It’s easy to simply dismiss all branding as a constructed image, no relationship with reality. Most people with power to spend money do know that brands are constructed with an agenda:  influence people to spend money. At least intellectually, we know that brands intend to produce a rather specific outcome, [...]

As I watch the Google Alerts pop up for my brand name, I am struck by two things.
1. Some affiliate marketing writers (who frankly sound half a step short of MLM’ers) have glommed onto the idea of invisible marketing being a terrible thing. Who wouldn’t want their name in lights?
2. Other marketing writers (who sound [...]

Process improvement is a sophisticated science (and art) in the real world where stuff gets moved (logistics), stored (materials management), built (JIT, Six Sigma, Lean, Agile), and so on.
Most marketing people don’t think about what they do in terms of process improvement.
These two disciplines should talk to each other.
If you’re a B2B [...]

Amid seismic shifts in technology and the macro economy, at least 3 gaps are emerging between marketing leaders.

SAP may be an old-line vendor in the technology space, but along the way to the top of the stack they figured out how to talk to their customers.
This SAP ad on Youtube does NOT talk about bits and bytes. It talks about what the tech can do for the biz AND for [...]

CMOs, how do we make a difference when the available pool of paying customers has shrunk?
In a B2B company of not-unlimited means, it is easy to spend a lot of money on marketing without seeing value for the spend. Here are 4 spends that are limited, scalable, and accountable. Each can drive [...]

In a world of limited time, finite means, and pressure for results, what not to do?
When marketing is under-resourced, it tends to stop listening to the customer (if it ever did), because listening requires a cessation of action. What happens next? Recycling whatever you said and did in the last campaign. Talking to all [...]

The real beauty of Kevin’s article When will CMO heads roll? isn’t the observation that corporate marketing budgets are broken and that change is amazingly slow in coming.
That’s an easy target.
What I like is his description of who is changing.
He describes an actual target market that a marketer can begin to get [...]