brand framing
442 posts
3 Things Your About Page Must Do
Your website’s about page is the place where prospective customers come to look you in the virtual eye and it’s also the most overlooked marketing opportunity you have. 3 Things Your Website’s About Page Must Do 1. Build trust. Think about the reasons we visit about pages. Mostly we want to get a se
The Gap Between Saying And Doing
You will have seen this image of a goldfish making a courageous leap from his bowl on countless websites. It’s meant to convey a message about a company that’s not afraid to challenge the status quo, of course it’s now so ubiquitous, it does exactly the opposite. Nobody in the marketing department g
What Your Competitors Can’t Copy
Back in the day our neighbour had to buy her gluten-free products from a tiny and very expensive range of products at the local pharmacy. If you wanted organic products you trekked across town to a speciality store. Not so today. As demand drives supply, competitors enter new markets and what was on
Making Things People Want
We are buying fewer pairs of jeans and more yoga pants, eating less gluten and more coconut oil. Trends are not simply a shift in behaviour, they are a sign of a change in the story we want to believe about ourselves. When you develop a product, service or platform it’s not enough to consider…
The Business You’d Want To Visit
Matthew Weiner, the creator of the wildly successful TV series Mad Men carried that script around with him for four years, shopping the idea to whoever would listen. During that time people asked him if he was aware of how uncommercial his idea was before they rejected it. The reason the folks at AM
Why Did You Win?
Even when our innovation and marketing succeeds, we don’t always take the time to understand what’s working so that we can replicate it. We gratefully welcome and respond to prospective new customers every day, often without knowing how and why they showed up. Five questions to get you started 1. Ho
Marketing In The Connection Economy
Traditional marketing, conceived for an industrial age asks us to believe in the wisdom of the funnel. Create something for most people, compete for the interest of some of them and convert a handful to customers. Ironically what works in the connected economy, where our potential customers have acc
The Value Of Giving To Give
A supermarket loyalty card helps the company more than it does the shopper. We all know that it’s less a way of rewarding customer loyalty and more a way of collecting useful data. Much of the ‘giving’ we do in business is because some kind of return is expected down the track. This drawing that…
Too Cheap To Be Good
When a friend was shopping around for a logo designer she got several recommendations and then asked for quotes. The range was extraordinary, but no more extraordinary than her reaction. The companies that quoted below what she felt was reasonable were immediately discounted and they lost her busine
The Story Creates The Customer
Have you ever noticed what happens at the organic cafe? As the customer places an order he asks what’s in it. This happens almost every single time. The experience, our posture and products—the story, create the customer. When we encourage people to believe something matters, we attract the kind of
How To Tell The Story Of Your Products
Why is real estate copywriting so terrible? Maybe it’s not that bad in your town or city, but wherever I have lived the copy seems to serve one purpose—to fill the space between the images and the floor plan in the brochure. Here are a couple of examples of copy written to sell million dollar…
The Importance Of The First Stroke
The coach leaned forward on her handle bars and across the bike path at the side of the lake. The four girls in the boat who had been training since sun up hung on her every word. “I want you to focus on the first stroke, nothing else. Just keep thinking I am going to…
Your Brand Story Is More Than What You Say
It’s a chilly autumn morning and the waitress in the cafe down the street is folding blankets to put over the chairs outside just in case customers are feeling the cold. The local doctor who is half way through her busy surgery, comes out to the waiting room and invites Adam into her consulting room
The Value Of What We Don’t Know
Six years. That’s how long it took IKEA to research the South Korean culture before they were ready to open the first store there. Six years of understanding what they didn’t know about the story Korean customers lived and wanted to believe—so that they could tell a story that resonated. The goal wa
The ‘Only’ Metric
We often downplay our effort or achievement by using the metric of ‘only’.
Before And After
Before any business is done you and your potential customer each have a story playing in your head. There is the worldview you each have before the transaction takes place and the outcome you hope will eventuate afterwards. The outcome that you want and the one that the customer is hoping for may be
What We Value And Reward Defines Us
Brian has a tough gig. He works at a call centre for an Internet service provider. You can probably imagine what his day looks like. When we spoke I could hear background noise that sounded like hundreds of other people in a tiny space doing exactly what Brian was trying to do—close the sale. Brian…
If We Build It Will They Come?
This is precisely the wrong question to start any project with. A better way to begin is by asking: Who wants us to build it and why will they come? *This photo of Walt Disney showing the Disneyland plans to Orange County officials was taken in Dec 1954.* Walt knew where to start. Image from…
A Lesson In Unlocking Value
When you book a room at the Hilton or the Hyatt you either have a pleasant conversation with someone in a call centre who you will never hear from again, or you get a polite, well-crafted email in your inbox. Your expectation about the experience is based on the photos from the website and the…
What’s Your Customer’s Why?
It’s true that people buy from companies they like. We feel an affinity with some brands and not others and our purchasing decisions reinforce our values. The Internet has given rise to a new kind of savvy, connected customer. She seeks out purpose driven brands whose ideals resonate with hers. Whil
