Each year, research firms such as CB Insights analyze why both startups and new products from mature companies fail. On average, about 80 percent of VC-backed startups fail (and those are the best of the startup world), and somewhere between 40 and 60 percent of new products launched by mature companies also fail. Invariably, the primary reason for failure is “no market need.”
Most mid-market leaders are not short on ideas. They are short on confidence. They are being asked to move faster with less certainty, make bigger bets with less room for error, and separate useful AI-enabled opportunities from expensive distractions. They have growth initiatives to evaluate, pricing pressure to manage, customers to reassure, sales teams to equip, and the realities of an AI-informed future arriving faster than the organization can absorb them. The question is no...
Never confuse the customer. Once, at an advertising agency meeting with our IHG client, one of the agencies admitted that their commercials for Holiday Inn and Holiday Inn Express were confusing. The stated benefits for both brands in the ads seemed too similar. When asked what the agency’s solution would be, the answer was, “More money behind the advertising.” Of course.
Financial geniuses on Wall Street appear to be happy that there is new leadership at Harley-Davidson, Artie Starrs as CEO. As with the appointment of the previous CEO, Jochen Zeitz, analysts and those with significant monetary Harley-Davidson stakes are thrilled with the recent CEO Starrs change in HOG leadership. In 2020, when Jochen Zeitz, a longtime member of Harley-Davidson’s Board, became CEO, the business press wrote that “Wall Street was elated by the news of...
Brand strategy is entering a more demanding era. For CEOs, CMOs, and CFOs, the question is no longer whether brand matters. The question is whether brand can help solve the organizational problems that determine growth, profitability, customer trust, internal alignment, and enterprise value.
