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Thursday
Oct242013

Steve Wozniak on Marketing

While there isn't a tech CEO I've met who would refute this simple truth, very few are able to embrace it, no less practice it. Why is that? 

The Apple co-founder went on to attribute Apple's success to a conscious decision to be a "market-led" company as opposed to a tech-led company. This seemed to be in Steve Job's DNA.

 

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Wednesday
Apr172013

Social Media Mantra

Before you even think about online networking for your brand, I suggest the following exercise. First, take your shoes off. Close the blinds and dim the lights in your office. Sit on the floor cross-legged. Place your hands on your knees palms up if you are alone, join hands in a circle if your colleagues are with you. Close your eyes and recite the social media mantra:

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Saturday
Dec222012

Post-apocalyptic Season's Greetings

Congratulations. You have survived the apocalypse. I hope you had a pleasant end of days. 

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Wednesday
Dec122012

Santa Claus Graphic Guidelines

How not to get sued by an elf this Holiday Season

Hey it's that time of year again. 

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Friday
Nov092012

Survival is overrated  

We would like to give a big thanks to the CEOs who attended the workshop, "Survival is Overrated" at MINC today. We enjoyed getting to know you and we hope you stay in touch.

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Tuesday
Nov062012

The social vote: Obama vs. Romney

SAUL LOEB/AFP/GETTY IMAGESOK, all the Americans at The Duffy Agency have now voted. Like many Americans I'll be watching the results come in for the rest of the day trying to piece together the fragments and get a glimpse into the future of who will be my country's next president.

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Tuesday
Oct232012

The ups & downs of startups: How entrepreneurs can level the playing field

Thanks to Craig Mitchell and all the entreprenuers from ENTN02 Entrepreneurial Marketing course under Master programme in Entrepreneurship at Lund University for a great discussion on applying customer-centric strategic planning to startups. I'll be eager to follow your startup projects over the next semester. 

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Wednesday
Sep262012

Why the CMO has to go

The life expectancy of a CMO has reached an all time high of 3.5 years (nearly double what is was five years ago) but it seems the rift between CEOs and their CMOs has never been greater. 

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Friday
Sep212012

The illusion of communication and how to prevent it

How to create your own marketing micro-profession

Before getting involved in advertising, I had planned on attending medical school. A lot of my pre-med training focused on establishing a very precise foundation of language to describe all things medical. Then I got a job in an ad agency.

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Tuesday
Sep182012

Coming to terms: What is a brand? What is branding?

LIKE BLIND MEN DESCRIBING AN ELEPHANT

Christopher Kenton is one of my favorite writers on the topic of brands. I first got hooked when I read his  Business Week article "What, exactly, is a brand?" It was said to have sparked the sharpest response of any marketing article they’d published.

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Wednesday
Sep122012

How to bring your product launches to new heights

APPLE SHOWS US HOW IT'S DONE WITH THE iPHONE 5

It may be apple season (with a small "a") in many parts of the Northern Hemisphere, but globally it's Apple season (with a capital "A"). That's because today Apple will announce the new iPhone 5 in advance of its launch. 

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Monday
Sep102012

4 quick steps towards a unified marketing vocabulary

THE GREATEST ENEMY OF COMMUNICATION IS THE ILLUSION OF IT

Marketing professional share an extensive vocabulary of marketing terms. Unfortunately they don't share common definitions for many of those terms. In day-to-day office chatter the differences don't reveal themselves. 

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Friday
Aug242012

David Brier's lay man's guide to brand fail 

David included this venn diagram in his recent Fast Company article "What Every CEO Can Learn From Best Buy’s (Continued) Branding Mistakes". The article presents a great real-world brand case. Worth a read

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Monday
Aug202012

How to spot the warning signs of brand dementia

Confusion, loss of vision, incessant babbling. They used to call it old age or senility. Now we recognize these as the symptoms of brand dementia.

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Friday
Aug102012

Confessions of an email skimmer

Yesterday during a presentation in Stockholm, my desktop was put up on screen. The CEO of the company began to laugh. “I thought I was bad,” he said, “You have almost 95 thousand unread emails!

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Tuesday
Jul312012

THE RISE OF THE “ROI MARKETER”? HELL YES!

Part 2 of 2

To recap from part one: Although their tenure is increasing, CMOs are still the most frequently fired members of the C-Suite.

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Wednesday
Jul252012

The rise of the “ROI Marketer”? Hell No!

Part 1 of 2

The concept of the “ROI Marketer” was coined this month in a report from the The Fournaise Marketing Group. Here’s why I think this is the worst idea in marketing —  and why it has a shot at catching on.

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Thursday
Jul192012

Stop wasting time with "social media"

You have read how social media wastes a lot of people's time. I couldn't agree more.

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Monday
Jul162012

How to improve your brand swing

As we head into the dog days of summer, I'm sure a lot of you have your mind elsewhere (like the golf course). So I thought I would join you on the links with a golf analogy to emphasize the importance of follow-through in building brand equity.

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Tuesday
Jul102012

The Google Delusion: Too big to fail?

Part 4 of 4

From a branding perspective, Google's behavior is consistent with a company that sees itself as too big to fail.

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