PositionistView
Sears' saga found in snowblowers
Former Sears executive Steve Goldstein was so shocked when he found snowblowers for sale at his company’s Miami store that he wrote the book, “Why are there Snowblowers in Miami?” That is but one of myriad anecdotes in Sears’ 120-year history, yet it reveals much about the thinking of those who were in charge of the retail brand and why the company is fighting for its life today. Sears' changing business environment was being overlooked...
Want to win in Business? Google it
Your business and your competitors have been Googlized. Google is the new Yellow Pages for everything. If we want to know how many times man landed on the moon, we Google it. If we want to lease a copier or hire a financial services firm, we start our search with Google...
Ground control to Elon Musk
Elon Musk is widely known for his willingness to invest his mind and his riches to stretch the envelope on a variety of frontiers, from automobiles to software to outer space travel...
Nike's campaign with Kaepernick brilliant
Nike's 30th anniversary campaign features an unretouched black-and-white close-up of Colin Kaepernick's face, highlighting the NFL kneeling controversy with the headline, "Believe in something. Even if it means sacrificing everything." There's much to learn from the Nike brand controversy...
‘Positioning map’ can reveal your competitive advantage
A positioning map is a powerful tool to find your position, providing a visual representation identifying brand perceptions in your marketplace.
Brand Extension: Mayo move spread Heinz too thin to win
It happens every time I give talks here and around the country on brand positioning and brand extension. Rather than using PowerPoint presentations, I use products as props. When I hold up a jar of Heinz mayonnaise as an example of a poor product line extension, the looks on the faces of the people in the audience tell the whole story...
Think digital branding in today's B2B sales
Brand positioning is designed to tee up sales — a mission as important as ever with today’s plethora of digital branding opportunities to engage and motivate our customers and prospects...
Branding & Social Responsibility: Ability to respond an important responsibility
Terrell Owens, the former NFL All-Pro receiver, unprecedentedly is passing on attending his Pro Football Hall of Fame induction ceremony in Canton. It's a case study in branding and social responsibility...
Brand Repositioning Misses: Lessons from Toys ‘R’ Us
Beyond my office window, directly across Whipple Avenue, sits the once mighty, and now vacant, Toys “R” Us building. How did this happen? What went wrong? What can we learn from brand repositioning misses?...
Differentiated Content: The Key to Content Marketing
The likely key to content marketing has been discovered; It's probably not what you think. Remarkably, 95 percent of CEOs whose companies use content marketing as a marketing tactic report they believe it has had no effect on their businesses...