When Did Marketing Become About Telling?

In the village marketing was always about showing. Quality was demonstrated and trust was earned. As we outgrew the village and our small circles of trust and influence marketing became about telling. Loyalty was bought and exposure was paid for. But our digital connectedness is taking us back. Back to a world where people can…

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Thinking About Your Advantages

Every traditional car dealer sells a similar product. What can one Ford dealer do that his competitors in the next suburb can’t? There is very little he has a monopoly on. John is a car dealer who has been operating in Perth for 45 years, he periodically takes out a double page spread in the…

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How Value Is Created

Value is created at the intersection of the customer’s worldview and your understanding of how your product meets that. If that’s hard to get your head around think about plugging a real world example into the model. Customer’s Worldview: Branded razors are expensive. The quality doesn’t reflect the price that I pay for them and…

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The Myth Of Differentiation

If we did a blind taste test on Starbucks coffee would the result tell us that Starbucks sells the best coffee in the world? Probably not, but the facts don’t stop Starbucks succeeding. In theory differentiation is the way we create a tangible advantage. A method for giving people something to measure and a reason…

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Why Strategy Must Come Before Tactics

What’s the best time to send a tweet? How do you develop a content strategy? What’s the easiest way to drive traffic to your website? How do you build a great landing page? If you can ‘Google’ the question and get an answer does that give you an unfair advantage over your competitors? Do you…

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Motivating People To Buy

Imagine you have taken your children on a day trip to the seaside. It’s the perfect day, the sun is shining, the waves are lapping the shore and you’re having a day that you’ll never forget. There is a new gelato shop across the street selling home made ices at $5 a scoop. Clearly as…

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Where A Sale Begins

The sale of the first GoPro camera didn’t begin when the customer walked through the retailer’s door. It didn’t even begin with the huddle of engineers in the tiny innovation department at the factory. The first sale began in the lineup, as the surfers waited to catch a wave. A marketer’s story typically starts with…

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How Deep Does Your Story Go?

It seems like a step in the right direction when the giant multinational supermarket starts selling organic vegetables. But the story begins to unravel when the organic broccoli comes shirk-wrapped in cling film, on a polystyrene tray. The customer who the story is aimed at, feels the disconnect between what’s on the surface and the…

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The New Story Of Value

Jen is a passionate entrepreneur who has been working on her project for over three years. This project is Jen’s baby—she lives and breathes it. You know the feeling. Jen was finally at the stage of trademarking her company internationally, and because she wanted to do things right she engaged a lawyer to file the…

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Clever Marketing

Do you remember those TV ads that succeeded in interrupting or engaging us for sixty seconds? That’s what we used to call clever marketing. Today, clever marketing is no longer about creating the best advertising campaign, it’s about understanding your customer’s worldview and how they want to feel—then delivering on that. Clever marketing creates value…

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