Before the film Legends of the Fall was released, actor Brad Pitt was dismayed to learn that his favorite scene was being cut.  Apparently, a marketing report showed that it was the test audience’s most hated scene.  Pitt asked to read the report, which also revealed that it was the second favorite scene in the…

Watch a marching band, especially from a high vantage point, and you realize something very quickly: the band members can never see what they’re achieving.  They only see what’s in their immediate vicinity while they’re on the field.  Only after a performance, when they see video shot from on high, can they really understand how…

It’s been going on so long, it’s a classic.  Many people run errands like making a bank deposit on their lunch hours.  When does a bank have the fewest tellers available?  Lunch hours.  Most people would prefer to work doctor visits around lunch hours.  When are most doctors’ offices closed?  Lunch hours.  If you were…

You can invest a huge amount of time, energy and money into crafting a brand that will be rich and compelling.  And your people can undo every bit of it in a heartbeat.  When that happens, it’s because they’re not sold on the brand.  Maybe they don’t see their bosses living the brand, so they…

There’s a phenomenon psychologists call “expectancy theory,” and it says this: we generally experience what we expect.  It’s been proven over and over.  If we expect a better meal from Restaurant A, the food will taste better to us, whether it really is better nor not.  This has a huge implication for your company, and…

According to an article in Advertising Age, Yum Restaurants CEO David Novak summoned agencies together to talk about boosting sales.  His approach?  Novak asked the agencies to help them find the reasons for their challenges, then recommend some solutions.  Then he asked a nearly unprecedented question: what could the team at Yum do to help…

When companies or departments decide to invest time in strategic planning or brainstorming, they almost always do it the same way – as an event.  Get everyone together for a day, and stuff as much planning into that day as possible, then go back to business as usual.  That assumes that everyone can just turn…

Often, companies see their website as simply an online representation of their business where (hopefully) prospects land to find out more about them.  But by using landing pages and microsites, you can direct specific prospects to very specific messages, contents and offers through your marketing efforts – and give yourself a great way to track…

Rather than choosing one or two ways to get your message across, consider pulling several together into one united effort.  For example, you can send a direct mail piece to a very targeted list, and through variable data printing, include a PURL (personalized URL) that takes each prospect to his or her own unique web…

It’s always worthwhile to ask yourself if there are profitable, underserved niche markets for what you do.  For example, 20% of veterans are starting or buying a business, or thinking about it.  What bank is going to be smart enough to put together a business program to support those veterans, who statistically are disciplined and…