Have you noticed (if you watch any traditional cable or dish TV shows, of course you have) how much more dominant, repetitive, and yes, annoying than ever in recent memory have become the ads for two categories of products–Insurance and Pharma? Within Insurance, perhaps none is more relentlessly brow-beaten into us than the Liberty Mutual […]
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Differentiation is fundamental to marketing success. It aids in transforming a product into a brand and for a brand to stand out from the extensive crowd of homogenous products. However, it is not differentiation for the sake of merely being different. Something may be different but fail to make a positive impression on target customers […]
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Labor Day has come and gone, signaling the unofficial end to summer. We hope you enjoyed a wonderful vacation, affording you some welcome relief from the confinement of the past 18-months brought on by the Covid pandemic. Now we’re all back at work. Accordingly, we are resuming DISPATCHES and Marketing Matters—articles sharing insights from the […]
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Today is Memorial Day. It’s a very special day. Memorial Day does not just mark a holiday weekend or the unofficial start of summer. It is a time when we remember and honor military personnel who sacrificed with their lives that we might enjoy life, freedom, and a world of lasting peace—people like my Grand […]
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“The goal isn’t to do business with people who need what you make; the goal is to do business with people who believe what you believe.” Simon Sinek, popular “TED” video More and more we are convinced that the most common and costliest brand positioning blunders occur in targeting. Most common because way too many in senior […]
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Last Thursday, 23 April, was World Book Day. We hope you took notice. It’s the day to recognize and promote the benefit of reading books. World Book Day is organized by UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization). The date is rather auspicious. It marks the day that several prominent authors were either born […]
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“So, remember that rising productivity means getting more output for less input.” (Anonymous) “It’s not the daily increase but daily decrease. Hack away at the unessential.” (Bruce Lee) “The less effort, the faster and more powerful you will be.” (Bruce Lee) There’s an old chestnut in some companies—especially popular among the company’s operations folks—that the term “marketing productivity” […]
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Contrary to what you may have learned in school, positioning is the most important “P” in marketing. It should not be treated as a subset of promotion. To create a competitive positioning strategy, it must reflect your aspirations for the brand and its relationship to target customers within the context of market competitors. The Brand […]
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Conundrum, noun. A confusing and difficult problem or question. The general public tends to give Johnson & Johnson a lot of much-deserved credit—for well over a hundred years’ history of manufacturing superior-performing, totally safe, and (best of all) highly trusted products. And a good many blue-chip companies—including competitors—also give J&J high marks, even kudos, both for persistently […]
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We’ve recently begun work for a client in a therapeutic category where the right treatment can mean the difference between prolonging life or dying prematurely. As we do with every assignment, we review the client’s and their competitors’ messaging. In this case, there are 14 brands (including therapies with multiple brands) and 26 ads—14 targeted […]
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