All tagged Marketing
Brands today are quite different from the brands I grew up with. Many of them are quite explicit about what the stand for and believe in, even if that narrows their target market.
These brands, I'd argue, achieve far greater loyalty and commitment than those that don't. Because, as I discuss in today's episode, consumers are sick of fitting in. And they expect brands to reflect that.
Earlier this week, I was in an Uber on my way to a client meeting.
As we rolled up to the building, my driver pointed to the client’s name emblazoned on the building and exclaimed: “This is a Moroccan company! I grew up in Morocco and their products are everywhere!” I smiled and said they’re a very big brand.
A friend of mine once mentioned how, in discussions with a client, he came across and had to translate a business writeup for them.
The write up, which I won’t share in full here, included phrases that we see on business websites everywhere:
"…drive synergistic value through patented capabilities, strategies & roadmap approaches…”
In my last post, I wrote that, instead of focusing on having more choice, we should focus on having more confidence in our choice.
This is harder than it sounds, of course, as it demands that we do the work to understand our values, our decision criteria and what it is we’re looking for, as we make decisions about the work we do. If we know what we want, then we’ll make better, more confident decisions.
Recently, Unilever, the global consumer goods giant, announced that it will be removing the word “normal” from its beauty and personal care products and related advertising.
The idea behind this is to move away from descriptions that might suggest who (the type of person) the product is for, and towards those that describe what the product does. A step towards inclusivity and body positivity.
Episode 19 of the podcast is now available and this episode kicks off this month's focus on Sales and Marketing - subjects that are both loved and hated.
"We are living in an increasingly digital world that craves analog sensation."*
Digital is ubiquitous. From our work to our hobbies to our entertainment to our commerce, the digital-to-analog ratio in our lives has ramped up exponentially over the last two decades. To the point where the promise of digital has now become very much a reality.
Listen more than you talk.
I heard this last week at a conference about retailers and consumer brands. The point was that, in a world of push-over-pull, persistent over-communication and rampant messaging, we need to spend more time with our mouths closed and our ears open.
In college, when it came time to decide which business major to pursue, the administration organized a town hall session where the heads of each department came together to explain what their discipline was about, the type of real world value it delivered and why we as students should consider a major in their field.
