As marketers, it’s our burden to take a problem and conquer it. But marketing isn’t a product on a shelf; it cannot be bought as a commodity. By the time we’re called-on by clients, chances are, sales may be declining and rent may be past due. Now the client sees value in marketing. They need

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Welcome to where brands are commodities in disguise – The Sea of Sameness. The Homogenous Horizon. The Monotony Maze. The Crowded Conformity. The Replica Realm. The Cookie Cutter Crowd. The Uniform Universe.  Whatever you want to call it, it’s everywhere. Every category – from tech to fashion – has its own sea made of its

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A few weeks ago, I left a voice mail for my optometrist requesting a call-back to schedule an appointment. Last week, I left a voice mail and sent an email to an agency asking for a new business rep to give me a shout back. And just yesterday, I sent a couple emails to lenders

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I hate flying out of LAX. Not because I hate flying, I don’t. But because it frightens the marketing guy in me. On a flight from LAX to San Francisco, in a plane climbing to 35,000 feet, looking down on the sprawling cities below, you can’t help but gasp at how big it is and

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I had the privilege of sitting on a jury with 11 of my closest (as you can get in three days) peers. As Juror #2, sitting in the back row of the jury box, it was an interesting case for who your market really is. As marketers, when we integrate targeting and segmenting into our

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After spending 4 hours driving up the armpit of California that is the 99, my Account Manager and I walked into a local diner just outside the town of Merced. We had our storyboards, we had our presentation, the printed and bound slides, we had prepped responses to expected questions… And we were sharply dressed

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I understand why companies do it. They’re desperate to increase business, they want more foot traffic, they want new customers, they want to grow. I recently walked by a sign taped to the front door of a dedicated children’s salon. It read: “Gumball Alley is now a full family salon. We cut adult hair now.”

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I was in a meeting last week where the presenter said, “We hope this campaign goes viral.” It wasn’t a misdirected objective, but it caught me off-guard. We create advertising to be heard. We want the guy on the couch to hear the ad, and take action. When people talk of going viral, it’s the

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Buying my first car, I remember taking the truck out for a test drive. As we pulled out of the parking lot, the salesman made sure to point out the credit card holder on the back of the visor. And that caught me off guard. Was that really the one thing he thought would sell

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