brand strategy
1,082 posts
Create What People Want
When Ken and Nick lamented the passing of old-style pastrami and then decided to do something about it, they probably had a hunch that there were people who felt just like they did. Once they set to work tasting and testing and re-inventing the ultimate American comfort food they knew they were onto
Why Startups Stall
It’s easy to start something today. Now that the gatekeepers are leaving their gates and the barrier to entry is lower than ever, anyone with an idea and an Internet connection can start a business. You don’t need a big staff on payroll or a factory to get the work done. So more people are…
Why The Price Doesn’t Always Matter
At the start of the last school year as I stood in a queue I overheard a mother asking an assistant if the $200 calculator she was holding would be coming down in price. The assistant replied that this had been the price for a while, pointing out that the calculator was only required for…
Marketing Is All About Values
In 1997 Steve Jobs was unhappy about how much Apple was spending on marketing and about the message the company was communicating. He realised that in an increasingly noisy world the chances for any company to be remembered were diminishing and that Apple needed to get really clear about what it was
Story Is The Universal Marketing Tool
Story doesn’t discriminate. It’s not dependent on a big advertising department or celebrity endorsement. It’s the universal marketing tool available to anyone. That includes you. When Target had a store in every suburb. Zappos had a story about delivering ‘wow through service’. When Borders had floo
A Reason To Decide
She spotted the black dress just as she was about to give up. It was perfect. She imagined how it would cling in all the right places at the party on Friday night. And how she would feel when he spotted her across the crowded room. The reason you buy the dress isn’t the same…
Why Bother?
Why bother having a customer care line that informs of a thirty minute wait and asks people to call back later? Why bother selling an awards based credit card, then capping the points your customers can earn? Why bother creating cheap for the masses, when you can deliver quality to the few? Why both
Don’t Worry So Much About Awareness
Just the thought of the kind of marketing dollars the big brands will have invested in advertising for the Olympics is enough to make my eyes water. The result, millions of dollars worth of beautifully shot, feel good commercials that probably won’t sell many more phone plans or gold cards. Awarenes
How To Attract More Of The Right Customers
How can you attract more of the customers you want to work with? Easy. Tell people who you want to work with. Tell them with your pricing and your website copy. Talk about your values. Frame your scarcity. Don’t be afraid to spell it out. When Tiffany & Co (who position themselves as the world’s…
Apple’s Not-So-Secret Marketing Secret
Why would anyone buy a 13 inch MacBook Air? Why not buy the Pro? It’s faster, has more memory, it’s actually only 700 grams heavier and .7cm thicker (or 2.4cm ‘thin’ in Applespeak) and it costs exactly the same. Why pay a chunk of cash for less of something? When I asked my Twitter friends…
20 Questions To Answer Before Asking How Much Money Can I Make?
1. Why do I want to do this? 2. What do I care about? 3. What brings me joy? 4. What am I good at? 5. What’s scarce? 6. What problem can I solve? 7. Who needs me? 8. How can I make a difference? 9. How can I deliver value? 10.What can I change?…
We Don’t Have To
We arrived at the restaurant right on time, because we knew they needed the table by 7pm for the next booking. The waitress forgot to smile as we pushed open the door, where the sign still read ‘closed’. “We’ll be open in three minutes!” she barked. Oh. The smile never made an appearance. But that’s
The Sure Thing
If you’ve ever watched surfers you’ll know that they spend far more time reading the waves, than riding them. And despite all of the waiting, watching and experience, they still sometimes choose the wrong wave to ride. In the end they take their best guess, commit and go. And so it goes for ideas to
How To Charge What You’re Worth
The days when you clocked in and out, and got paid by the hour for dipping squares of caramel into big vats of icing, (pink or white—a job my mother did for years), at the factory, are largely gone. You don’t get paid for showing up. And yet that’s how many creative entrepreneurs try to…
The Story Makes The Product Better
For three decades, 10% of the population of the tiny Welsh town, Cardigan, made jeans. 35,000 pairs every week. Then one day the factory died, and the jean artisans could no longer practice their art. They simply had no way to do the thing they did well, until Hiut Denim was founded. Now the company
How Dollar Shave Club Succeeds With A Better Brand Story
How does a startup come on to the scene, take on giant global brands like Gillette, and win? That’s what Dollar Shave Club did, by harnessing the power of great brand storytelling. This is how they did it. By telling the truth, and keeping it simple. With an easy to remember brand name and tagline,…
Understanding The Problem To Solve
There are a million and one web hosting services on the market. It’s hardly a niche. The market is so saturated, why would you consider launching yet another one? That’s exactly what my friend Kelly did. Her hosting business doesn’t stand out by competing on spec, or uptime. Kelly differentiates by
Because It Matters
How do you stand out when there are two other juice bars on the same street, and half a dozen ‘good enough’ life coaches just three clicks away? If you’ve got the same choices as the competition, how you choose can make all the difference. Do you make decisions based on what’s gone before, or…
What Does The Competition Do?
I was consulting with two financial planners this week. We were discussing what made them different, when they told me this story about working with one of their clients. Jonathan was offered $9 million for his house, which had amazing, never to be replaced views out over the river. He was in a quan
Why Are People Ignoring You?
It’s been a while since I bought a nice glossy magazine. I usually enjoy flicking through one at my favourite cafe. I’m not sure why I was so surprised to get 32 pages into the latest edition of Vogue and still be on the adverts. The entire magazine was 208 pages, 100 of those pages…
