Don't Covet Your Brand

If you think your brand is more important than your consumers then good luck to you - you'll need it. Too many marketers have a "brand-obsession" - often at the expense of their most important asset, their customers. It's a good practice to repeat the mantra that the brand is "your promise to your customer." The key words here of course are "promise" and "customer." Yes, you are selling an experience - but that experience must be based on a promise, a consistent promise that you can deliver upon, time and again. In our business, we all talk about the same two brands - Apple and Nike. Look at Nike's advertising, they never talk about the product attributes. They made a decision to separate their commodity product by elevating the brand to be about beliefs, not products. They talk about what they believe in, not what they sell. Apple does the same. They believe in "thinking different." If you too believe in thinking different then Apple wants you as a customer. If you do not, they are fine if you buy someone else's product. The bottom line is that we talk about these brands so much because they put into practice what they believe - and consumers have responded in droves. However, an obsession with your "brand" can cause companies to take their eye off the real prize - the customer. More on that later.

Impossible Dreams

The impossible is what we want. We long for it like a highway desires an automobile accident to break the monotony of speed. Of course nothing is that simple. - Richard Brautigan (June 1963)

The Old Guys Knew Best

"A company in which anyone is afraid to speak up, to differ, to be daring and original, is closing the coffin door on itself." - Leo Burnett

Make It Count

Step Up

The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.

Martin Luther King Jr.,

Lee Clow Quote

"For 40 years, I've believed that our business and what we do is to create things," said Mr. Clow. "To have ideas, to tell brand stories in an artful way. But somehow every other media artist ... whether they be photographers or filmmakers, directors, people that create TV shows, people who create music, people who perform music ... all of those creative art forms have managed to figure out how to get paid for the value of what they create. Get paid, get residuals, allowed to own what creative idea they have delivered to the world. If it's a bad idea, it will pay very little. But if it's a great idea, it can pay for years and years and years."

"Unfortunately, in our business, we get paid like we're doing our clients' laundry. We haven't figured out that the ideas that we create can become a very powerful asset to the brands we work for. Many of the ideas -- whether they be slogans or advertising forms and styles or a voice that we create for brands -- could be listed on the balance sheet of our clients as an asset with millions and millions of dollars in value."

"Somehow we've managed to commoditize what we do so that whatever agency gets hired for the lowest price they can negotiate with the purchasing agent gets paid the same as the -- I'd like to say -- better agencies. There are more talented and less talented companies in our business, but somehow that has no role in the compensation formula."

"We're supposed to be a creative business, but I think we have been probably the least creative industry in the history of the world in terms of figuring out how to get paid."

All My Days

Well I have been searching all of my days
All of my days
Many a road, you know
Ive been walking on
All of my days
And Ive been trying to find
Whats been in my mind
As the days keep turning into night

Well I have been quietly standing in the shade
All of my days
Watch the sky breaking on the promise that we made
All of this rain
And Ive been trying to find
Whats been in my mind
As the days keep turning into night

Well many a night I found myself with no friends standing near
All of my days
I cried aloud
I shook my hands
What am I doing here
All of these days
For I look around me
And my eyes confound me
And its just too bright
As the days keep turning into night

Now I see clearly
Its you Im looking for
All of my days
Soon Ill smile
I know Ill feel this loneliness no more
All of my days
For I look around me
And it seems He found me
And its coming into sight
As the days keep turning into night
As the days keep turning into night
And even breathing feels all right
Yes, even breathing feels all right
Now even breathing feels all right
Its even breathing
Feels all right