Marketing pet peeve of mine: someone who has to append the word cool (or its variants) to any marketing effort. Share this cool video! Tell your friends about this cool product! Try our fun new service! Cool, in the sense of being popular, is a rigidly one-way label. Nothing you ever do is cool. Nothing…
There are fundamentally two types of secrets in the world. Exoteric secrets are surface level secrets. They’re the kinds of secrets that are easily transmitted, easily learned, easily shared, and thus easily stolen or imitated. Examples of exoteric secrets are things like the Colonel’s 11 herbs and spices or the formula for Coca-Cola. If the…
Ever heard someone say that? How did I ever live without this? How did I ever do business without this? How did I ever make money without this? I’ve heard parents say that they never planned to have children, but now they couldn’t imagine their lives without them. I’ve heard people speak of products, of…
One of the enduring misconceptions in marketing is that it takes a long time, a lot of work, and a lot of resources to truly empower a brand, to make it stick in your head, and to eventually be a part of your mental calculus when you go to buy something later on. That misconception…
Over the weekend, my Warcraft guild managed to down 4 bosses (really big bad guys) in Ulduar. Two of the bosses posed two separate challenges for healers. One boss, a giant robot named XT-002, hands out lots of damage over a relatively long time to your entire team. Your healers must continuously refill the team’s…
Here’s a quick test to determine if your marketing sucks or not. Scrape off the labels, names, and brands in your marketing collateral and see if you can tell if the company/product/service is still unquestionably you, or if it could be anyone at all – maybe not even in your industry. Try it with a…
One of the “secrets” that one of my teachers, Ken Savage of the Winchendon Martial Arts Center, says is that if a technique is not working, something in the previous step went wrong. If a throw isn’t working, perhaps your footwork or positioning in the entry was wrong. If a kata (pre-arranged routine) isn’t working…
So much of what we perceive is defined by subtle cues and clues. Ever heard the cliche that clothes make the man? Like many cliches, it’s mostly true. The clothes you wear do indeed change the perceptions of others, controlling at least the initial impression, the blink, that you make. That’s just the tip of…
A recent tweet from CC Chapman at SxSW about his hotel room having no amenities for preparing food (fridge or microwave) got me thinking: what’s the best food you could prepare in such conditions, assuming you had access to a local grocery store but not much else, and you didn’t want to buy a ton…
How many of you knew me in 2008? In 2007? Far fewer of you than today, I’m sure. There’s a lot of good stuff on this blog – and on your blog – that you’ve undoubtedly missed if you’re a relatively new friend. Let’s talk today about how to intelligently do re-runs of your blog…
