Once upon a time, marketing departments at manufacturers were sales driven organizations. They were run by people who rose through the ranks of sales and assumed the titles of VP for Sales & Marketing. They shied away from less familiar branding and marketing techniques that their B2C brethren lived for more than one hundred years. […]
A careful read of manufacturing and B2B stats paints an interesting picture of an underlying sea change. Let’s see if we can answer some basic questions. What goals are manufacturers trying to achieve with their marketing budgets? The chart below shows that manufacturers are beginning to embrace branding as a means to outcompete, outperform, and […]
Skepticism abounds amongst manufacturing marketers, yet the leaders are doing absolutely stunning things with their social media touch points. Great use and reuse of photographs, videos and engaging conversations. Here are a couple of my favorites: GE Pinterest page: GE Google+ page: GE Facebook page: GE YouTube page: GE Twitter page: John Deere Facebook page: […]
Once in a long while, I come across a book that I just can’t stop reading until I finish it. And then I have to read it again and again to savor it. For a guy who finishes a book every week, only a few books have had a magical impact on me. These include […]
Brand managers, take note. Researchers are finding out that insecticides introduced in the 1990’s are causing the decline of bee colonies two decades later. Similarly, the impact of poor branding may not be felt for a decade or two, but ultimately it will catch up. I see several colleges, companies and non-profits doing a reckless […]
In searching for the true essence of brands, we often journey, sometimes physically and at other times virtually, to mythical lands of their origin stories. Consider some recent places we have visited in our imagination: Xanten in Rhineland where St. Norbert was born, monasteries of Holy Cross in Southern France where Blessed Basil Anthony Moreau […]
James Turrell, the artist of light, recently said “In a lucid dream, you have a sharper sense of color and lucidity than with your eyes open. I’m interested in the point where imaginative seeing and outside seeing meet, where it becomes difficult to differentiate between seeing from the inside and seeing from the outside.” I […]
In our view, branding is the process of: attaching an idea to a product or service e.g. achievement for Nike, freedom for Southwest Air. creating expectations and promises around a product or a service creating strong to impenetrable differentiation in the marketplace What’s your definition?
Colleges and universities have found brand religion. However, branding of higher education institutions is more challenging than creating consumer product brands. Why? Because higher education institutions serve an extraordinarily large number of stakeholders and make decisions by building consensus. Following these 10 steps to build a college brand may be harder than it sounds: Recognize […]
One simple truth, so many ways of saying it. Here are a some you may recognize and others you may not: “Keep your eye clear, and hit ’em where they ain’t” said the baseball legend William Keeler. “The purple cow”, a book written by Seth Godin of “Permission Marketing” fame. “Zag when others zig”, the […]