Mastering the LinkedIn Introduction20211229214325
Mastering the LinkedIn Introduction
December 29, 20210 comments
The LinkedIn introduction seems childishly simple. The entire platform is engineered to drive effective introductions! However, there is a yawning gap between simply throwing your name in someone̵...
Want better brand strategy? Tune up your storytelling skill.20210919100020
Want better brand strategy? Tune up your storytelling skill.
September 19, 20210 comments
When a client engages me on a brand storytelling project, we always begin by looking inward. Why did they launch the company in the first place? What is it, beyond money, that excites them? What adve...
Want powerful brand communication? Just ask.20210823181134
Want powerful brand communication? Just ask.
August 23, 20210 comments
Here’s my deepest, darkest secret. I’ve never actually created brand communication for a client. They do all the work themselves. No, they don’t mail in sketches and taglines. I just chat with t...
Evaluating creative ideas20210823041612
Evaluating creative ideas
August 23, 20210 comments
When it comes to developing breakthrough brand work, evaluating ideas is crucial. After all, what might seem like a brilliant creative idea at first blush could turn out to all flash and no persuasion...
The seven commandments of brand management20210329180134
The seven commandments of brand management
March 29, 20210 comments
If you want to do brand management right, you can’t be afraid of playing with the DNA a bit (actually, that’s commandment number 3 below). Thus ‘seven commandments’ instead of ...
Building a brand with soul20210322180952
Building a brand with soul
March 22, 20210 comments
The definition of icon is ‘a person or thing regarded as a representative symbol or worthy of veneration’. A brand represents your company. So, technically, it’s an icon. But is it worthy of ven...
Consumers are humans. To sell to them, get to know them.20200815213121
Consumers are humans. To sell to them, get to know them.
August 15, 20200 comments
Funny thing about consumers. The more distant they get from a marketer, the more they tend to look like research statistics. But the thing is, consumers are humans. They’re not numbers. ThatR...
Bootstrap Marketing and The Beautiful Idea20200511190339
Bootstrap Marketing and The Beautiful Idea
May 11, 20200 comments
Bootstrap Marketing and the Beautiful Idea is one of the keynote addresses I give on a regular basis. It resonates particularly well with startup audiences – although I’ve seen a fair numb...
The trouble with origin storytelling? The origin.20200101210101
The trouble with origin storytelling? The origin.
January 1, 20200 comments
Storytelling is de rigueur in marketing today. And origin stories (those describing a founder’s or product’s origin and journey to success) are the most popular of the genre. There is an a...
Marketing solutions to problems that don’t exist?20190912053656
Marketing solutions to problems that don’t exist?
September 12, 20190 comments
Can you think of one thing that really revs you up? For me, it’s teaching. I’m a brand consultant. I’m an entrepreneur. But nothing beats the thrill of teaching. When I was teaching at the university ...
Do sustainability and real estate marketing mix?20190829184434
Do sustainability and real estate marketing mix?
August 29, 20190 comments
Spirit Bay is a whole new kettle of fish when it comes to real estate marketing. The village, on the southern coast of Vancouver Island in Canada, was developed based on traditional principles of comm...
Pushing past your comfort zone: my University of Adversity interview20190705181557
Pushing past your comfort zone: my University of Adversity interview
July 5, 20190 comments
My journey through the world of marketing has had its fair share of ups, downs, goods, bads and uglies. So when University of Adversity podcast host Lance Essihos dialled me up to relate my stories to...
What’s in this coffee? The unlikely rise of McDonald’s brand brew.20190514230937
What’s in this coffee? The unlikely rise of McDonald’s brand brew.
May 14, 20190 comments
The other day, I was strolling through Costco, and saw McDonald’s brand coffee pods on sale. I was amazed – not so long ago, I was working on the McDonald’s account as a creative dir...
Your most powerful marketing tool is the humble testimonial video20190503004400
Your most powerful marketing tool is the humble testimonial video
May 3, 20190 comments
Nobody wants to buy what you’re pitching. It’s simple psychology. You’re making a pitch. Thus, you have a vested interest that makes your pitch partisan, and your audience cynical. But what happ...
Could you successfully market yourself on a plane? (The secret of the unique selling proposition)20180822004229
Could you successfully market yourself on a plane? (The secret of the unique selling proposition)
August 22, 20180 comments
I met an interesting gentleman a short time ago, who was also a master of the unique selling proposition. He walked up to my desk at the client office, and politely asked what I was doing. I explained...
Make your landing page your hardest-working brand tool20180604201950
Make your landing page your hardest-working brand tool
June 4, 20180 comments
Long, long ago, in a time before landing pages, I used to build brand bibles for my clients. These ‘bibles’ were repositories of everything great and good about their brand, including: The...
How to brand in the gig economy20180528045157
How to brand in the gig economy
May 28, 20180 comments
A brand is, by definition, the equivalent of reputation – and in today’s gig economy, reputation is what enables solopreneurs and entrepreneurs to survive and thrive. But there’s a f...
Use your common sense before you think positioning20180223201820
Use your common sense before you think positioning
February 23, 20180 comments
Before you can work on positioning your product, you need to get inside the consumer’s head to figure out what the heck they’re thinking. About your product, about competitor products, abo...
Why you don’t need to be the product expert to be the product marketer20180219041325
Why you don’t need to be the product expert to be the product marketer
February 19, 20180 comments
My job as a product marketer is to find the core truth in the brand we’re selling. The core truth is what people say about our product, unprompted and off the cuff. If we can capture that truth ...
The power of a visual brand20180118000309
The power of a visual brand
January 18, 20180 comments
There simply is nothing more powerful than a visual brand – a brand you can identify without words by simply seeing a powerful icon. That’s why, as part of virtually every brand project, I...
Brand shorthand: the power of brand templates20180104001405
Brand shorthand: the power of brand templates
January 4, 20180 comments
Say you’ve just created a powerful campaign to market a complex product (a car, for example, or a real estate development). Then, a couple of key people on the business are transferred onto anot...
Building the solopreneur brand20180102001209
Building the solopreneur brand
January 2, 20180 comments
Building a solopreneur brand is as tough as being a solopreneur. As a solopreneur myself, I know it’s difficult to choose a tight niche, and build my brand around it – it’s simply to...
Which brand platform is best? (Spoiler alert: any of them)20171221001046
Which brand platform is best? (Spoiler alert: any of them)
December 21, 20170 comments
Today, choosing how to effectively communicate can feel like drinking from a firehose. There are simply too many platforms for marketing your message. More often than not, the overabundance of choice ...
Christmas marketing? Or Christmas hypermarketing?20171205000935
Christmas marketing? Or Christmas hypermarketing?
December 5, 20170 comments
Not long ago, my wife pointed out that the Christmas marketing and shopping season was now not only infringing on Thanksgiving – but even Halloween! What next? Would we be doing our Christmas sh...
Want to build brand awareness with a publicity stunt? Read this first20171003000501
Want to build brand awareness with a publicity stunt? Read this first
October 3, 20170 comments
(Photo: Lululemon’s legendary ‘Show Up Naked And Get Free Gear’ stunt generated terrific brand awareness) In the age of social media, a publicity stunt can be a boon for your brand a...
Eclipses, superstition, and marketing.20170905004301
Eclipses, superstition, and marketing.
September 5, 20170 comments
On August 21st, the world witnessed a stunning solar eclipse. And in completely unrelated news, on August 21st I went on the air to chat marketing. It seemed too good an opportunity to pass up. Could ...
What Bill Bernbach would say about data driven marketing.20170829005842
What Bill Bernbach would say about data driven marketing.
August 29, 20170 comments
I love tech. Most of my clients are launching or growing the next generation of wizardry that will make the world a better, more facile, happier place. My job is to tell audiences exactly what it is m...
Brand backcasting – envision the future, then plan how to get there.20170718005129
Brand backcasting – envision the future, then plan how to get there.
July 18, 20170 comments
Over the course of 25 years of helping clients build effective brands, I’ve discovered a huge, yawning gap in the market: commonsense brand building techniques aimed at entrepreneurs who want to...
Advertising engagement, without the annoyance factor20170606005641
Advertising engagement, without the annoyance factor
June 6, 20170 comments
Advertising engagement is a polite way of defining the raison d’etre of ads… you advertise in order to engage your audience. There are a number of ways to create advertising engagement. Yo...
Brand betrayal: the tale of Tim Hortons20170418004212
Brand betrayal: the tale of Tim Hortons
April 18, 20170 comments
A recent Globe and Mail story described the ‘brutal’ brand betrayal of beloved Canadian restaurant Tim Hortons. The cause of the messy shift? Budget cuts by Tim’s new owners – ...
How to bring marketing integrity back? Just ask consumers.20170117001012
How to bring marketing integrity back? Just ask consumers.
January 17, 20170 comments
There is no better way to demonstrate marketing integrity than by letting your customers tell your story for you. Sadly, where there’s an opportunity, there’s an opportunity to scam the sy...
Does branding Christmas ruin the spirit?20161221005501
Does branding Christmas ruin the spirit?
December 21, 20160 comments
Every year, it’s the same – companies branding Christmas assault us with terrible ads, grating songs and depersonalized cards only make things worse. In the spirit of the season, I went on...
Christmas advertising, and the death of sincerity20161220004544
Christmas advertising, and the death of sincerity
December 20, 20160 comments
It’s Christmas. I should be feeling charitable. But “Coca Cola – Top of the Christmas wish list.” Really? Who approved that Christmas advertising campaign? Do they really, real...
Instead of selling cereal, OWN cereal.20161207231925
Instead of selling cereal, OWN cereal.
December 7, 20160 comments
Yesterday, I had a terrific conversation with Spring Advertising founder and Creative Director Rob Schlyecher. Like myself, Rob believes the classic ad agency model is flawed. His ‘a-ha’ m...
Has advertising lost its focus on innovation?20160718184312
Has advertising lost its focus on innovation?
July 18, 20160 comments
Leading North American advertising agencies used to be headed by creatives and innovators. Today, managers and accountants hold the reins. The result? Less focus on innovation, and more on efficiency ...
Can brands survive our toxic communication environment?20160616233437
Can brands survive our toxic communication environment?
June 16, 20160 comments
What used to be productive communication has denigrated into toxic shouting matches. Whether it’s the scorched earth political abuse that has served Donald Trump so well, character attacks foggi...
Want a brand that thrives into the future? Learn to decode happiness today.20160601014001
Want a brand that thrives into the future? Learn to decode happiness today.
June 1, 20160 comments
Brands sell happiness. And, of course, brands sell perennial unhappiness. They’re two sides of the same coin – on the one hand, we promise consumers that their next purchase will make them...
Cleantech marketers, simplify your pitch!20160405045948
Cleantech marketers, simplify your pitch!
April 5, 20160 comments
Cleantech Canada asked me to write a series of op-ed pieces on effectively branding technology. This story describes how to make your pitch simpler, and more compelling. Enjoy!...
Are sustainability-driven green giants taking over the world?20160120020657
Are sustainability-driven green giants taking over the world?
January 20, 20160 comments
In this podcast, I explore the rising number of billion dollar companies that were founded on sustainability and social innovation principles. Green Giants is the term given these companies by renowne...
Bootstrap marketing, and a beautiful junk idea.20160120015614
Bootstrap marketing, and a beautiful junk idea.
January 20, 20160 comments
In this podcast, I chat with Brian Scudamore – the iconoclastic founder of 1-800-Got-Junk. Got Junk is a company famous for its cheeky bootstrap marketing. In fact, Scudamore has largely turned ...
Creating a durable brand in a throwaway world20160120015031
Creating a durable brand in a throwaway world
January 20, 20160 comments
In this podcast, I address the bugbear of modern marketing – planned obsolescence. Personally, I love brands like Patagonia and Blancpain – brands that market themselves as durable and eve...
What the Heck is an Authentic Brand, Anyway?20150630100009
What the Heck is an Authentic Brand, Anyway?
June 30, 20150 comments
I should know this. I’m a brand specialist. But again and again, I find myself throwing authentic brand around in conversation, enjoying the feeling of gravitas it lends, without actually understandin...
Social Media, Brand Strategy and Storytelling. The Didn’t See It Coming Podcast20150528100041
Social Media, Brand Strategy and Storytelling. The Didn’t See It Coming Podcast
May 28, 20150 comments
In this program, host Ian Jessop and I discuss how brands often leapfrog brand strategy and story to arrive at social media tactics…with disastrous results. Inspired by my keynote at this month&...
How do I pull more eyeballs to my content marketing?20150424202013
How do I pull more eyeballs to my content marketing?
April 24, 20150 comments
Everyone wants qualified customers sidling up to their content marketing counter, asking ‘How much?’ and ‘Can I take it home today?’ Nobody wants cobwebs in the newbiz folder, ...
Didn’t See It Coming 1: The Podcast20150417203914
Didn’t See It Coming 1: The Podcast
April 17, 20150 comments
For those of you unfamiliar with my book Didn’t See It Coming, this podcast should help. It’s the first in an ongoing series, pulled from my monthly radio appearances on CFAX radio....
Why marketing is averse to new thinking.20150303051155
Why marketing is averse to new thinking.
March 3, 20150 comments
I had a fascinating conversation this morning with Guy Dauncey, a futurist and big brain in the sustainability field. Guy is writing his latest book, a novel that projects us into the Vancouver of 204...
Can your brand survive cultural chaos?20150303043503
Can your brand survive cultural chaos?
March 3, 20150 comments
Culture for people is a bit like water for fish. Most of us don’t know we have one, although we plainly see cultural biases in those outside our group—biases that stop them from seeing the world as it...
