Going back, way back in time, when I was an elementary school student, we referred to our classmates (and adults) who were really, really smart as “eggheads.” Irwin Chimerin, our PS 163 class valedictorian (1960), was an egghead. Einstein was an egghead. I’m an egghead too, but not because I’m particularly smart. I’m a different […]
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What do you know about Ralph Lauren? Do you know he’s an iconic American fashion designer? Certainly. Do you know that his birth name is Ralph Lifshitz? Probably not. Do you know that he’s built a multi-billion-dollar global company? Maybe – Maybe not. What’s there to know? Ralph Lauren, the man and the brand, is […]
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I’m a career marketer. I’ve been at it for more than 45-years. During this time, I have held every position in marketing and handled every kind of marketing situation. So, one might say I know something about marketing. At the start of my career, my birth family and childhood friends would ask, “Richie, what do […]
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Super Bowl LIII is now ancient history. The winner is … No, we’re not referring to the game but the event’s advertisers. If you’re one of the advertisers, you want to know if your commercial scored with consumers. If you were not an advertiser in this sports adstravaganza, you, as a marketer, are undoubtedly involved in […]
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Following the football during Sunday’s big game will help you track your team’s progress down the field, into the end zone, and through the uprights for a score. But, if you want to see who’s scoring with advertising, in the grandest adstravaganza of the year, where each :30-second spot costs >$5-million just for the air […]
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Coach – a vehicle for transporting people to a place they cannot reach on their own. When it comes to providing direction to agency creatives, or anyone whose work you are invited to assess and contribute to, it is far better to coach than evaluate. Evaluation is about identifying what’s wrong with the work whereas […]
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“Tell me short and tell me true or else my dear to h*&l with you.” Worldwide Creative Director Agency account personnel often take the role of translators for clients responding to creative work. I was often troubled whenever they attempted to come between me and the creatives. I was never into playing the telephone game as […]
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“Commitment—the capacity to act and follow-through on a result worth creating—is key to all success. Commitment means choosing. It means taking action to support your choices…People don’t quit or fail because they lack ideas or talent. They fail or quit because they lack a tried-and-true structure—a framework—that energizes and organizes their choices and actions.” -Kenneth […]
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An account has been identified as “competitive.” What this means is that they do not carry, use or prescribe your brand. They, instead, carry, use or prescribe one of your competitor’s brands. Hence the label “competitive” account. What do you do? Any marketer and sales person worth her/his salt knows that what you do is […]
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A friend and marketing colleague asked me what I thought about the new MasterCard logo. Like me, he’s a big fan of MasterCard given their success in pro-sitioning the brand to propel significant growth over the past 20-years. Quite frankly, I think I might have been enjoying the holiday festivities far too much because I […]
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