A Usual Story: How Electric Cars Are It

“Because I keep telling you its good for you.” – Motherhood Shifting from zero awareness, to inclination to explore, to full blown desire, is an jaunting and gestalting process, particularly in the marketplace where supply/demand (price) themes change as new product and communication styles are introduced. Ok – so why the title? Sustainability is an [...]

The (Obvious) Fundamentals of Successful Brands

On the wire today was extensive brand research undertaken by Millward Brown over more than three decades that identified six fundamental elements shared by most, if not all, of the world’s top brands. These fundamentals are: # A sense of authenticity # An efficient and scalable business model # A distinctive positioning # A great [...]

Rule 1. Always Be Communicating

The prototype of a new breed of marketers is that today’s communications don’t necessarily require a different mindset but a whole different set of skills. She blogs. She tweets. She Facebooks. She SEOs. She Teleseminars. She Podcasts. All while conducting traditional PR marketing, brand identity and strategic communications duties. These skills make a model for [...]

Satisficing in Brand Development: Analysis

“There is hardly anything in the world that some man cannot make a little worse and sell a little cheaper. And the people who always go for the cheapest are this man’s lawful prey.” – John Ruskin There is always a place for a lowest cost supplier to penetrate a market – in aggregate terms, [...]

Turning a Refugee Camps into A Working Economy

“We of the privileged Nations look humbly back from time to time, into our histories to understand a history of struggles, written by the winners, wondering how it muddled its way to the civil(er) societies we inhabit. Then we look at the failing societies and wonder.. why not? and how?” Stephanie Cousins has worked in [...]

Customer Loyalty Starts with Satisfied Employees – Test It

Deeply Satisfied Employee = Deeply Satisfied Customer = Lifelong Profit “Companies can boost profits by 75-100% by retaining as few as 5% of their current customers.” – Harvard Business Review Reflecting on work from the Harvard Business School professor emeritus Jim Heskett and professor Earl Sasser these works have come to deeply influence how managers [...]

Understanding Value Determinants

Understanding the concept of value for Australian’s is a fortification which can place our manufacturers at an advantage. It requires a broadening of perspective, as even though the importance of state of the art equipment (and sourcing international low cost labor) is clearly understood, the world outside the plant, that of market communication becomes ever more crucial.

Recover From Your Fundamental Marketing Errors

Most businesses don’t obtain even their current potential, its generally because they’re making one or more of these mistakes… Mistake #1: Planning Not to Fail… The first mistake is not having a marketing plan. Marketing drives growth and so if it isn’t part of your weekly management meeting, how will it be reached? A marketing [...]

Review: Capability Maturity Model

(From an Article written for The Advisory Firm, December 2006) In this quarter we revisit the Capability Maturity Model (CMM) which is a way to develop and refine an organisation’s processes. A ‘maturity model’ is a structured collection of elements that describe characteristics of effective processes. The first CMM was for the purpose of developing [...]

Review 2005: Industry Myopia

(From an Article Published @ The Advisory Firm, 2005) Last week’s announcement that Virgin is entering the Australian home loan market in competition with the established Banks has generated considerable expressions of interest in the press – New entries into mature markets should never happen, but they do, why? Entrants intend to provide a point [...]