NEED insight

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

Everybody loves a shortcut. Saves time, effort and money.   Marketing people are no different.   I bet you have plenty of challenges. And at the heart of it might well be understanding what’s happening. In your market, in your consumers’ lives, inside their heads.   So if someone beckons you down a less rocky path, of course you’re interested.   But beware that siren call.   It might be the argument that strategy can all be inside-out. Just answer the big ‘we’ questions about