NEED insight

As of this week, I’ve been writing this blog for 10 years. I’ve taken it in many different directions. Looked at brands inside-out and outside-in, downside-up and upside-down. But it’s all been about one thing, a single point made in 233 ways. Deeper needs. That’s because I believe that’s where brands live, in the implicit world. Of course, they spend their time in the explicit one. Grabbing people’s attention, getting considered, being bought and then experienced.

What’s the main problem with your brand? Is it that not enough people are aware of it? Or they’ve heard of it but would never consider buying it? Or they might consider doing so but would rather buy another brand? Or they go to buy it but get tempted away at the last minute? Or they buy it and use it, only to find the experience isn’t what they expected? Or they were happy enough with it, but next time around they buy a different brand? Or they really liked it a

There was a line in an old physics school report of mine that has always stayed with me. “He understands the subject fully, and will not let any point pass that he has not completely mastered.” You can take that in two ways, can’t you? Particularly with the comma, which was definitely there. Thinking back, I probably should have stuck with physics. But I decided to do an Engineering degree instead, which I didn’t find interesting. So when it came to leaving, I scrambl

Marketing isn’t simple. The problem is we all desperately want it to be. So we try to make the discipline into a science. All that’s done is turn everything into an argument about who’s right and who’s wrong. We’ve done brand versus performance, penetration versus loyalty, distinctiveness versus differentiation. Now it’s AI versus human. The closest we get to wisdom is saying the answer is both. But that isn’t the real answer and deep down we know it. Proper science i