Putting Funny Ads To Work For Your Boring-Ass Business – Ordinary to Extraordinary
None of these products were inherently interesting, yet their ads have been enjoyed hundreds of millions of times.
Regrettably, I didn’t wear the kilt.
Celebrate your difference in the world. Stand out. Get talked about. You will be rewarded for your courage when you are true to yourself.
How to Steal Your Competitor’s Customers. Part 2 of 3
Is this a good ad? Does it make you want to buy a can of John’s Tomato Juice? A good ad would.
Eyeballs, hope and steaming piles of crap
I get asked a lot about the effectiveness of advertising and which ones are the most effective. The buzz for entrepreneurs these days is social media.
7 Modern Marketing Myths & Why They’re Dangerous Even When You’re Not Falling for Them
Following the zeitgeist is easy. Good branding is hard.
Who is J.D. Power? Is he a real person? Find out.
Started over a kitchen table on April Fools and sold later for $400M USD. This is the story of how to make your consulting service more valuable.
Vulnerability is the power tool for storytelling
If you can’t make the audience feel, it’s documenting. No 5-year-old ever asked their mom to read them a documentary before bedtime. Storytelling pulls out an emotion in the audience or customer.
How Does One Educate a Customer? Part 1 of 3
“Everyone needs our product,” said Bob. “All we need to do is to tell them about it.” He thinks advertising problems in the water supply is an excellent way to attract potential customers to his business.
Occam, Wizards, and something to believe in…
36 people were in the room with 21 laptops. The laptops were all Macs. Apple holds 12% of the world market in laptop computers. Yet 100% of the laptops in that room were Macs. Why?
The Most Bizarre Brand Mascot (That Worked) In the Last Twenty Years — And Why You Should Care!
It permanently impressed itself on the tender psyches of millennials and they still whine about it decades later.
Business lessons from a pro athlete
Most owners aren't "superstars." But they have a hidden superpower. Discover your superpower amidst the lessons from my friend Jean Hebert, a pro athlete and NHL referee.
How $1,500 of Flea Market Garb became Banana Republic
Banana Republic was founded by 2 journalists with the dream to make a little extra money so they could travel. Little did they know they would create a fashion juggernaut.
Learning From the Legends: The Ronseal Phrase
Don’t be deceived by the apparently artless, “just tell it like it is” nature of the ad. The slogan even made it into the Oxford Dictionary of Idioms and was repeatedly used by then-Prime Minister David Cameron.
Facebook and John Deere 9620RX are both powerful tools I don’t need
In the beginning, connecting with long-lost friends was nostalgic. It was fun to catch up and reminisce about things long gone. Then the world changed.
The Long And Short Of Persuasion
The wrong question is “Which sells better? Long copy or short copy?" I’m a long copy proponent. That is, I’m opposed to the “nobody will read more than 300 words” school of advertising.