August 4, 2009
Tucker, my Labrador retriever, usually has no interest in wasting his time letting me pet him. He has more important things to do, like stand at the living room window, where he can bark at threatening leaves that the wind happens to blow by—unless, that is, I start petting my German shepherd, …
July 10, 2009
A near-sacred marketing myth holds that when advertising is truly creative, sales inevitably follow.
The Creativity Myth has four effects, all of them unfortunate: One, clients waste money by giving agencies more incentive to “out-creative” one another than to build sales. Two, creative people prematurely and unwisely dismiss the tried-and-proven. Three, some …
May 29, 2009
Don’t look now, but budget cutters are greedily eyeing your department. And, in lean times, there is nothing quite like a marketing budget to set off their inner Pavlovian bell.
Good luck reasoning with them. You can try explaining that marketing creates sales, and that cutting back in a slow economy is like …
March 27, 2009
Steve Cuno has a passion for blending science with marketing. The founder and chairman of Response Agency Inc., a direct response marketing firm in Salt Lake City, Cuno is a nationally recognized expert in branding and measurable marketing. In his new book, Prove It Before You Promote It: …
July 8, 2008
Re-brands are fashionable these days.
No, that’s not quite correct. What’s fashionable is reworking the logo and tagline and calling the result a re-brand.
When will marketers learn?
Your brand isn’t what you say. It’s what your products and behavior show. If you want to …
April 24, 2008
We recently ran across this gem on a bank’s Web site: “To us, [our city] is not a ‘market’ … While some banks are looking to make a profit, we want to make a difference, one person at a time.”
Perhaps, somewhere, someone was moved by this copy. All we were compelled to …
