Get rid of all the bells and whistles. The Birth of the Sony Walkman
It lacked all the things people wanted but gave them one thing they had not thought about. And a star is born.
How to marry brick and mortar with online retailing. The Canada Goose way.
Canada Goose is the second fastest-growing luxury brand in the world.
The Poet and the Engineer
I was an engineer for most of my life. Engineers think logically and rationally but they can't stir desire like a poet. Are your ads written by the poet, or the engineer?
Winning the War for Talent – An Advertising Strategy for Service Companies
This is why character and story-driven advertising not only accelerates branding success, but recruiting success as well.
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.
Retailers Beware!
This is a departure. In this episode, Stephen Semple shares trends that he is seeing that are being embraced by retailers. Trends that are dangerously wrong.
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.
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.
What delivering newspapers taught me about pizza – The story of Domino’s.
How an orphan who was swindled out of his life savings grew the largest independent restaurant business on the planet.
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.