Influx

The notion of making great products is an over-used perspective on the state of marketing, but it's critical if brands and corporations want to have any relevance with consumers.  A great product solves so many problems and if it's great enough- the product will market itself.Obviously, this...

Many companies are obsessed with their customer satisfaction scores and look to make customers satisfied. Software company, 37signals believe that's satisfaction is a pretty low bar and believe the right criteria is happiness. Here's 37signals belief system around happinessHere's how people get...

The Creative Brief Project has moved onto its next phase-we've done some core learning, so this is where we want to solicit- opinion, perspectives, best practices and thoughts around 3 specific areas of the creative brief and the process.1. The Pre-Brief- A new area that's all about sharing and...

The Creative Brief ProjectView more presentations from Edward Cotton.It's good to get out and sample opinion, check in and see where people are at. It doesn't seem that the world is that much further on from where Jon Steel left it, as far as the brief is concerned. The brief still matters, but...

A huge thank you to those of you who promoted the debate on Twitter and to PSFK for helping it reach a larger audience. On Day 2 of the Creative Brief Project, we've got a nice little discussion going. I am keen to turn this into something concrete, so I will endeavor to interpret the cogent points...

The Account Planner's most important "product" is supposed to be the creative brief. Jon Steel devoted chapters to it in his landmark book,"Truth Lies and Advertising" and "the brief" is still the yardstick by which strategic input is measured.However, things have changed:1. The world has gotten...

It’s an interesting moment when people start looking backwards instead of forwards. This could define where we are now and might have been for a while. Is it because of the security and comfort that we find in the past, or the fact that the constant we’ve become numbed by the...

Absolut, one of the biggest success stories of the last century, has had some problems coming to terms with the C21st. It has been overtaken by other brands who've become more culturally relevant.  Under the ownership of Pernod-Ricard, the brand is staging a recovery on various fronts. One key...

Corporate America's response to CSR has mainly been one fueled by obligation to either regulators or grassroots organizations. It's something that's pursued on the sidelines of business and very rarely in-step or integrated with the corporate mission and certainly isn't part of revenue...

Complexity has become an excuse for some businesspeople to preserve the status quo, to abandon thinking ahead and to push strategy to one side, because they don't believe it can be flexible and responsive enough to help them in a rapidly changing world. KPMG recently asked 1,400 corporate decision...

The latest data from Edelman's Trust Barometer makes for a compelling read. As the chart above illustrates; banking seems to be suffering something of a trust crisis, while technology and automotive appear to be doing much better.It's clear that banking needs to follow more in the footsteps of...

Morgan Spurlock is probably familiar to most as one of the most entertaining documentary makers out there. His masterpiece, "Supersize Me" told many about the ugly side of fast food and forced the industry into something of a PR crisis. Spurlock's latest victim appears to be the advertising and...

David Carr's recent story in the NYT about Richemont's purchase of Net-a-Porter highlights the desire of fashion brands to become publishers in their own right.For fashion publishers and the agencies involved in creating advertising for these brands, this presents something of challenge. The brands...

Yum, the 37,000 restaurant unit company. has made no secret of its intention to expand rapidly in overseas markets. For the last few years it has been talking up China as its most critically important market. However, a few days ago, when they presented at a Cowen and Company investor conference,...

Next Wednesday, Rupert Murdoch and Steve Jobs will announce the launch of the iPad newspaper, "The Daily". It's a venture that the Australian, Murdoch has already reported to have sunk $30 million into, at a time when the future of newspapers is being questioned and even the magazine publishers,...