My New Book—Marketing: A Love Story

My new book is here. You can buy it now on Amazon in paperback and in Kindle. I’ve wanted to find a way to juxtapose the concepts of marketing and love in a book for a long time. I like to think that even if you never opened the book, just owning it—seeing it on…

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The Two Approaches To Marketing

All marketing uses two basic approaches. When I was growing up and maybe when you were too, marketers used ‘The Influence Method’. 1. The Influence Method Make a product. Create an advertising campaign, jingle or tagline to persuade people to want whatever you are selling. Increase sales. Make more products. Buy more ads. Rinse and…

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Efficiency, Quality, Value And Soul

A new public hospital is opening in Perth this week and along with cutting edge medical facilities patients can expect a state-of-the-art “free-roaming food delivery robots”. Our local newspaper reported that, “The 300kg AGVs will deliver up to 2200 meals a day, directly to wards without human intervention, once they leave the kitchen.” The theory…

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Make Things People Want

Marketing means different things to different people. To some businesses it’s about Facebook engagement, to others it’s all about analytics or SEO, advertising or PR. If you’ve got the budget it could be a glossy image of Hugh Jackman—your 18K red gold watch, which has been “Crafted for New Heights” peeking from under his freshly…

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Close, Closer, Closest

Twenty years ago geography mattered. When there was one grocer in every suburb there was always enough business to go round. Close was an advantage. It’s easy to believe that because digital has dissolved borders, that it has simultaneously diluted advantages. But being close has taken on a whole new meaning. Closer has become more…

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10 Characteristics Of Disruptive Innovations

Any one of a number of giant companies could have been first to market with a bagless vacuum cleaner. They all knew that their cleaners lost suction when dust bags became full. They also knew how their customers wrestled to empty dust bags while being enveloped by the dirt they’d just sucked up out of…

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Which Would You Choose?

If you could only pick only one of the following, which would you choose? 1. Would you like more people to know about you, your product or service? OR 2. Would you like your existing customers to be blown away by you, your product or service? Awareness doesn’t always scale. But creating difference for your…

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How To Get Attention

Everyone will tell you that in the age of distraction it’s harder than ever to get attention. Actually that’s not strictly true. It’s not difficult to interrupt the rock star as she checks into her hotel to ask for a selfie—just a quick tap on the shoulder, fake smiles and you’re done. It’s easier than…

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Knowing ‘The How’ Is Not Enough

When that friend you haven’t seen for ages shows up at the party in a figuring hugging dress having dropped two sizes, the first thing you say is, “You look great! The second thing you say is, “How did you do it?” And so it goes when we see evidence of any kind of success…

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Where Are The Holes?

It’s hard to be objective when you evaluate your competitors. When you’re feeling vulnerable there is a tendency to think about all of the things your competitors are doing right and how you don’t measure up against them. The irony is that opportunities are realised and groundbreaking ideas are brought to life by doing exactly…

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