Clarity is the thin membrane that separates disaster from success. That 5-degree difference in heading that separates the wayward cruise ship from a near-miss to “abandon ship” — that’s the importance of clarity. That time Pepsi had to buy a contest winner a harrier jet — that’s a lack of clarity. The feeling of… Read More »The Purpose of Copywriting is to Achieve Clarity
Whether you’re an in-house marketer, a consultant, or an agency, hearing the words “We have no competitors” can be the kiss of death for the brand. Competition is good, but here is how young entrepreneurs screw it up sometimes…
A practical exercise in saying something more than “I like good things and dislike bad things”. Thousands of hours of agency and in-house branding, PR, marketing, and miscellaneous “communications professional” work time is spent on trying to dress up the flaccid and the obvious as “brand values”. Marketing and communications… Read More »How to uncover authentic (brand) values.
Don’t be confused. You, the consumer, are the product of branding. The doctrine of “no-self” in Buddhism describes the idea that there is no single, indivisible, permanent self. You are not your perceptions, your thoughts, your feelings, not even your body that replaces every component of itself many times over… Read More »A Brand is a set of values.
For this exercise, I went back to PowerPoint as my design tool, outlining the 5 most common ways I have seen designers make presentations look neater, sharper, and more internally coherent.
What do Groot and Baby Yoda have in common? They both think Baby Nut is a poser.
The Planters Baby Nut ad is an example of poor brand storytelling. The Baby Nut campaign undermines itself and the brand. It makes me not want to buy Planters nuts. More generally, this ad campaign violated a couple of basic brand storytelling principles, taking a risk and trying to make us care, only to roll everything back and strip out any emotional investment in the story, or the brand.
Sometimes your instincts are wrong.
A car mirror is a tool designed to give you the ability to perceive what’s behind you while driving. It saves you from changing lanes into a collision with a semi. A mirror is an invaluable tool keeping you aware and safe on the road, and its use seems instinctively simple. Unfortunately, your instinct can be deadly wrong.
