NEED insight

In an ideal world every Christmas present would be like that 12” vinyl in the John Lewis ad.   A moment of connection, a lifelong memory.   Real life isn’t always like that, is it?   Of course, you think about the person you’re buying for. Their likes and dislikes, what you’ve given them before, anything you know they want.   But then you have to go and find something.   That’s when all your good intentions can end up in tatters at the side of the road.   Say you want to stay

Marketing has long been its own worst enemy.   The tactical error was surrendering three of the four P’s. For many now marketing is Promotion.   The big casualty of this is the disconnect with the Product.   It used to be at the heart of everything. Now it arrives on your desk and all it needs is gift-wrapping.   Of course, Product doesn’t just mean the thing your company makes.   It’s the packaging, the attributes, the service design, the context, the tangible and the intang

Sunday morning I happened upon the latest post from Professor Sharp.  His chosen title was ‘Yawn, I’m sick of the fake differentiation debate’. I expected the normal arguments. Distinctiveness wins every time. It’s no longer a case of Differentiate or Die, if it ever was. The Trumpian tone of the headline was new, but the post itself was pretty balanced. Some brands are differentiated in product terms, most aren’t, not by much anyway.  Then I got to the comments. The majority

When’s it time to change your strapline? I really don’t know.   Salience theory says pretty much never. Whatever decision was made back in the mists of time you should stick with.   And if the line’s as good as ‘Never Knowingly Undersold’, you could be OK.   But the storytelling approach says every ad needs its own punchline. So the new John Lewis Christmas one ends with ‘If you can’t find the words, find the gift’.   Some people argue for consistency and then use Apple and N