21 Sep

Every revolution throughout history has a villain. Every great cause or movement has a power it draws strength from.

“The history of the present King of Great Britain,” Thomas Jefferson writes in the Declaration of Independence, “is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.”

Jefferson goes on to list 26 items as evidence of the king’s tyranny. This evidence, which takes up more than 50% of the Declaration itself, was vital to the document’s purpose: to rally the people of the thirteen colonies, to stand united as one people.

And like all great leaders of Cult Brands, the founding fathers of the United States knew that in order to stand together, you need an archenemy to stand against.

11:45 / Marketing
15 Sep

Most agencies are shooting blindly at a moving target, and they don't even know it.

Your customer has many options.

They can meander into your store or stop by your competitors'.

On their devices, they can do the same or let Google offer dozens of other alternatives they might not even know exist.

How do they really make their decision on where and what to buy? More importantly, what can you do to influence their decision to choose you?

06:00 / Marketing
08 Sep

We all use a mix of rational and irrational criteria when making our purchasing decisions.

An integral part of building a successful retail brand is having a dedicated core of customers who love your store so much that they can't keep themselves from recommending it to their family and friends.

What inspires this behavior?

Many brand managers are stymied by this question. They fall into an all-too-common mistake, acting as if their customers were an alien species of life, prone to completely incomprehensible behaviors that can't possibly be understood, much less predicted.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

09:04 / Marketing
02 Sep

companies often don’t realize they’re boring their customers and employees.

You’re probably doing many things right. But if you’re not careful, it’s easy to fall into habits that result in customers and employees becoming disinterested.

Interesting businesses aren’t just talked about more frequently in the media. Their businesses are alive. Energy flows throughout their organizations into the heart and minds of its customers. 

This open exchange between business and customer continually breathes new life into the enterprise. It also helps to grow the business.

Here’s a list of ten things companies often unintentionally do that bore their customers and employees and what interesting companies do differently. 

06:17 / Marketing
25 Aug

Cult Brands give their customers the sense that they belong.

Human beings have a powerful, instinctive need to belong.

Abraham Maslow was the first to highlight this basic human need. After people meet their physiological and safety needs, they seek a sense of love and belonging. And, when the need for belonging goes unmet, humans become unhappy and behave in unhealthy ways.

The need to belong influences your enterprise both internally and externally.

16:25 / Marketing
18 Aug

A company vision helps you think beyond the company of today in order to build the company of tomorrow.

You’ve got to think about ‘big things’ while you’re doing small things, so that all the small things go in the right direction.Alvin Toffler[1. Rod Willis, "Dare to Imagine the Future: An Interview with Alvin Toffler," Management Digest, 1988.]

The reason most vision statements fail is that they’re as statements. 

Instead of treating a company vision as a North Star—something that is used to guide decision-making—most companies attempt to codify the vision in a brief statement that’s treated as an endpoint. They treat a vision statement as a magic tool: it’s as if just by having one, they’ll be imbued with some preternatural power that supercharges their business.

But, company visions aren’t magical talismans. Company visions are tools.

20:40 / Vision
11 Aug

Again, it is well that you should often leave off work and take a little relaxation, because, when you come back to it you are a better judge; for sitting too close at work may greatly deceive you. Again, it is good to retire to a distance because the work looks smaller and your eye takes in more of it at a glance and sees more easily the discords or disproportion in the limbs and colours of the objects.Leonardo Da Vinci[1. Leonardo Da Vinci, “Of Judging Your Own Pictures,” The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci Complete, translated by John Paul Richter, 1883.]

When things are busy or stressful, it’s easy to get caught up in the doing and lose perspective. And, when you lose perspective, it’s hard to connect your day-to-day actions with what you desire over the long-term

Here are three ways taking a break can help you achieve long-term success.

21:00 / Inspiration / Leadership / Personal Development
04 Aug

Inspired organizations create environments where people want to come to work.

Achieving your company's vision requires having everyone in the organization working towards achieving that goal. Here are ten ways to inspire people in your organization on the way to achieving your company's vision.

10:10 / Leadership
28 Jul

Everything has changed—on the surface. Underneath, the unconscious motivators that drive consumer behavior remain the same.

If we stand here now and look back into the mists of time to the very first days of human commerce we'll discover that business owners have always wanted the answer to a single question: what makes consumers act the way they do?

One of the factors that drive consumer behavior, consciously or otherwise, is meeting individual needs. You're familiar with Maslow's hierarchy of needs, the model that tells us that we are all in possession of certain innate needs that must be met in order for us to enjoy optimal physical and psychological health.

19:57 / Marketing
21 Jul

Understanding the needs you fulfill best is important so that your messaging and strategy emphasizes what motivates your customers to do business with you.

Our approach to understanding customers is founded on what we call the Brand DNA. Brand DNA is the root of developing all long-term strategies and short-term tactics. The Brand DNA consists of three interlocking parts:

  1. Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs
  2. Jungian Archetypes
  3. The Cultural Story
19:10 / Marketing