In conventional marketing, you provide the recommendation. You broadcast the signal to buy. Peer-to-peer chatter is distracting noise.
Digital marketing is the reverse. Peer-to-peer referral is the signal to buy and your broadcast is distracting, even annoying, noise.
And there you have it. The thrill and the threat, the opportunity and the danger of digital marketing.
Read MoreOne of the benefits of working with great clients in great businesses is the occasional opportunity to stay in great places. This week past was no exception.
Boston is one of my favourite cities in the USA; the density of teaching establishments, the sprouting of new money, the foundation of old money, the legacy of European immigration and the energy of the recent Hispanic influx provides the City with a culture which challenges the brain and tingles the tongue. Only New York can compete.
Read MoreFor those who have not visited Venice, the “Bridge of Sighs” may conjure up visions of cooing lovers gazing dreamily into each others eyes. The reason behind the name is, however, distinctly unromantic.
Read More
A shift in the work schedule allowed me to take a short break in southern Tuscany with some friends.
To my mind, late September is the best time to visit this part of Italy. The majority of the tourists are gone, and the slopping valleys are quiet.
Mostly.
Read MoreAs I write this, I hear children playing hockey in the road.
Growing up in the UK we did not celebrate Thanksgiving but in our school assemblies and church services we did celebrate Harvest Festival, a communal acknowledgment of the earth’s bounteous gifts. The hymns and rural gatherings marked the end of the most active time of the year in agricultural communities, with anticipation (and hopes) that stocks will be sufficient to survive the winter.
Read MoreLike most of you I have participated in workshops where the opening question is, "why are we in business?" Depending on the group (profit/non-profit), function, time of day and the latest sports scores the answers are variously stupid, prudent, sycophantic or vanilla.
Some regurgitate the latest corporate consumption ("to create shareholder value") while others are more thoughtful ("to relieve stress on pet owners at a difficult time" - a company helping families re-locate their pets to the new home overseas.)
Read MoreA previous post on the ‘5P’s of a buyer’ has been quite popular, and I’ve been asked to explain its origin.
Their roots lie in the fundamentals of problem-solving leadership; how can we work together to solve an issue profitably and to mutual benefit?
Let me illustrate.
Read MoreThere are days when I tingle enough to power the grid. There is nothing like seeing a client thrive. Nothing. Consuming a dozen Moak coffee espressos with my fingers poked into mains socket wouldn’t electrify me as much as seeing someone I’ve worked with succeed.
And that’s what it was like last Friday while having lunch with Amanda.
Read MoreIn an ice storm, precipitation falls as rain but turns to ice upon impact. Ice builds to several inches thick on roads, cars, trees—and Christmas decorations.
The result is startlingly beautiful and startlingly dangerous. Sunlight is refracted through frozen lenses. It is the only light we have. Trees collapse onto power lines and, as of yesterday, 450,000 of the 6 million inhabitants of Greater Toronto were without electricity.
Read MoreHappy New Year to you all.
By the end of February, most of the resolutions taken yesterday (learn a new language, spend more time with the family, lose weight) will lie disassembled on the floor, like a broken Lego model given at Christmas.
The challenge of Resolutions is to break down their contributing elements into behavioural habits, and without the vitamins of resolve and planning, this seldom occurs.
But there is something you can accomplish today.
Read MoreCoincident with the last piece extolling you to manage your health and avoid chronic conditions, the Guardian newspaper published the cost of chronic health care to the UK NHS (hat tip to Dr Paul Davies).
The data is sobering.
Read MoreThe message is starting to sink in. At least with some.
If you bring the voice of the customer to the heart of the decision-making process, you will lay the foundation stone of a resilient strategy.
But this alone is not enough.
Read MoreGoodness we make things difficult for ourselves.
Before Christmas I participated in a conference on Strategy and Branding. I gave a presentation entitled, “Market-driving vs market-driven: consequences for organisational culture,”
I will amplify the content of the presentation in future articles, but I want to focus on a question which came up in subsequent presentations, and whose answer clearly has implications for the way we drive a business.
What constitutes a good brand?
Read MoreThere is a sub-group in the working population whose environment could funnel them into a jaded and jaundiced view of humankind. If business success has many parents and failure is an orphan, these are the foster-parents.
I am referring, of course, to Project Managers.
Read MorePassing are the days when the baying of an Executive would be sufficient to gather and galvanise the pack. This, though, does not prevent some howling at senior levels for the way things use to be.
The more enlightened and successful Leaders are becoming sophisticated communicators, able to elicit the desired action from their audience. The better Executives have identified a change in the tide.
Read MoreThere is a reason why airlines prompt us to pull-on our own oxygen mask before helping others: At a time of stress or demand, when we are needed to serve or support others (family, friends, colleagues, patients, customers) and energy flow will be one way, we had better be in robust physical and mental health.
Read MoreYou cannot have peaks without valleys. The splendour of the rising, craggy, glinty peaks are made more majestic by their contrast to the plunging, dark, soden-moss valleys.
And while plains have their charm, it is the mountain which pulls breath from the crowd.
And as for topography, so for people.
Read MoreMeet Carlo Anichini. If you're in London and need a haircut complimented with a case study on Brand delivery, he's your man.
Carlo is an artisan descended from a long line of artisans. His grandfather was a master mason in Florence, a place where they know a thing or two about working with stone. From his mother he inherited an acute eye for design, line and detail.
In addition to being an outstanding barber and a successful entrepreneur, Carlo is also something of a Brand-meister. He is clear on his brand values and executes them clearly, and precisely.
Read MoreThis CEO of global pharma business was never a shrinking violet. But this year, at his global Town Hall meetings he was positively pugilistic.
The strategy, wrestled for many hours on the 21st floor at Bockenheim headquarters, was failing to deliver. Well, in reality, it wasn't being implemented well enough to know if it could deliver.
The issue was crystallised for the CEO in a conversation late one evening. During post-presentation beer and sandwiches at their largest R&D facility, he exasperatedly asked the Site Manager, "why aren't you implementing the strategy?" To which the long-standing, retiring-in-a-year-after-20-years of service, replied, "why don't you give us a strategy we can implement?"
There are few occasions in business when scales from the eyes, but this was one of them. In one pithy response, the consequences of a mis-match between strategy and culture had been laid a bare.
Read MoreIn July I will launch a monthly series of videos entitled, “This I have learnt.” It is said that experience is teacher who gives us the lesson after we need it, but with this series, we will short circuit the process.
I will be interviewing individuals who have had extended successful careers in the public and private sector. Some have excelled in both.
Through a short, honest conversation we will hear how each person has dealt with the challenges of work/life balance, strategy, leading others and making difficult decisions. Early recordings have highlighted some commonality in approaches, but also some interesting, particular (peculiar?) distinctions. It makes for fascinating viewing
Read More
