T hese are the 2 most common reasons marketing programs fail:   1) Poor planning and 2) weak execution It points to WHERE marketing programs fail but it doesn’t explain WHY.  You have to understand WHY if you want to solve these problems.  Why Marketing Programs Fail 1) Poor Planning Let’s face it. Everyone…

D ata-driven direct response marketing has become increasingly popular in this digital age. But its value to marketers comes from a bias built on a mountain of assumptions and misperceptions.  Before we get bogged down by the incendiary nature of that last statement, let’s instead start addressing this subject by jumping to the end of…

T he worse part of the advertising business is not the unrealistic deadlines, the late hours, or the uneven pay. It’s having to deal with all the know-it-alls. They ruin everything. You’ve heard the old proverb: “The wise man remains silent while others consider him a fool. The fool opens his mouth and removes all…

S mall is good. The Big Gulp has lost its charm. People see through offers like Double-Size, Jumbo, and Maxi. Overindulgence has reached the tipping point. Being big for the sake of being big isn’t fooling any one today. And it’s especially not fooling savvy marketers. That’s why they are regularly turning to small agencies…

W e started Positive Brand in 2004 with a promise to put the customer at the center of everything we do. Our strategies, creative ideas, and media plans all operate in synchronous orbit around our client’s customer. It’s an approach that has produced stellar results, time and time again. What we’ve gained is impressive…

I f a tree falls in the forest and there’s no one there to hear it, does it make a sound? Sure. But the sound has no meaning. The same is true for marketing campaigns. If a marketing campaign hits the marketplace and no one is measuring its impact, then the campaign has no meaning.…

I  live in New York City. Everyone is impressed—sometimes intimidated—with New York City. Really, it’s the idea of New York City. The truth is that NYC is more similar than it is different from every other place. What it has going for it is a great reputation—a great brand. I recently traveled to Paris.…

T here are some radical people out there, just itching to get their hands on your brand. They have big plans. And chances are, they have no intention of asking for your permission. These radicals are a small minority, but they should be not be ignored. If you focus all of your marketing effort on…

O ur conviction can be our own worse enemy. We understand a situation with certain clarity. We arrive at our opinion honestly, applying insight, expertise, and diligence to our conclusions. We have convinced ourselves. Now we are trying to convince others. Tread cautiously here. I was invited to a gathering of DDB Worldwide’s executive creative…

A n engagement strategy is an idea-driven solution inspired by the critical information you have assembled. It takes everything you know about your customer, their interests, and their media consumption habits and brings focus to those insights. Ideas for driving your engagement strategy are as numerous and diverse as the problems they solve. To…