Helping good people build great brands.
In Oregon’s Willamette Valley, where pinot noir is king, you’ll sometimes hear a phrase: “Pinot fatigue.”
Pinot fatigue sets in (at least in my case) around the third day of wine tasting. Almost every winery produces a pinot noir, sometimes several. After a while, they can start to run together.
Continue reading “Crowded Pools and Empty Pools”
(Reading Time: 4 minutes)There’s a curious tendency these days to bemoan the “disloyalty” of consumers. But is consumer loyalty really in decline?
Some like to point to studies like Deloitte’s annual “American Pantry” study, which this year reported Continue reading “What You Need to Know About Superior Consumer Loyalty”
(Reading Time: 3 minutes)At the gym I frequent, there’s a personal trainer I don’t think very highly of. Let’s call him Duff.
My issue with Duff is that he doesn’t push his clients to work out very hard. In fact, I’ve never seen one sweat. Instead, it’s more like Social Hour. Sometimes, Duff and his client are chatting it up during an exercise, which suggests a pretty low level of exertion. I wish his clients would stop wasting their time and money, and I want Duff to do better training on their behalf.
On a seemingly unrelated note, yesterday I visited a Walmart in Chicago’s west suburbs. At this store, merchandising took a back seat to other priorities; “cluttered” is a fair term to use.
Continue reading “Personal Trainers, Walmart and Differentiation”
(Reading Time: 2 minutes)In an AdAge article released this morning, Nokia CMO Tuula Rytila discusses the new spirit of marketing that apparently exists inside the mobile giant’s hallways.
According to the article, Nokia’s sales plunged by 22% in 2012. To hear Ms. Rytila tell it, that’s a fabulous thing, because now everyone’s head is right. She says:
Continue reading “No, Nokia! Market Share Doesn’t Determine Mindset.”
(Reading Time: 2 minutes)That’s what a former boss said to me, more than once, when I was a young brand manager. It was her way of justifying thoughtless, copycat strategy.
Besides raising some serious concerns about my own career path, this kind of thinking destroys brand growth. Here are some alternative statements that are more true: Continue reading ““If Our Competitors Are Doing it, It Must Be Working.””