The one thing we marketers want more than anything else is people’s time. We have all kinds of metrics to track it. Indeed, it’s the thing we track most, more so than spending and usage.
It is difficult to avoid politics these days. Right now, both political brands are becoming parties that do not stand for anything but stand against everything or stand for everything. Having a relevant, differentiated brand promise applies whether you are a political entity or a packaged goods offering.
There are brands we genuinely love choosing. They make our work easier. They help us perform better. They may even say something meaningful about who we are. In the beginning, the dynamic is simple and elegant: the brand creates real value, and in return, we grant it our preference.
The role of CEO is a success label. Wall Street and investors view the CEO as the fiduciary leader who will drive an enterprise’s performance to greater shareholder financial results. The shareholder mindset tends to be short-term rather than long-term, which puts brands at a disadvantage.
There once was an upheaval at IBM; a David and Goliath moment. That was when personal computers, namely Apple, entered our landscape. The world became divided into Macs and IBM PC’s. The genericization of the Mac alternative led to a proliferation of non-IBM PC offerings from Dell, HP and others. IBM, the Goliath and “owner” of the PC, gave up. Eventually, IBM’s laptop division was sold to Lenovo. The IBM focus became mainframes and its...
