Marketing can do so much good

September 21, 2011

My prediction of one of the most important upcoming trends in marketing: Using the power of marketing to do good. Within that prediction, my breath caught in my throat today on the brilliance of a new website 2Date4Love.  This site is design to match potential partners together who are unable to include sexual intercourse as part [...]

Read the full article →

Starbucks locations continue to amaze

September 19, 2011

as we all know, Starbucks reduced its unit count by a 800 stores. This has not stopped them from keeping profitable units, sometimes in seemingly ridiculous proximity to one another. Here is a fine example: Yes, that is a shot of a Starbucks taken from inside a Starbucks. Its actually quite clever – the one [...]

Read the full article →

Smart Marketing – Bob Rennie Village @ False Creek

September 13, 2011

In Vancouver, the sale of condos that were once the Olympic Village have been a challenge. One of the people in the thick of it now is Bob Rennie, who sounds like a truly fun individual as well as tremendously successful soul both marketing and real estate focus. This appeared in the Vancouver Sun today, [...]

Read the full article →

Apple are all of your customers the same?

September 9, 2011

Because you leadership sure looks that way.               The best companies have a diverse leadership that echos their customer base. From the picture, sourced from www.apple.com, this is a relatively homogenous group – although pictures don’t tell the true depth of diversity. I look at this photo and appreciate [...]

Read the full article →

Marketing performance evals – a note to agencies

September 7, 2011

It was only a matter of time before this happened: Draftfcb loses 60 year relationship with SC Johnson. I had the great priviledge to work with [then] FCB Chicago during my 8 year stay at SC Johnson. I stay in touch with many of those folks. In fact I blogged about it a year and [...]

Read the full article →

Ann in video

August 30, 2011

I don’t usually publish my own “stuff” but I did a couple of videos for the UBC Marketing club and they didn’t turn out half bad. While they were ostensibly for marketing students, their applicability goes beyond just educational situations. BIG SMILE But then again, I said them!  They’re permanently on my site at videos, [...]

Read the full article →

Edison Awards and Innovation

August 30, 2011

I had the very cool opportunity this year to participate as a judge in the Edison Awards.  If you’re not familiar with this award, targeted at people, brands, and products which exemplify innovation, I urge you to do so http://www.edisonawards.com/. As I made my selections well over a month ago, I was struck by how innovative [...]

Read the full article →

Jason Mraz on gratitude

August 28, 2011

this could be as simple as “express gratitude, its a good thing” Or it could be as complex as the all important question – what is the brand you are responsible for (your own, of course, so we all have at least one, then maybe the one you work for, then the soccer team…yeah, you [...]

Read the full article →

Different is, well, different, in a good way!

August 25, 2011

This book was great fun. Youngme Moon teaches at Harvard, and has written a lot of HBR marketing cases I’ve been reading over the summer. I liked her style and her ideas, and found this book which is just about to come out in paperback (so it saves you money). Youngme challenges our currrent mania [...]

Read the full article →

Whole Foods Branding & Service mess

August 23, 2011

Here I am, parked at my local Whole Foods.                       Yes, there are parking meters at Whole Foods. But there are also meters at this orange thingy, which pops me out on the street to run a quick errand before my spend-fest at Whole Foods. [...]

Read the full article →

Coca-Cola in Vancouver – Hybrid Trucks

August 21, 2011

This is smart marketing   We all too often as marketers forget the basics of communication – things like the sides of trucks, the sides of the cars we drive (horrors, we might consider our personal space selling space!), the sides of buildings, everything! I love what Coke has done with this truck.  Please note [...]

Read the full article →

Customer Service & Branding is sometimes being part of your community

August 18, 2011

The New York Times recently published a compelling article by the name of “Good Will to all, with a Side of Soft Serve“.   I love this story.  My hat is off to the author Dan Barry, and the New York Times for publishing it.  There isn’t anything here but acceptance, community, an ice cream [...]

Read the full article →

Make sure your personal positioning isn’t personal

August 18, 2011

I got an email the other day from someone who is selling their services as a marketing consultant.  It included this quote:  I drove five consecutive years of sales growth, something that more conventional CMOs in that role had never done.  People ask me how I did it.  Simple.  I brought forth my passion, built [...]

Read the full article →

Maybe logos are meant to be playful

August 16, 2011

We all learn as marketers that logos are a serious business.  Colors, usages – you name it, we “manage the brand experience”. And as I’ve written before, I’m a huge advocate of that approach. That said…how to you account for this? This violates every rule we’ve learned. These are not Google colors, and this is [...]

Read the full article →

Smart Marketing

August 4, 2011

My friend KC sent me this, he’s the head of Kory-Chris Productions  This is smart marketing!

Read the full article →

Marketing in a .05 alcohol world

August 3, 2011

Tough times create very interesting and fun marketing! BC has inacted some of the strictest DUI limits in the world – .05 is the limit.  This has spawned a huge dive in retail alcohol sales, according to this report a 21% decrease in sales of alcohol in the 4 months after the law was enacted. What [...]

Read the full article →

← Previous Entries

Next Entries →