People ask me all the time why I think marketing should be invisible. Here’s one of those examples.
Did you see the 2008 Microsoft/Seinfeld ads? (If not, time for a quick trip to youtube.)
This campaign illustrates why many innocent young creatives go into advertising: to get their personal creative statements funded.
Now, the agency sounds reasonably intelligent [...]

Awareness is a common goal of marketing.
The assumption, of course, is to know me is to buy from me. Image advertising. Being funny, memorable, businesslike, serious, whatever we think will help the customer remember us.
You know the textbook example of great awareness/brand marketing? Movie marketing for Snakes on a Plane. It went viral months [...]

A friend and colleague was recently describing common failings noticed at marketing departments, especially in startups, with a number of companies where he has consulted (not as a marketer).
His first observation:
What marketing VPs do often looks like voodoo to him. And a lot of it looks like a me-too game. “If I pull up our [...]

Seth Godin just gave some really out of the box advice on how to structure equity in a new company.
It’s actually great advice, but I disagree with his claim that his method offers a better way to value the company.
Here’s why: just as Seth points out that we don’t know what the company’s going to [...]

For you non marketers, here’s a secret of the trade. Many marketers maintain a little box called the Swipe File. It’s just a collection of marketing tactics we’ve observed that caught our eye as an example of a good idea, good execution, clever humor, whatever.
My tip for your swipe file: Tatum LLC. They have a [...]

Most human beings (except for a few superpeople) experience moments where it’s tough to make a phone call. Or perhaps a whole set of calls.
Each of us faces the call that no one else should make. Hiring someone. Firing someone. Delivering bad news to a key stakeholder. A crucial conversation in a negotiation. Saying thank [...]

For the corporate brand, online social media represent the end of top-down message control.
If media have gatekeepers, then messaging is a top-down event. To be heard, I have to make friends with gatekeepers. (In many markets/niches, that’s not over. It’s just not as powerful a channel as it once was.)
If media are democratically owned and [...]

On behalf of a friend of a friend –

Karen Mellow Stock was diagnosed in December 2008 with lymphoma, a life threatening disease. Karen’s only chance at a cure is through a bone marrow transplant from a genetically matched donor.

Finding a donor is critical to her survival. Imagine what you [...]