Marketing

The companies that survive longest are the ones that work out what they uniquely can give to the world—not just growth or money but their excellence, their respect for others, or their ability to make people happy. Some call these things a soul. —Charles Handy, "The Search for Meaning" in Leader to Leader

By Retired Chief Marketing Officer of Kohl’s Department Stores, Julie Gardner Every Journey requires some kind of compass—a sense of where one is headed and an assurance that one is on the right path.

Brand Equity can be defined as the commercial value that derives from consumer perception of the brand name of a particular product or service, in other words, the value premium that a company generates from a product with a recognizable name when compared to a generic equivalent. Think Apple's new iPhone X price starting at $1000 compared to a generic smartphone.

 

We assert that nothing has been accomplished without interest on the part of the actors; and—if interest be called passion, inasmuch as the whole individuality, to the neglect of all other actual or possible interests and claims, is devoted to an object with every fibre of volition, concentration all its desires and powers upon it—we may affirm absolutely that nothing great in the World has been accomplished without passion.

—Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Lectures on the Philosophy of History

 

A great leader’s courage to fulfill his vision comes from passion, not position.

—John C. Maxwell, The 21 Indispensable Qualities of a Leader

  The logo on the bottom of the Southwest airplane is a heart. Do you think it’s an accident that millions of Southwest passengers perceive the airline to be the “heart in the sky?”

Businesses aggressively strive to establish trust with their customers but often neglect the need to cultivate confidence in their workplaces. Economist John Helliwell researched the determinants of workplace happiness and found that trust is the greatest contributor, beating out pay, workload, or perks. A one-point increase on the trust scale can mean the equivalent of the psychological benefits associated with a 40% wage increase.

Malcolm Gladwell tells a famous story about Howard Moskowitz, the food scientist who discovered for Prego that what customers wanted was a chunky spaghetti sauce. Armed with this information, Prego introduced a chunky sauce and had some of its most profitable years ever. Part of the reason Moskowitz was so successful in his research was that he was willing to question everything. No variable was fixed. Everything that could be questioned would be questioned.