Thursday, February 19, 2009
This what musicians mean by "feel"
Not only is that the legendary Muddy Waters, that's the equally legendary James Cotton on harp. As a white kid from the suburbs, I can't say I have ever "had" the blues, but I sure have played them on stage... including this song, but not nearly as authentically.
Greatness can be humbling...
This ad won a Gold Lion under the film category in the 54th edition of the Cannes International Advertising Awards.
CREDITS:
Country: GERMANY
Advertising Agency: NORDPOL+ HAMBURG
Country: GERMANY
Creative Director: Lars Ruehmann
Art Director: Bjoern Ruehmann/Joakim Reveman/Matthew Branning
Production Company, City: PARANOID PROJECTS, Paris
Country: FRANCE
2nd Production Company, City: PARANOID US, Los Angeles
Country: USA
Director: The Vikings
Friday, February 13, 2009
Read any good books lately?
I'm not promoting this book. But the title alone is enough to get people interested, no? And if the title doesn't get you, how about author Jay Louis's description of what his "illustrated" book is all about: "Greasy foreheads. Spiky frosted hair. Oiled-up faces dripping with Tag Body Shot spray. Armani Exchange T-shirts and rank cologne wafting off their backs like fetid pollen clouds as they pump their fists and attempt to grind into any hotties nearby."
Pure poetry, in a douchebag kind of way.
Tuesday, February 10, 2009
The economy, the bailout, Iran... and Rodriguez. WTF?
Last night, Barack Obama's first major press conference as president came in the midst of one of the world's greatest crises: the devastated economy. He was confident, reassuring but blunt. We're in trouble but we can get out of it if we all put our minds on what's important. Put aside party politics and focus on getting Americans (and Canadians) back to work and paying their mortgages.
The questions from the media were thoughtful and, at times, tough. Then Michael Fletcher of The Washington Post asked for the President's reaction to the news that Alex Rodriguez admitted steroid use while playing with the Texas Rangers from 2001-2003. WTF? Please, someone tell me that there was some serious eye-rolling going on in that room after that. This twit gets the attention of the President of the United States and he doesn't ask about Chris Brown beating up Rhianna and missing the Grammies? Amateur.
Monday, February 09, 2009
Shut the f*#k up Donny
I thought I was pretty much alone in my love for The Big Lebowski. Now, it turns out that I am among millions of schmucks around the world (alright, in North America) that are endlessly amused by the Coen brother's 1998 cult comedy. Today, I learned that an art exhibition will open in Salt Lake City featuring "work" inspired by the Dude's peed-on rug. I dunno, I am feeling kind of cramped in my house or worship and I may have to move on. Does that make me snob?
Here's the article: http://www.nationalpost.com/related/topics/story.html?id=1262288
Friday, February 06, 2009
Will we ever get over this?
The kid takes a toke (as he probably has before) and becomes a pariah? Suspended from training? Loss of funding? Loss of his Kellogg deal? Really? What if the picture was of him swigging from a bottle of JD? Perfectly acceptable, no doubt. And the difference? An antiquated law with no basis in reality, backed by a billion dollar budget to fight the scourge of "drugs."
While no one should drive under the influence of anything, I'd much rather deal with someone high on grass than a drunk, most of whom are either dangerous or stupid, and in most cases, both.
Give the kid a break and put him back in the pool.
Wednesday, January 28, 2009
Six Million Dollar Minds
Getting six of Canada’s top pharma executives together for a PMCQ meeting was years in the making. It had been tried many times. You can imagine all the things that have to fall into place to make this kind of event happen. “Like trying to herd kittens,” quipped one PMCQ board member. Scheduling conflicts, lack of time, lack of interest, you name it… Yet, on May 13, 2008, the planets aligned, the clouds parted, and there they were: Pfizer Vice-president of Marketing Guy Lallemand, Schering-Plough President Carlos Dourado, Lundbeck President Patrick Cashman, Merck Frosst President Dawn Graham, along with Novartis President David Meek and Bristol-Myers Squibb President Wayne Quigley.
The next challenge: would these captains of industry, keepers of the pharma flame be forthcoming? For the overflow crowd of more than 300 captivated pharmaceutical professionals the answer was a resounding “yes, and then some.”
With PMCQ president Greg Buie ably and courageously handling the moderator hot seat, the evening kicked off with a question about pharma’s biggest challenges in today’s market. Pfizer’s Guy Lallemand broke the ice with, “… when you come to commercialise the product, there are still a lot of challenges in the marketplace in terms of accessing physicians… there’s a level of scepticism now as a result of some of the newer products that we may not have delivered on their initial promise.” Novartis president David Meek commented, “… the issue we‘re struggling with is a fundamental lack of trust between health authorities and industry, and between the payers and industry. We’ve got to fix that.” To which Lundbeck president Patrick Cashman added, “We’ve also lost trust with patients. We’ve become the bad guys and there have been some studies that show we rank just above the tobacco industry. We’ve got a serious credibility gap with patients out there.”
Refreshing, candid, outspoken, honest and, at times, even a little angry, these six esteemed guests spoke from their hearts and minds in ways that surprised a number of pharma veterans who’ve been around the blockbusters a few times. They explained the problems of Health Canada and praised the value of RX&D. In particular, Schering-Plough’s Carlos Dourado said, “In 2006, RX&D published a little booklet on the benefits of the pharmaceutical industry to Canada. I liked it so much I sent it to every employee in the company… I venture to say that 2% of my own organisation read the book. This is a tremendous tool that has all the arguments there in terms of benefits of the pharmaceutical industry...”
They explored the differences between global marketplaces and gave us a peek at how Canada is viewed by the rest of the world. They talked about the ever-expanding customer base. They complained about how pharmaceutical marketing had gotten boring. And they talked about innovation.
For BMS’s Wayne Quigley, innovation is something the industry both excels in and lacks: “I think our research is innovative. I think our medicines are innovative. I think we lag in figuring out where this market’s headed in innovating around the customer model. I don’t think we’ve innovated enough about how we’re integrating our medical science people with our marketing people with our salespeople to really drive these marketplaces.”
Notably, they all talked about the need for change. David Meek said, “… We’ve been a massively successful industry over time. So, when you tell people we need to change… we probably haven’t done a good enough job of communicating why. Because they’ll look back and say, ‘Hey boss, we’ve been successful, look at our numbers…’ But we do need to change… right now we are sort of turning the Titanic… And if we don’t adapt and change, and shape the new world, then we’re going to be a victim like many other companies have in the past.”
For Dawn Graham, it’s not all about the strategy: “Culture eats strategy for lunch. You can have the best strategy in the world. You can have the best technical expertise in the world. But if you don’t change your culture, you’re toast. I really believe that in the next five years or so, there will be real winners in our industry and real losers. And the winners will be the ones who have innovated but have also managed to change their culture.”
Despite the dire wording and dark predictions, the six executives remained positive about the future. Guy Lallemand got the last word and summed it up best: “The solutions and opportunities are clearly within our grasp. It’s really going to be up to us to take a hold of this, forget about the past, move forward, work more closely with our field forces… about how they can become more relevant with their customers. And it’s got nothing to do with our brands but about solutions to healthcare challenges and healthcare issues.”
The World According to Diane
On a bitterly cold January morning, as we awaited Barack Obama’s swearing-in and highly anticipated inaugural speech, Diane Francis warmed up the PMCQ with her view of the world and the changes ahead.
National Post columnist, Huffington Post blogger, renowned broadcaster and author of nine best-selling books, Diane Francis came to discuss marketing and branding in a complicated world. She reminded us that everyone has to be a marketer in life and that we are all a brand, a reputation… we are the services and goods we provide. Of course, one the world’s great new brands was just three hours away from becoming the 44th President of the United States.
If President Obama saves the world as everyone expects, we will be forever indebted to his “co-branding” with Oprah. According to Ms. Francis, Oprah made it all happen. “There is no American in the world with greater soft power than Oprah Winfrey, who has built an incredible brand worldwide… a brand that is honest, has integrity, is warm… and (has) a huge audience…” Makes you wonder why Ms. Winfrey didn’t run for president.
Obviously, great brands can achieve great things. They rise to the occasion when the occasion demands it. “The principal reason he became president… is because of the meltdown of the financial system worldwide. The Republicans could have run Jesus Christ… and they wouldn’t have won.” Now that’s bad branding.
Ms. Francis cites four ways the Republicans damaged their brand: The attempt to shrink government. The Iraq war. The Katrina fiasco. And $4 a gallon gas.
The world was ready for change and looking for the kind of hope that Mr. Obama offered. And some extraordinary signs came just days and even hours before the inauguration. Russia and the Ukraine signed a deal ending their conflict. Israel declared a ceasefire in Gaza. But while the usual global suspects await the new president, a new threat rises to the republic’s south — Mexico, where Ms. Francis predicts US troops will be battling the drug cartels within the next four years.
Canada, however, remains the “nice” neighbour who doesn’t cause any trouble. In fact, Ms. Francis would like to see the border between the US and Canada “redrawn” into an all-encompassing perimeter as we form a “customs union” complete with collaboration and cooperation on immigration, customs and excise, interdiction and so on.
When it comes to business trends, Ms. Francis contends that the real-time nature of information that’s available 24/7 means companies and individuals must know how to react in real-time. As a result, decision-making and disclosures are accelerated. And if that’s not stressful enough, technology has made it impossible to hide. “Everything is known to everybody very quickly, and that includes patent information, proprietary information, gossip… (it’s all) now easily discovered.” The blogs of whistleblowers and disgruntled employees can spring up just about anywhere online, creating huge problems for businesses, governments and individuals.
“You have transparency unlike ever before. You have real-time information which changes decision making. And you have the acceleration of events and information flow that also affect decision making and careers.”
The global village’s biggest business trend is “disintermediation” or “cutting out the middleman.” This refers to the “bricks versus clicks” landscape, a very real situation in retail (hello Amazon, Ebay) and certainly becoming a challenging scenario in healthcare, where patients do their own diagnosing and would like to write their own prescriptions. “Wherever the middle can be eliminated, it has been, it will be, and that’s not going to stop,” warns Ms. Francis. “The power now is completely in the hands of the consumer… Marketers are now seeding influential blog sites with product launch information. They don’t necessarily need a huge audience but they need the audience of the influencers…”
The power shift from the brand to the buyer is evident when you consider how easy it is to do your own research online. Shopping for a car, a TV, a Valentine’s gift or a treatment for your health problems is just a few clicks away. Too bad baby boomers are such slow adopters. Their health may depend on it, especially given the stress inducing financial crisis.
“I’m an optimist about the current financial situation because I have never seen the level of multilateral cooperation, the fact that every central banker, every finance minister, every prime minister, president and even dictator in the world is probably in touch with one another on an hourly basis trying to fix the financial problem and they have done a lot already to avert an even worse outcome. With that level of cooperation and the fact that we are all wired in one globe together, I have every reason to believe that we are going to come out of this on the other end, but I think it will take two years of muddling around for the worst to be over with.”
Friday, September 28, 2007
Branding gets cleared up
Entrepreneur and author Tom Asacker began his presentation with one of those good-news, bad-news things. The bad news? He was going to take 45 minutes to talk about 30 years of bad marketing decisions. Gulp. The good news? “After 15 minutes your brain automatically starts thinking about sex.” Great. Because two minutes after that, I’ll be thinking about having a smoke.
Instead, before the first 15 minutes were up, Asacker had everyone thinking differently about branding… and whether or not New York Yankees catcher Yogi Berra was a genius. Berra said, “The future aint what it used to be,” and Asacker set out to prove how right he was, particularly when it comes to understanding branding.
Today’s marketing realities go beyond the predictions. In 1974, consumers were drowning in 560 messages a day. Now it’s 3500. And that’s in addition to the “supersaturation of choice” everywhere we go: 16 varieties of eggs, 20 different Goldfish crackers, 175 pro sports teams, 2630 government-recognized religious groups... Then there’s the glut of info out there: Fifty billion web pages, 12 billion emails, hundreds of TV channels (and nothing on). And where has it gotten us? Right now, no one trusts businesses or the people who run them. After Enron, Worldcom, Tyco and Martha Stewart, you can’t blame them. So, what’s going on?
Tom Asacker says today’s marketers simply don’t understand branding. It’s not a logo, a promise or an experience; it’s consumers’ expectations of what a brand will do for them. The brand they choose is who they become. “Brands tell the world who they are and where they belong, “ Asacker explains. Starbucks doesn’t sell coffee, they sell identity. And they do it by building relationships with their customers. So, what are consumers looking for? We seek the perfect balance of value and happiness. Unquestionably, shopping at Wal-Mart saves you money but, more importantly, it makes you feel smart.
In Asacker’s book, A Clear Eye for Branding, he says marketing is about creating strong feelings for your brand. And those feelings are created through your customers’ experience with everything they sense about your company: the look and feel of your advertising, web site, email communications, products and, especially today, your people. “Person-to-person interaction will always be the most powerful creator of feelings. Your most powerful brand enhancer,” he writes.
The bottomline, Asacker stresses, is that you have to do more for your customers and establish an emotional attachment to your brand. They first experience your brand emotionally before rationalizing those feelings and making a decision. Before they know if they want what you’re offering, they’re deciding if they want to be identified with your brand. Asacker recommends taking a good look at the brands that appear to achieve that kind of powerful emotional connection: Apple, Starbucks, Nike, Geico, and the mother of them all, Harley Davidson. As Yogi Berra said, “You can observe a lot by just watching.”
Instead, before the first 15 minutes were up, Asacker had everyone thinking differently about branding… and whether or not New York Yankees catcher Yogi Berra was a genius. Berra said, “The future aint what it used to be,” and Asacker set out to prove how right he was, particularly when it comes to understanding branding.
Today’s marketing realities go beyond the predictions. In 1974, consumers were drowning in 560 messages a day. Now it’s 3500. And that’s in addition to the “supersaturation of choice” everywhere we go: 16 varieties of eggs, 20 different Goldfish crackers, 175 pro sports teams, 2630 government-recognized religious groups... Then there’s the glut of info out there: Fifty billion web pages, 12 billion emails, hundreds of TV channels (and nothing on). And where has it gotten us? Right now, no one trusts businesses or the people who run them. After Enron, Worldcom, Tyco and Martha Stewart, you can’t blame them. So, what’s going on?
Tom Asacker says today’s marketers simply don’t understand branding. It’s not a logo, a promise or an experience; it’s consumers’ expectations of what a brand will do for them. The brand they choose is who they become. “Brands tell the world who they are and where they belong, “ Asacker explains. Starbucks doesn’t sell coffee, they sell identity. And they do it by building relationships with their customers. So, what are consumers looking for? We seek the perfect balance of value and happiness. Unquestionably, shopping at Wal-Mart saves you money but, more importantly, it makes you feel smart.
In Asacker’s book, A Clear Eye for Branding, he says marketing is about creating strong feelings for your brand. And those feelings are created through your customers’ experience with everything they sense about your company: the look and feel of your advertising, web site, email communications, products and, especially today, your people. “Person-to-person interaction will always be the most powerful creator of feelings. Your most powerful brand enhancer,” he writes.
The bottomline, Asacker stresses, is that you have to do more for your customers and establish an emotional attachment to your brand. They first experience your brand emotionally before rationalizing those feelings and making a decision. Before they know if they want what you’re offering, they’re deciding if they want to be identified with your brand. Asacker recommends taking a good look at the brands that appear to achieve that kind of powerful emotional connection: Apple, Starbucks, Nike, Geico, and the mother of them all, Harley Davidson. As Yogi Berra said, “You can observe a lot by just watching.”
Wednesday, September 26, 2007
Blatant plug for wordpreneur.com
I am still relatively new to blogging. Somedays I just don't get it. Why do it? Who's watching? Don't I have better things to do? Then I take a look at other writer's blogs and, after enjoying some of their musings, I wonder if they have any paying work. I am very fortunate to have enough paid work to keep me up most nights of the week -- sometimes working on it and sometimes worrying about how I am going to find the time to get it done. So, not a lot of time to update my blog or read others... or exercise, but that's another sad story.
However, I do wander over to wordpreneur.com once in a while and often find something interesting, amusing or even inspiring. Today, I found a free offer! I can get 3 free ebooks if I promote their site. Thus this blatant, yet honest and without apology, plug for an info-packed website. I have even added it to my list of faves for your enjoyment. Bon appétit.
However, I do wander over to wordpreneur.com once in a while and often find something interesting, amusing or even inspiring. Today, I found a free offer! I can get 3 free ebooks if I promote their site. Thus this blatant, yet honest and without apology, plug for an info-packed website. I have even added it to my list of faves for your enjoyment. Bon appétit.
Wednesday, June 20, 2007
Are you preferred?
If you were a video machine, would you be VHS or Beta? Imagine you’re a computer, are you a PC or a Mac? Are you a Tim Horton’s or a Starbucks coffee? Being preferred doesn’t always have to do with the quality of your product — Beta videos, Mac computers and Starbucks coffee are superior to their more successful rivals — it’s all about your distinctive value. And author/entrepreneur Michael Vickers can do the math to show you how to become preferred.
Vickers entertained and educated a rapt crowd of pharmaceutical types at the last meeting of the PMCQ season, sending us out into the world with ideas, tips and mathematical formulas for Becoming Preferred, coincidentally the name of his latest book. First, he told us the truth: we are all the same, offering the same stuff, same science, same price, same people — just take a look around. See? Next, Vickers quizzed the audience: what makes your company/product so different? Is it the service? Yes, of course it is, came the response. Okay, let’s all agree on which global corporations are universally known for the highest service standards: FedEx, Disney, Four Seasons Hotels, Southwest Airlines, Porsche, Apple, Hertz… It’s a long and distinguished list that doesn’t include a single pharmaceutical company. Uh-oh.
The secret to becoming preferred (and outselling your competition) is explained in Michael Vickers’ six guidelines, which include challenging your assumptions about your competitors, your customers and yourself. You may not be seeing your world as it really is and incorrect assumptions could be devastating. Becoming preferred is achievable if you can identify your customer’s stress and dissatisfaction better than your competitors and then remove that stress and dissatisfaction better than your competitors, while connecting with your customer in a meaningful way. It could be as simple as handwritten thank-you-for-your-business notes, which I believe is currently PAAB approved.
Even more intriguing is Vickers’ mathematical formula for becoming preferred: EV + DV x T = PS. That’s Expected Value plus Distinctive Value times Trust equals Preferred Status. In other words, preferred status can be attained by taking what your customers expect from your product, adding what truly differentiates you and your product from your competition and multiplying all of that by how much they trust you and your company. More trust equals more business. Simple math for a complex business.
But just like his new book, Michael Vickers’ Becoming Preferred presentation is so jam-packed with valuable information for businesspeople that I wish I had recorded it all… on VHS video, of course.
Vickers entertained and educated a rapt crowd of pharmaceutical types at the last meeting of the PMCQ season, sending us out into the world with ideas, tips and mathematical formulas for Becoming Preferred, coincidentally the name of his latest book. First, he told us the truth: we are all the same, offering the same stuff, same science, same price, same people — just take a look around. See? Next, Vickers quizzed the audience: what makes your company/product so different? Is it the service? Yes, of course it is, came the response. Okay, let’s all agree on which global corporations are universally known for the highest service standards: FedEx, Disney, Four Seasons Hotels, Southwest Airlines, Porsche, Apple, Hertz… It’s a long and distinguished list that doesn’t include a single pharmaceutical company. Uh-oh.
The secret to becoming preferred (and outselling your competition) is explained in Michael Vickers’ six guidelines, which include challenging your assumptions about your competitors, your customers and yourself. You may not be seeing your world as it really is and incorrect assumptions could be devastating. Becoming preferred is achievable if you can identify your customer’s stress and dissatisfaction better than your competitors and then remove that stress and dissatisfaction better than your competitors, while connecting with your customer in a meaningful way. It could be as simple as handwritten thank-you-for-your-business notes, which I believe is currently PAAB approved.
Even more intriguing is Vickers’ mathematical formula for becoming preferred: EV + DV x T = PS. That’s Expected Value plus Distinctive Value times Trust equals Preferred Status. In other words, preferred status can be attained by taking what your customers expect from your product, adding what truly differentiates you and your product from your competition and multiplying all of that by how much they trust you and your company. More trust equals more business. Simple math for a complex business.
But just like his new book, Michael Vickers’ Becoming Preferred presentation is so jam-packed with valuable information for businesspeople that I wish I had recorded it all… on VHS video, of course.
Thursday, March 08, 2007
Anxious About Everything
When my friends and family heard I was going to see Dr. Joe Schwartz, they all had one question: Can I come too? The Director of McGill’s Office for Science & Society is a rock star and even usually cool, calm PMCQ members were all atwitter at meeting the man with all the answers. And rightly so.
The author of six books, CJAD talk show host and renowned guru of chemistry came to talk about the age of anxiety. Given the current state of the pharma industry, his timing couldn’t have been better.
Dr. Joe’s message is simple: people need to be more sceptical. The media teaches us science and everyone fervently wants to believe in miracle cures. Well, Canada’s greatest debunker was about to let us have it. We’re told to eat our fish because they’re filled with nutrients, then we’re warned not to touch fish because they’re filled with PCBs. Eat your fruit! No! Not the genetically modified ones! They’ll screw up your hormones. Have some spinach instead. Wait… e-coli. Okay, cool down, have some filtered water. What? The chlorinated stuff in those plastic jugs that leach bisphenol A? No thanks.
It’s a scary world out there and just a little bit of knowledge can go a long way to devastate or elevate any product—including pharmaceuticals. According to Dr. Joe, not only are most scientific studies wrong, the media blows those studies all out of proportion and we swallow it whole. He blames our naiveté on the failure of science education in North America and the easy success of powerful marketing messages. That’s a nice way of saying it’s our fault. We believe that natural products are good for us because they are, well, natural. But arsenic is natural. In fact, the world is full of natural toxins that, given the right conditions, combinations and quantities, will kill you. St. John’s Wort might be “nature’s Prozac” but it’s very bad for heart transplant patients. Nutritious and delicious grapefruit juice can have serious interactions with commonly prescribed medicines—so much so, that McGill’s teaching hospitals have banned the stuff TOTALLY.
Chinese medicine, placebo effect, ancient medicine men, Kevin Trudeau’s “natural cures ‘they’ don’t want you to know about…” Dr. Joe pulls no punches, takes no prisoners, tells it like it is (add your own cliché here)… and that’s exactly why I should have brought my gullible, hoodia-popping friends and relatives to see him. It would have been good for their health.
The author of six books, CJAD talk show host and renowned guru of chemistry came to talk about the age of anxiety. Given the current state of the pharma industry, his timing couldn’t have been better.
Dr. Joe’s message is simple: people need to be more sceptical. The media teaches us science and everyone fervently wants to believe in miracle cures. Well, Canada’s greatest debunker was about to let us have it. We’re told to eat our fish because they’re filled with nutrients, then we’re warned not to touch fish because they’re filled with PCBs. Eat your fruit! No! Not the genetically modified ones! They’ll screw up your hormones. Have some spinach instead. Wait… e-coli. Okay, cool down, have some filtered water. What? The chlorinated stuff in those plastic jugs that leach bisphenol A? No thanks.
It’s a scary world out there and just a little bit of knowledge can go a long way to devastate or elevate any product—including pharmaceuticals. According to Dr. Joe, not only are most scientific studies wrong, the media blows those studies all out of proportion and we swallow it whole. He blames our naiveté on the failure of science education in North America and the easy success of powerful marketing messages. That’s a nice way of saying it’s our fault. We believe that natural products are good for us because they are, well, natural. But arsenic is natural. In fact, the world is full of natural toxins that, given the right conditions, combinations and quantities, will kill you. St. John’s Wort might be “nature’s Prozac” but it’s very bad for heart transplant patients. Nutritious and delicious grapefruit juice can have serious interactions with commonly prescribed medicines—so much so, that McGill’s teaching hospitals have banned the stuff TOTALLY.
Chinese medicine, placebo effect, ancient medicine men, Kevin Trudeau’s “natural cures ‘they’ don’t want you to know about…” Dr. Joe pulls no punches, takes no prisoners, tells it like it is (add your own cliché here)… and that’s exactly why I should have brought my gullible, hoodia-popping friends and relatives to see him. It would have been good for their health.
Monday, January 29, 2007
Six Pixels of Separation
We stood up and screamed. Twice. We were asked for “something guttural from deep inside” to loosen us up. And we didn’t quite get it on the first try, emitting a half-hearted “whoo” like a bunch of preschoolers who just found out they were getting free t-shirts. However, on our second shot we sounded like two hundred housewives who were just told they had won free makeovers from Oprah. Our guest speaker, with his hand over the mic, was louder than all of us both times. What’s the matter with us? We were about to find out, because Mitch Joel was going to give our “personal brands” a makeover.
It shouldn’t be surprising that Mitch Joel can be louder than a roomful of people. He’s bigger than a roomful of people. In fact, he’s big everywhere. After the meeting, I Googled Mitch and got 78,900 pages (in 0.03 seconds)—and every single page was about him! Does this guy know anything about “personal branding?”
Mitch Joel is the “President of Twist Image, a marketing and communications visionary, interactive expert, community leader, freelance journalist, blogger, podcaster and believer in doing the impossible” and he came to tell the PMCQ that “we don’t understand the power of our personal brand.” Mitch advises having an internal conversation to find the real you. What’s your story? Who are you? And, even more importantly for business purposes, what do you do? No, you are not “in marketing.” You help people improve their lives. Harley Davidson does not sell motorcycles, they sell the open road. Revenue Canada does not take your money, they provide peace of mind by not putting you in jail. I think you get the point.
Mitch Joel’s lively, entertaining and certainly thought-provoking presentation focuses on you because that’s where your focus should be. He wants you to “be the mental tattoo on people’s minds” and he cites his “Six Pixels of Separation” as the tool to do it. The power of the Internet as a personal marketing tool has never been more evident. The power of your mouth as a sales tool is only drowned out by the power of your ears. You need to listen more than you speak. But when you do talk, always talk to strangers—in person and via technology, where you can have one-to-many conversations through blogs, podcasts, YouTube, Flickr, MySpace… Six Pixels of Separation proves that it’s “no longer all about who you know. It’s all about who knows you.” Now, I’m going to post this article on my blog because it mentions Mitch Joel’s name four times, which means when anyone Googles Mitch, they’ll also find me. That’s personal branding.
It shouldn’t be surprising that Mitch Joel can be louder than a roomful of people. He’s bigger than a roomful of people. In fact, he’s big everywhere. After the meeting, I Googled Mitch and got 78,900 pages (in 0.03 seconds)—and every single page was about him! Does this guy know anything about “personal branding?”
Mitch Joel is the “President of Twist Image, a marketing and communications visionary, interactive expert, community leader, freelance journalist, blogger, podcaster and believer in doing the impossible” and he came to tell the PMCQ that “we don’t understand the power of our personal brand.” Mitch advises having an internal conversation to find the real you. What’s your story? Who are you? And, even more importantly for business purposes, what do you do? No, you are not “in marketing.” You help people improve their lives. Harley Davidson does not sell motorcycles, they sell the open road. Revenue Canada does not take your money, they provide peace of mind by not putting you in jail. I think you get the point.
Mitch Joel’s lively, entertaining and certainly thought-provoking presentation focuses on you because that’s where your focus should be. He wants you to “be the mental tattoo on people’s minds” and he cites his “Six Pixels of Separation” as the tool to do it. The power of the Internet as a personal marketing tool has never been more evident. The power of your mouth as a sales tool is only drowned out by the power of your ears. You need to listen more than you speak. But when you do talk, always talk to strangers—in person and via technology, where you can have one-to-many conversations through blogs, podcasts, YouTube, Flickr, MySpace… Six Pixels of Separation proves that it’s “no longer all about who you know. It’s all about who knows you.” Now, I’m going to post this article on my blog because it mentions Mitch Joel’s name four times, which means when anyone Googles Mitch, they’ll also find me. That’s personal branding.
Thursday, January 25, 2007
Badvertising
A couple of years ago, I had the honour of covering a presentation by Bob Garfield. Here's what I thought back then:
The good news is that Bob Garfield's "Advertrocities" presentation did not include any Canadian pharmaceutical ads. The bad news is that Bob Garfield's "Advertrocities" presentation did not include any Canadian pharmaceutical ads. Just because it would have been even more fun. Don't get me wrong, it's a lot of fun to see some of the world's worst TV commercials. Like train wrecks, you really can't look away. The laughs were plentiful, the eyeball rolling was dizzying, and the I-would-have-known-better nods made you think you had crashed a bobble-head convention. However, it did make you think, which has always been Garfield's point.
As the columnist for Advertising Age's Ad Review, Bob Garfield's job is either the world's coolest or most dangerous. He gets paid to trash or triumph advertising creative. He does it with a wry sense of humour and intelligence. He tells it like it is, much to the chagrin of the citizens of creative-ville, where pony-tailed, all-in-black natives covet awards large and small. According to Garfield, too many copywriters and art directors are just too darn smart for the rest of us. Their objective appears to be winning awards for themselves not sales for their clients. Well, awards can help win new business for ad agencies-often at the expense of their existing clients.
After several reels of entertaining, hilarious and insulting airline, toilet paper, running shoe and Calvin Klein advertrocities, a question from the audience finally got Garfield on a pharmaceutical rant. While he believes that regulation is good for advertising and for consumers, and that ethical advertising really is ethical, Garfield's beef is with OTC ads. Calling them "the most consistently dishonest," he accuses OTC ads of confusing consumers about product ingredients. As a result, more consumers are overmedicating themselves.
That trend of overmedicated consumers is explainable, if you believe what Garfield says about consumers in general in his newest book, And Now a Few Words from Me, "It has become commonplace to suggest that advertising insults people's intelligence, and that is sometimes true. More often, though, exactly the opposite is the case. Advertising gives more credit for brains, judgment, and sophistication than is reasonably due… bear in mind that you have to impress the target audience even if, in all likelihood, the target audience doesn't impress you."
The good news is that Bob Garfield's "Advertrocities" presentation did not include any Canadian pharmaceutical ads. The bad news is that Bob Garfield's "Advertrocities" presentation did not include any Canadian pharmaceutical ads. Just because it would have been even more fun. Don't get me wrong, it's a lot of fun to see some of the world's worst TV commercials. Like train wrecks, you really can't look away. The laughs were plentiful, the eyeball rolling was dizzying, and the I-would-have-known-better nods made you think you had crashed a bobble-head convention. However, it did make you think, which has always been Garfield's point.
As the columnist for Advertising Age's Ad Review, Bob Garfield's job is either the world's coolest or most dangerous. He gets paid to trash or triumph advertising creative. He does it with a wry sense of humour and intelligence. He tells it like it is, much to the chagrin of the citizens of creative-ville, where pony-tailed, all-in-black natives covet awards large and small. According to Garfield, too many copywriters and art directors are just too darn smart for the rest of us. Their objective appears to be winning awards for themselves not sales for their clients. Well, awards can help win new business for ad agencies-often at the expense of their existing clients.
After several reels of entertaining, hilarious and insulting airline, toilet paper, running shoe and Calvin Klein advertrocities, a question from the audience finally got Garfield on a pharmaceutical rant. While he believes that regulation is good for advertising and for consumers, and that ethical advertising really is ethical, Garfield's beef is with OTC ads. Calling them "the most consistently dishonest," he accuses OTC ads of confusing consumers about product ingredients. As a result, more consumers are overmedicating themselves.
That trend of overmedicated consumers is explainable, if you believe what Garfield says about consumers in general in his newest book, And Now a Few Words from Me, "It has become commonplace to suggest that advertising insults people's intelligence, and that is sometimes true. More often, though, exactly the opposite is the case. Advertising gives more credit for brains, judgment, and sophistication than is reasonably due… bear in mind that you have to impress the target audience even if, in all likelihood, the target audience doesn't impress you."
The 21st Century Court Jester
(a May 2006 article for the PMCQ)
At the last PMCQ meeting a couple of hundred people got Lipkinized. Here’s hoping it tides us over until next season. We all need a boost. Perhaps the effects will show early—in the scores from the golf tournament. Or maybe they will reveal themselves at your next marketing meeting. Here’s what to look for: clarity, action, decisiveness, courage, connectivity, outspokenness, generosity, brilliance and discipline.
Mike Lipkin calls himself a 21st Century court jester. Was he brought in to cheer everyone up? Brilliant! Because that’s what Mike did—he cheered everyone up. And then gave us a good talking to.
After joking that pharma is the new tobacco industry, Mike advised, “you are the company.” In other words, you are the company. You Inc. You must become the brand that others want to be around. It must be a pleasure working with you. They must salivate when they think of your face. (Would that be a good thing?)
The president of Environics and author of numerous books, Mike Lipkin often shares the stage with the likes of Bill Clinton and Dr. Phil, motivating millions of people around the world with his fast-paced, entertaining and enlightening dissertations on how we can—must!—be happier, healthier and more successful. Mike’s high energy is infectious and his truisms, which he calls “Lipkinisms,” have never been truer: You are only as good as your last conversation. Embrace instead of accept. Be realistic by becoming idealistic. The future is now. There were more but he talks faster than I can write.
Lipkin showed why he is one of the world’s leading motivators. He practices what he preaches. He kept it simple when he advised we have to keep it simple. But he also warned that “Nothing is more complex than keeping it simple.” However, he was able to simplify his new book, “Keeper of the Flame,” down to 10 bullet points in a pocketsize booklet for everyone to take home (along with a free copy of the 230-page version).
As far as being motivated? Mike Lipkin’s self-promotional style is all the inspiration you need and he sums it up best in my favourite Lipkinism: “Life is a pitch and then you die.”
At the last PMCQ meeting a couple of hundred people got Lipkinized. Here’s hoping it tides us over until next season. We all need a boost. Perhaps the effects will show early—in the scores from the golf tournament. Or maybe they will reveal themselves at your next marketing meeting. Here’s what to look for: clarity, action, decisiveness, courage, connectivity, outspokenness, generosity, brilliance and discipline.
Mike Lipkin calls himself a 21st Century court jester. Was he brought in to cheer everyone up? Brilliant! Because that’s what Mike did—he cheered everyone up. And then gave us a good talking to.
After joking that pharma is the new tobacco industry, Mike advised, “you are the company.” In other words, you are the company. You Inc. You must become the brand that others want to be around. It must be a pleasure working with you. They must salivate when they think of your face. (Would that be a good thing?)
The president of Environics and author of numerous books, Mike Lipkin often shares the stage with the likes of Bill Clinton and Dr. Phil, motivating millions of people around the world with his fast-paced, entertaining and enlightening dissertations on how we can—must!—be happier, healthier and more successful. Mike’s high energy is infectious and his truisms, which he calls “Lipkinisms,” have never been truer: You are only as good as your last conversation. Embrace instead of accept. Be realistic by becoming idealistic. The future is now. There were more but he talks faster than I can write.
Lipkin showed why he is one of the world’s leading motivators. He practices what he preaches. He kept it simple when he advised we have to keep it simple. But he also warned that “Nothing is more complex than keeping it simple.” However, he was able to simplify his new book, “Keeper of the Flame,” down to 10 bullet points in a pocketsize booklet for everyone to take home (along with a free copy of the 230-page version).
As far as being motivated? Mike Lipkin’s self-promotional style is all the inspiration you need and he sums it up best in my favourite Lipkinism: “Life is a pitch and then you die.”
Public Speaking
(from a March 2006 article for the Pharmceutical Marketer's Club of Quebec)
Here’s the good news: If you can master all of the tricks, tips, hints, instructions, suggestions, ideas, beliefs and theories presented by Tom Mucciolo, you could sell tickets to your next big sales presentation. Seriously. You’d have scalpers outside the meeting room getting big bucks from ordinary people who want to see you perform. Because that’s what a presentation is supposed be—a performance.
Mucciolo’s own presentation on presentation skills is a tour de force. He’s funny. He’s serious. He’s entertaining. He’s informative. He’s animated. He’s interesting. In short, he’s a pretty good presenter. The question is: Are your presentations worth the entry fee? Since most of us present for free, the answer is yes. But we could be a heck of a lot better. If we listen to Tom Mucciolo.
Consider this: For any size audience, your presentation is 55% about how you look, 38% about how you present and 7% about what you say. What makes you believable? It’s not your content; it’s your delivery. So forget about being nervous and concentrate on your look, your attitude and your gestures because, together, they are going to make your presentations highly presentable.
First, get rid of the podium and get into the presenter’s triangle—the front, the middle and the back of the stage. Not working from a stage? Use your head. Literally. Tilt forward, go to the centre and tilt back. Every position gives meaning to what you are saying. When your body language changes, your audience pays more attention. You’re forcing them to watch. And they’re watching and listening to you, not your PowerPoint presentation.
Next, just about everyone uses PowerPoint and just about everyone mis-uses it. That moving type we all love? Ditch it. Whether it’s flying in from the top, sliding in from the sides or popping up from the bottom, it’s distracting at best and annoying at worst. Text is the anchor that supports what you are saying. Keep it brief; never more than one-line bullets. The attention should always be on you. So pay attention to what you are wearing, always work with the screen on your left, use your hands to emphasize a point, show your palms to earn their trust, look people in the eye or, if that makes you uncomfortable, the bridge of their nose, smile, and to increase memory, preface your serious message with something funny. After all, you need to give your audience their money’s worth.
Here’s the good news: If you can master all of the tricks, tips, hints, instructions, suggestions, ideas, beliefs and theories presented by Tom Mucciolo, you could sell tickets to your next big sales presentation. Seriously. You’d have scalpers outside the meeting room getting big bucks from ordinary people who want to see you perform. Because that’s what a presentation is supposed be—a performance.
Mucciolo’s own presentation on presentation skills is a tour de force. He’s funny. He’s serious. He’s entertaining. He’s informative. He’s animated. He’s interesting. In short, he’s a pretty good presenter. The question is: Are your presentations worth the entry fee? Since most of us present for free, the answer is yes. But we could be a heck of a lot better. If we listen to Tom Mucciolo.
Consider this: For any size audience, your presentation is 55% about how you look, 38% about how you present and 7% about what you say. What makes you believable? It’s not your content; it’s your delivery. So forget about being nervous and concentrate on your look, your attitude and your gestures because, together, they are going to make your presentations highly presentable.
First, get rid of the podium and get into the presenter’s triangle—the front, the middle and the back of the stage. Not working from a stage? Use your head. Literally. Tilt forward, go to the centre and tilt back. Every position gives meaning to what you are saying. When your body language changes, your audience pays more attention. You’re forcing them to watch. And they’re watching and listening to you, not your PowerPoint presentation.
Next, just about everyone uses PowerPoint and just about everyone mis-uses it. That moving type we all love? Ditch it. Whether it’s flying in from the top, sliding in from the sides or popping up from the bottom, it’s distracting at best and annoying at worst. Text is the anchor that supports what you are saying. Keep it brief; never more than one-line bullets. The attention should always be on you. So pay attention to what you are wearing, always work with the screen on your left, use your hands to emphasize a point, show your palms to earn their trust, look people in the eye or, if that makes you uncomfortable, the bridge of their nose, smile, and to increase memory, preface your serious message with something funny. After all, you need to give your audience their money’s worth.
Robin Sharma's Important Lessons
Occasionally, I will upload past articles I have written for various clients... here's one from March 2005:
The first client I hugged looked confused. And he seemed more perplexed when I explained that, damn it, I loved him. But that’s just how I felt after spending an hour with author, visionary CEO, elite-performance expert, and former lawyer, Robin Sharma. And why not? It was nine-thirty in the morning on a beautifully warm, brilliantly blue spring day, I just got a free book and I was hopped up on coffee… and life.
It’s easy to dismiss today’s millionaire self-help gurus. That’s probably why so many cynics do. The philosophy seems so cookie-cutter perfect and the advice appears to lack any truly deep meaning. Don’t we already know this stuff? That we are all basically good. That we don’t live our lives to the fullest. That we should run towards the things we fear most. Evidently not. Because Mr. Sharma’s PMCQ breakfast presentation was packed with educated, successful professionals hanging on his every word and publicly sharing their beliefs and desires—albeit with the raising of a hand.
Originally from Cape Breton, Sharma gave up practicing law because his life felt hollow. He confesses that he “cobbled together” his own philosophy and wrote a book. His mom did the editing and Kinko’s did the printing. The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari became a worldwide bestseller, sold millions of copies, gave birth to Sharma Leadership International, and rocketed Robin into the stratosphere of sought-after speakers like Dr. Phil, Bill Clinton, Deepak Chopra, Christopher Reeve, and Wayne Dyer.
Mr. Sharma’s advice to business people is simple. We need to value what business is all about: relationships. We need to be more real, be nicer, and be more ethical. We need to have more fun. We need to commit to a work/life balance and stop taking our good health for granted. We need to find our inner child; the one that’s creative, loving, persistent, always moving forward and living in the moment. In Sharma’s words, “Your days are your life in miniature.” So every day is a new beginning and a new chance to improve yourself even by one percent. My client says I should start by cutting back on the coffee.
The first client I hugged looked confused. And he seemed more perplexed when I explained that, damn it, I loved him. But that’s just how I felt after spending an hour with author, visionary CEO, elite-performance expert, and former lawyer, Robin Sharma. And why not? It was nine-thirty in the morning on a beautifully warm, brilliantly blue spring day, I just got a free book and I was hopped up on coffee… and life.
It’s easy to dismiss today’s millionaire self-help gurus. That’s probably why so many cynics do. The philosophy seems so cookie-cutter perfect and the advice appears to lack any truly deep meaning. Don’t we already know this stuff? That we are all basically good. That we don’t live our lives to the fullest. That we should run towards the things we fear most. Evidently not. Because Mr. Sharma’s PMCQ breakfast presentation was packed with educated, successful professionals hanging on his every word and publicly sharing their beliefs and desires—albeit with the raising of a hand.
Originally from Cape Breton, Sharma gave up practicing law because his life felt hollow. He confesses that he “cobbled together” his own philosophy and wrote a book. His mom did the editing and Kinko’s did the printing. The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari became a worldwide bestseller, sold millions of copies, gave birth to Sharma Leadership International, and rocketed Robin into the stratosphere of sought-after speakers like Dr. Phil, Bill Clinton, Deepak Chopra, Christopher Reeve, and Wayne Dyer.
Mr. Sharma’s advice to business people is simple. We need to value what business is all about: relationships. We need to be more real, be nicer, and be more ethical. We need to have more fun. We need to commit to a work/life balance and stop taking our good health for granted. We need to find our inner child; the one that’s creative, loving, persistent, always moving forward and living in the moment. In Sharma’s words, “Your days are your life in miniature.” So every day is a new beginning and a new chance to improve yourself even by one percent. My client says I should start by cutting back on the coffee.
Friday, October 06, 2006
Why do I need a blog?
Why do I need a blog? I don't have the answer, except that everyone seems to have one. "Everyone" being part of that great mystery group: "they." You know, "they" say that... (fill in your favourite saying by "them," which is a subgroup of "they").
Alright. So now that I have a blog (and I am not too certain about the "Writer's Cramp" name -- it's either too cute or too lame. You decide. And send in your suggestions for your chance to win.) The better question is: What am I going to do with this blog? I don't know. Still working on that one.
I will probably use it to promote me. After all, in this self-centred society, who else is going to promote me? Everyone else is too busy promoting themselves to spend any time talking about me. Unless they (you see? they're everywhere) have something nasty to say about me. But Oscar Wilde said (oh boy, even I'm getting fed up with me now), "the only thing worse than people talking about you, is people NOT talking about you." Hey, it worked for him because we're still quoting him. Or at least I am.
So, I'll keep the entries short and try to update regularly (yeah, yeah, we've all heard that before) and try to find out exactly why I have started this whole thing in the first place. Well, it's free. I like free stuff. And you know what they say about free stuff? It's free.
Alright. So now that I have a blog (and I am not too certain about the "Writer's Cramp" name -- it's either too cute or too lame. You decide. And send in your suggestions for your chance to win.) The better question is: What am I going to do with this blog? I don't know. Still working on that one.
I will probably use it to promote me. After all, in this self-centred society, who else is going to promote me? Everyone else is too busy promoting themselves to spend any time talking about me. Unless they (you see? they're everywhere) have something nasty to say about me. But Oscar Wilde said (oh boy, even I'm getting fed up with me now), "the only thing worse than people talking about you, is people NOT talking about you." Hey, it worked for him because we're still quoting him. Or at least I am.
So, I'll keep the entries short and try to update regularly (yeah, yeah, we've all heard that before) and try to find out exactly why I have started this whole thing in the first place. Well, it's free. I like free stuff. And you know what they say about free stuff? It's free.
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