Web/Tech
One Brand, One Experience
The 7 essentials of shaping a brand across all the customer touchpoints. How do you shape a campaign and really focus on the right audience for your brand? In developing a brand strategy and building this into real things that customers and partners see, it’s essential to unify what your brand says and looks likes,…
Read MoreMcDonald’s Wants to Know You, The importance of Customer Engagement, and Netflix Falls Off a Cliff
Fries, a Shake, and a Big Mac. You may think when you order at a McDonald’s they know all about you. Not really, but boy, do they care. With the challenges of the pandemic, supply chain shortages and price increases, keeping customers engaged and coming back became a challenge. Many retailers, and now McDonald’s, have…
Read MoreDisruption – Knowledge, Flexibility, and Revolutionaries
The Unexpected Challenge. The ability to shift, change and adapt is an essential part of what organizations need to do to survive and manage change in today’s world. Understanding this must be part of marketing and business operations. If your customers are not paying attention or they’ve totally changed, you need to know this. Disruption…
Read MoreCrypto QR Code, Uber’s Customer Journey, Millennials and Craft Beer
Why Not Try a Super Bowl QR Code Ad? A $7 million price tag for a 30-second Super Bowl ad may have been worth every penny for Coinbase, a cryptocurrency exchange app. With roughly 100 million viewers it’s worth throwing some serious money at an ad if it can get measurable results. So why not…
Read MoreNot knowing the future is a way to invent what’s next
And then there was COVID… It’s March 2020: suddenly restaurants, bars, and schools are closed. When COVID hit and began to have global impacts, everyone was forced, location by location, nation by nation, to face a new reality. How and what we purchased changed overnight. Remember the toilet paper shortages (I still wonder why that…
Read MoreDo you really know me?
Personas: They are customers and individuals with their own motivations. What’s my biggest problem? What do I need to deal with to make my job easier? Does someone understand what I need to get done? Can you say one thing to me that lets me know you’ll solve my problems? In the B2B world, the…
Read MoreListening to Customers, Fake Friends, and Consumer Behavior
Listen and Learn: What Are Your Customers Thinking? If you don’t listen to your customers — really know them and understand them — you can’t build a valued relationship. Many brands wrongly believe that selling consists mostly of pitching a product, a solution, or an idea. In fact, the most important part of selling is listening to…
Read MoreUber experience, Cirque Du Soleil’s comeback, how GM invents targeted advertising in 1922
Using behavioral science to remove friction from the Uber customer experience. Can behavioral science powered by insights into the customer journey improve the brand experience? Uber thinks so. They focused their efforts on removing friction from the customer journey — you know, those places in the transaction process that confuse, don’t go right, and…
Read MoreA Different Kind of Brand Guide For Startups
Having advised early-stage startups at the UC Berkeley SkyDeck and worked with mid-stage series C round funded companies, I’ve seen a wide range of business models with amazing ideas. Some take off others do not. The challenges are many and they really test your focus and commitment. Here are some thoughts that might be helpful…
Read MoreTraction
The value of engagement is in staying connected. No, traction is not the treads on your tires or the treads on the bottom of your hiking boots. In the start-up, world traction means the success you’ve seen so far or the proof you have that demonstrates to customers the value and unique solution you have that solves…
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