I’ve written a few times over the recent years about the myth that you have to delight your customers. And a couple of conversations last week reminded me yet again how entrenched this thinking is. So here we go (again). It started with a conversation (as so many of my blogs...
No board can make the right decisions if they aren’t considering the organisation’s brand in their thinking. As regular readers of this blog, you will know I define brand as the result of the promises you keep. And as the framers and architects of the promises the organisation makes, the board...
There is a great book called “On Looking” by author Alexandra Horowitz. In the book the author takes walks around her neighbourhood in New York with different people to see it through different eyes. It’s a wonderful book and its premise is something that I like to encourage people I work...
The obvious topic for my blog this week is the hot water Commonwealth Bank has found itself in through dodgy advice doled out by its financial planners over around a 10 year period. Plenty has been written about the poor and somewhat tardy response by the organisation and others have also...
When people start talking about brand one of the inevitable questions that pops up is “what do you think X org” stands for? This question gets asked of employees, customers, partners – pretty much any stakeholder with a pulse will at some time or another get it thrown at them. It’s...
In the sometimes befuddling and jargon-filled world of marketing it seems a new buzz phrase pops up weekly. In the last year the term “content marketing” has been all over the place and seems to be gathering steam. I have to admit, I’m pretty jaded about these things and have been known...
One of the least explored and often overlooked elements of my brand formula is promises. The keeping of a promise is in the making. But even knowing that, it’s easy to be cavalier about making promises, I know I’m guilty of it from time-to-time. Take the seemingly simple promise of “I’ll meet...
You’re building your brand today. Right now. Whatever you are doing is in some way contributing to it. That’s the power and the danger. Because too often people act without a basis for what they are doing and without thinking about what it could lead to. I see it in the decision...
When was the last time you stopped and took a good hard no blinkers look at here? The present. The now. If you’re like a lot of the people I work with the easier question is when did you take the time to think about where you are headed. Where you...
I write about the topic of brand and marketing about once a year. I plan to keep doing this until the time I mention that I work with organisations to help them keep their promises and build their brands I stop getting “Oh, so you’re in marketing” as the rejoinder. I will probably be waiting until hell...