At the simplest level, segmentation is a useful marketing tool to help business identify and understand the customer and make offerings more appealing, but for the power users of segmentation, it is so much more. Determining the basis for segmentation is a key strategic consideration for a business and will shape future decisions and profitability. … Continue reading
Posted in February 2012 …
Using visions to bring the brand to life
Vision creates extraordinary achievers. Vision is a verb ( something we do) and a noun ( a thing). Brands that have a clear picture of success, a vision, are brands that are high performers A clear picture of success includes: Clarity around goals and pathways to realizing the goal Ability to retain … Continue reading
Without brands people will do what they have always done
Open the cupboard under the kitchen sink and check out the cleaning products there. Ask how many of these came from observing what a friend used, or what our parents used? You are bound to find that represents the majority. In fact, we simply do what our peers or parents have done, until marketing convinces … Continue reading
The lessons from Kodak’s pending bankruptcy
Kodak created the digital camera, but refrained from investing in it early enough because it made most of its profits from the sale of developing chemicals. Kodak is an example of a business that froze when the market moved around them. Compare the commercial destinies of Kodak and Apple. In 1997 Kodak had a market … Continue reading
Selling creative ideas to the number guys
One thing that has struck me about the truly gifted creatives is how weak their concept of money is. How their creativity drives attraction and commerce, yet the way the money system works they don’t seem to get much of a clip on the ticket. Further, creativity is a right brain construct where as money … Continue reading
Our emotions are a guidance system that can take us to what we really want
For many people, emotions are a mysterious impenetrable black box over which we have little understanding. For others, emotions are fluffy gushy things. For me, I see emotions as a guidance system that can take us to what we really want. It was Charles Darwin who first understood the relationship between survival and our emotions, which … Continue reading
3 qualities of a leader: humility, passion and resilience
Let us delve a little deeper into those three principles, so we may all have a chance to practice them. Humility Almost every religion and spiritual practice talks about the return to humility before human transformation can occur, this is also true of business. Humility is about being right sized in the world, without a … Continue reading
“Principles based capitalism for the 21st Century” as touted by Warren Buffet
Does it pay to be good? Once upon a time, business measured customer satisfaction (and some laggards still do) as the universal measure of good. A decade after this had been adopted globally, the penny finally dropped that satisfaction literally means ‘enough’, which is not good, as enough means, no more. Now business uses advocacy … Continue reading
The only thing invented in the 20th century was speed, is that true?
Yesterday a theologian told me she read “the only thing invented in the 20 th century was speed”. That seemed a bit harsh, and worth a reality check. A little research revealed the top 10 inventions of the 20th century were as follows: radio, the internet, television, antibiotics, the submarine, the rocket, the automobile, the … Continue reading
Position yourself for success or your competitors will position you for failure
Australian economist, Craig James, once asked me, did I feel it was sustainable for a business to “opt out” and hold their ground and not pursue growth….great question, got me thinking. The answer is “to stay still is to shrink” because the world is moving around you. Customer needs are changing and competitors are constantly … Continue reading
Thought Leaders Circle 