Reading Time: 3 minutesThe insurance company wrote to me again. That can only mean it’s a bill or a change in policy. Either way it’s more expensive – literally, because I’m paying more, or metaphorically because I’m getting less for the money I do pay.
Tag: participation
The great customer vanishing act: what happens when you can’t track them?
Reading Time: 4 minutesRight now, many social brands offer a free ride in exchange for data that they hope will be valuable to their marketers and others.
Why do demographics matter?
Reading Time: 3 minutesA study by Catalina Marketing appears to cast significant doubt over a veritable pillar of media marketing. Demographic targeting, it seems, often falls wide of the mark. Catalina researchers looked at 10 brands targeted at households headed by women ages 25 to 54. They found that, on average, just 15 percent of the ads playing […]
The new brand strategy dichotomy: likeable or cult
Reading Time: 2 minutesSome excellent points raised by Carol Phillips in her post The Hostile Brand Strategy on Branding Strategy Insider. I’ve said for some time that the middle market is the muddle market – and that a more polemic approach by brands is, in my view, inevitable.
Always 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 words. And yes, on the one hand, it seems obvious. But don’t let the simplicity of the statement fool you – because whilst […]
Is your brand an option or the alternative?
Reading Time: 2 minutesMy favourite saying is “Life is not a popularity contest”. It’s a maxim easily forgotten in these days of convergence. But in my opinion it’s more true in business than anywhere, and most true in terms of how companies need to think about their branding. Every brand should be actively looking to put distance between […]
Increasing your difference by opinion
Reading Time: 3 minutesThe opinionated consumer is on the rise. Brad Tuttle cites numerous examples of boycotting, protesting, petitioning and venting in this recent article in Time. Encouraged by the galvinising effects of social media and mass action against brands that they perceive to have done wrong, people everywhere it seems are pointing the finger and calling upon […]
Sometimes, buyers need cake
Reading Time: 2 minutesEveryone loves secrets. The power of secrets is not just in the information. It’s in the fact that often secrets represent shortcuts. And the shorter road is something that fascinates many.
Brand diversification: extend with caution
Reading Time: 2 minutesIn the search for more income, many brands seem keen to broaden their mandate or redefine the sector they see themselves as now being part of. But the hunt for diversified income streams comes with its own list of dangers and the most obvious caution is this: don’t lose the plot. Don’t spread your brand […]
The 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. According to the authors’ “Rule of Three”, the quest for scale is quite literally a race first for dominance and then for survival. But if […]
6 influencers of brand prosperity
Reading Time: 7 minutesThere’s an increasing temptation to see technology as the harbinger of hope and hazard. Every day, the trendy press and commentators on social media carry reports of the next “it” technology together with their recommendations on what every business needs to be doing to ride the wave. Many of these wunder-techs seem to live a […]
Building 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 analytical versus emotive debate yet it has the potential to carry deep bias into decision-making. As Brad VanAuken observed in this article, “I have found that […]