by Mark O'Brien | Nov 17, 2014
If you’ve been keeping up with the experts (ahem), you’re like to have noticed many of them writing obituaries for branding (case in point). There’s a short list of reasons for which people write such things: They want to be controversial, in which...
by Mark O'Brien | Nov 3, 2014
“I’d walk a mile over hot coals to [fill in the blank].” “I’d crawl a mile over broken glass to [fill in the blank].” How many times have you heard statements like that? Certainly there’s a proliferation of love-related songs...
by Mark O'Brien | Oct 22, 2014
Here are two direct quotes from real companies, spoken to me in face-to-face conversations: Company #1: We have to suspend marketing because revenues are tight, and we have to cut expenses. Company #2: We’re not going to continue marketing because all of the...
by Mark O'Brien | Oct 9, 2014
With all of the emails I receive about funeral insurance quotes, I shouldn’t have been surprised by this. But I was. Call me naïve. After all, if we’re too lazy to get out of our cars for coffee or fast food or banking — things we want, presumably, and...
by Mark O'Brien | Oct 1, 2014
A statement finding its way more frequently and annoyingly into the vernacular of business and politics is this: Hope is not a strategy. Yeah. The statement is true. But enough already. Its corollary statement is this: A tactic is not a strategy. Yeah. That’s...
by Mark O'Brien | Sep 17, 2014
Hang on. It turns out rumors of print’s demise have been greatly exaggerated. In fact, this post, in the media research blog of the International News Media Association (INMA), says the following, in part: While any advertising campaign should feature a healthy...
