I read an interesting article in November’s issue of Marketing News.  “Learn to Use Communication’s Negative Space,” by Prophet’s Kevin O’Donnell is a great piece on how to pull your marketing message out of the clutter of every day life. [Read more...]

The last two days featured a case study on targeted marketing and rebranding. A fictional bait & tackle shop tried to target its “perfect customer.” The first attempt was a miss and actually hurt business for the shop. However, it also yielded a great deal of information about the market and helped determine who the real perfect customer was. [Read more...]

Yesterday, I gave you a hypothetical marketing situation. We run a bait & tackle shop. Having defined our perfect customer, we changed our store layout and image to fit them and waited to see how this changed our business. Today, three months later in the thought-experiment, we see business has declined in two of our three market segments and remained unchanged in the one we thought was our perfect customer. What do we do to fix this? [Read more...]

Once again, you need to evaluate who your story tellers are. We did just do this a few days ago, but keep in mind that this must be an on-going process for your brand.

Here’s an example…

We run a bait & tackle shop near a popular fishing shop. Obviously, our customers will be somewhat seasonal. During the on-season, we see three different kinds of people in our store: Dock Dwellers, City Slickers, and Locals. [Read more...]

Arguably, one of the most important elements of a brand is its avatar or logo. This image is the most recognizable part of the brand; it appears on the product, its packaging, media advertisements, and possibly your storefront. Building an avatar is a task and a half, and the process involves many steps. [Read more...]

Successful brands speak for themselves. This takes a lot of work from the marketing department, but it is possible. An animated brand can stand by itself; an inert one needs the constant weight of the company behind it and remains more a sub-brand than a brand in its own right. [Read more...]