A time-honoured tradition of beleaguered and reviled organisations the world over is a name change in the vain hope people will mistake them for someone else. And so jest and more than a few jeers met the news last week that Adani Mining was changing its name to Bravus Mining and...
The supermarket giant, and more broadly Woolworths Group, is the target of a #boycottwoolworths social media campaign this week, after announcing its sponsorship of the “Thanks a Million” campaign. The program is designed to “thank everyone who has gone the extra mile” during the hellish year of bushfires and pandemic. So far, so good. The...
Does your to-do list include working on the brand? How about your team’s list? It’s almost certainly on the organisation’s list.And if yes is the answer you’ve got brand in the wrong place. Because it is not something you do, it’s the result of it.Marketing as driver of the brand...
The old chestnut of “personal brand” is topical as ever. And this week I joined a Linkedin Live session with Naishadh Gadani and Karalyn Brown, talking about what it means, and if it’s even a thing.You can watch it here.Note – it’s an hour, so if you don’t have time...
In a recent poll on Linkedin, I asked people how they think about making promises. Do they think hard about them, figure out how to keep them later, try and avoid them, or only think about the big ones? Acknowledging the question bias – that people think about promises at all,...
A lot of things benefit from advertising. It's hard to sell many products if people don't know about them, but that kind of promotion rarely helps values. And luckily there are other ways they can flourish. I often say, “Don't put your values on your web site”. But why stop there....
During what passes for idle chatter during coffee and networking at a recent event, the throw-away comment, “I think values are a load of rubbish” got my attention. Because too often rubbish is what companies big and small peddle.We continued to talk and agreed that when people say values, they...
When a business closes up shop for good, the question of what happened often overlooks the role growth played in the failure.Sure, you have to grow to survive. And it’s easy to ascribe failure to a lack of growth, but too much growth is equally dangerous.Talk of unicorns and hyper-valuation...
Walking through the lunch throng after a recent conference talk, I got waylaid by the comment ‘we’re working on our brand’.Because I had ‘Brand Counsel’ on my tag, it’s understandable people wanted to talk about it. So I asked what that meant for them. I was curious because in my...
The combination of hubris and aspiration, liberally sprinkled with puffery make many value sets mosh pits of self-delusion.So there’s every chance your company values are complete bullshit. And if they are, it’s a quick ride on the slip slide to cynicism and ridicule when actions reveal them to be naked...