, the visual or the verbal? Neither. It's like asking what's more important in building a house, a hammer or a nail? Both have to work together. The best hammer in the world is useless if the hammer misses the nail. And the best nail in the world is useless unless there's a hammer to hammer the nail in.
