A friend was at a recent business meeting where product marketers were going over color palettes, organization of their stores, and a bunch of other details, all important. What was critically missing, however, was their marketing. When asked, they said that they were doing marketing, that all of the operational details they were discussing was…
I’ve read and heard a lot of buzz about Amazon’s Kindle and Kindle 2 lately. Of the folks who are not wild about the device, the main criticism is that it’s not a book. It lacks the real world charm of books – the feel of the paper, the smell of the book, etc. You’re…
Starbucks. Apple. Maglite. Dom Perignon. All of these are premium brands, yes? They conjure up certain images, certain feelings, certain associations, all of which their respective marketing departments have worked hard to establish over the years. Premium denotes quality of product or service above average, a product you can aspire to as a consumer… ……
Pixelated Business Marketing Conference A while back, Mitch Joel posted his Pixelated conference series, a collection of seminars and sessions from conferences that contain the “best of the best” for any set of topics. I’ve been so busy doing stuff that I never got around to putting mine together until now. This version of Pixelated…
In a period of growth, your brand is your sword, helping you open up new markets, boldly making an impression on consumers, reinforcing the emotional aftertaste of doing business with you for good or ill. Your brand is what you brandish against competitors, demonstrating with swiftness your strengths and the reasons others should do business…
Much has been made of 2009 being a year of frugality for marketing departments and social media becoming the new darling for budget constrained companies. That said, I want to throw a contrary viewpoint out there: social media marketing is not necessarily cheaper than other forms of marketing. What social media marketing achieves is a…
So here we are. The economy’s down, business everywhere is in trouble, prospects for the future look dim at best. What’s a marketer to do? The thing to do is to take a moment and strip away everything in marketing that doesn’t matter. Put down for a moment ROI, analytics, metrics, conversation, social media, direct…
I got yet another cold call at the office today. The sales drone on the other end, as soon as they confirmed they got a live human being, immediately launched into their pitch. “Mr. Penn, I’d like just 15 minutes of your time to go over your telecom needs and introduce you to SomeRandomCompany, a…
