spreading ideas
846 posts
10 Characteristics Of Disruptive Innovations
Any one of a number of giant companies could have been first to market with a bagless vacuum cleaner. They all knew that their cleaners lost suction when dust bags became full. They also knew how their customers wrestled to empty dust bags while being enveloped by the dirt they’d just sucked up out
The New Consumer Relationship
In the days before self-service shopping and before every home had a fridge, the responsibility for daily grocery shopping fell to women. The consumer was someone who came to passively buy what was on offer. While a 1955 focus group could persuade Birdseye to make fish fingers from cod rather than h
What Lens Do You Use?
I’m a huge fan of Human’s of New York. It’s the kind of generous and rare content on the Internet that makes you grateful, sad and optimistic all at once. Brandon (lying down in the photo above because he is 6’4″ and always wants to get down to the level of his subject), will happily…
How Are You Creating Value?
Think about your favourite airline or a product you use every day and the supermarket you feel most comfortable shopping at. Now think about why you keep going back. What is it that this business delivers? The airline most likely sells similar seats, with average legroom, at around the same price as
Lessons In Non-Profit Storytelling From The Best In The World
If you think times are tough in a marketing world where you’re actually providing goods or services in exchange for money, spare a thought for the marketers of charities who need to convince us to part with money without wrapping up something for us to take home. One of the biggest challenges non-pr
How Great Products Are Born, Not Made
When you’re designing a product or service it’s easy to believe that making it the best in the world is what gives you a competitive advantage. But the thing about ‘best’ is that it’s subjective. ‘Best’ isn’t determined by you, it’s your customers and users who decide. The truth is that people don’t
The Myth Of The Digital Shortcut
What Donald Draper wouldn’t have given to be an ‘ad man’ in 2014. No more sitting around in bars scribbling on napkins while watching people going about their business. No more trying to work out what they’re thinking and how they want to feel in order to sell that feeling back to them, for a…
What Will Change Once The Word Gets Out?
On the day after ‘the word gets out’ about your product or service, will you have a thousand news followers on Twitter? Will the kingmaker call? Will your inbox have ten new client leads? Will your stock be flying off the shelves? Will your business be better? Will your bank balance be healthy enoug
10 Questions To Consider Before Embarking On A Social Media Strategy
We’re coming unstuck with the gift that is social media and here’s why. We often forget that social media is not the same as advertising, that it’s not just a collective of platforms we use to blast messages at people. Then there is our obsession about the tactics. The question I hear asked of socia
Don’t Change Your Pitch, Understand Their Story
Back in the days of stay-at-home Mums and morning newspaper deliveries, a memorable tagline on the box (or a coveted toy inside), was enough of a sales pitch to sell us a ton of breakfast cereal. Frosted Flakes were Grrreat because Tony the Tiger said so. And if Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and Micha
The Most Overlooked Part Of A Marketing Strategy
How often do our potential customers come to us and invite us in? That’s exactly what happens when someone visits an about page, they are asking us to tell them more and most of the time we blow it. We spend billions of dollars and countless hours every year trying to get people’s attention and…
Lessons In Brand Storytelling From The Airbnb Rebrand
I have to be honest, as an Airbnb evangelist and user I felt a little disappointed as I watched the company’s relaunch unfold. Of course I wasn’t viewing the whole thing through the eyes of an impartial observer. Anyone who is an early adopter of something that begins on the fringes wants that thing
A Brand Is More Than A Label
We’ve been branding things from cattle, to jewellery and even people for thousands of years. We began by burning our mark into things to signal ownership. When technology and infrastructure gave us access to things beyond our villages branding began to signal a different type of belonging, one that
Driving Sales, The Gates Effect And Flawed Marketing Vocabulary
Over the weekend a previously out of print business book, which was unknown to many and forgotten by most shot up the Amazon bestseller list. Why when we had previously ignored John Brooks’ Business Adventures were we suddenly snapping up enough copies to make it the #1 bestselling business book on
What Gap Is Your Business Closing?
Business is all about closing gaps. Closing the gap between aspirations and attainment, intention and achievement, between wants and experiences. Products and services can also close gaps between needs and functionality, innovation and utility, feelings and facts. But perhaps most importantly, what
All Of The People, All Of The Time
All around us big vanilla businesses and corporations are struggling to understand how to connect with customers and give people what they want. Businesses like McDonalds are ‘resetting’ and trying to find new ways to improve speed and affordability of their core offerings. Their strategy is to beco
Intention Is A Competitive Advantage
Having a competitive advantage is not just about being better in ways that can be measured, it’s about understanding your difference and about knowing how that difference will impact the lives of your customers. Great business leaders know what they want to do well and also importantly what they won
The Marketing Shortcut
The fare on sale at the coffee window of our local cafe changes each morning. On Monday homemade protein power balls and muesli bars are strategically laid out to fend off the regret of the weekend’s indulgences. On Tuesday it’s fruit filled muffins and by Friday we’re splashing out with a chocolate
Whoever Gets Closest To Their Customer Wins
Let’s consider how the business world has been turned on its head in less than a decade. We only need to think about fourteen brands in order to understand the shift. APPLE vs. SONY. AMAZON vs. BORDERS. NETFLIX vs. BLOCKBUSTER. AIRBNB vs. HILTON. UBER vs. CABS. NEST vs. HONEYWELL. TWITTER vs. NEWS C
Life After Launch Day—Introducing The One Page Marketing Plan
It’s not hard to remember the lead up to the birth of your first child. Forty weeks of sheer focus on everything from what cheese to eat—or not to eat, to a birth plan that read like a military operation. I always found it odd that there was a ten-point plan for every eventuality during…
