In math, asymptotes are curves that flatten out and never reach an upper limit. Most of us know the puzzle of the frog that can jump halfway to its goal. If it keeps jumping halfway, it will never get there. That is an asymptote. A point of diminishing return. Brands are constantly looking to improve… Read More: Product Improvements Have an Asymptote »
One of my earliest assignments in the 1970s was working in advertising in New York on a company called Grocery Store Products Company. It was a company with a totally generic name that had just been purchased by Clorox. The company was like many that started in the first half of the 20th century. It… Read More: How I Met Your Spanish »
If you ask anyone what their IQ is, they will give you a number higher than 100. Guaranteed. How can that be? If the IQ is an index against the average with 100 being the average? That definition means that about half of the population has an IQ greater than 100 and half the population has one… Read More: We’re All Above Average; We All Buy Below Retail »
Any good piece of communications works on at least three levels of meaning. This is true for books, movies, poems, songs, stories, even advertising. Without depth of meaning, communication becomes boring, discarded and forgotten. This was first taught to me by Robert Lewis Shayon who was the Media Critic for the Saturday Review, a high… Read More: Multiple Levels of Meaning »
It was in the 1970s I was hired to work with a client, Heublein, that had been in the liquor business for some time. They had recently purchased a couple of food companies and had hired a President and marketing managers, mostly from General Foods, to work on the products. I had worked a lot with… Read More: Why Tacos Are Not Mexican Food »
There are so many lesser known brands that need advertising help to become better known and gain trial. How do they get it and is the help they get any good? Every retail or on-line store has more brands than you could count. Some well known. Most scarcely known. Some totally unknown. The more a… Read More: Even a Small Brand Has a Story – Acapulco Hots… »
It took some explanation for me to understand that washing clothes was not something done in a basement room, but the opposite, on a rooftop. It was part of my learning when I started working in the 1980s in Venezuela on heavy-duty detergent, Ariel, made by Procter & Gamble. You have to put your preconceived… Read More: Up on the Rooftop Doing the Chaca-Chaca »
The advertising industry glorifies cleverness and wit. Clever ideas are the ones that win at all the award shows. But clever can also lose the customer. Sometimes folks in our industry use their cleverness to feel superior over the poor schmucks who are their target market. That lack of humility can turn off the target… Read More: The Argument Against Cleverness »
We had done a very successful Texaco promotion featuring Fuji Photo Film. The commercial was a winner at the International Film & TV Festival in New York. The commercial presented a man driving in to a Texaco station on a giant 35mm camera asking for a fill up. Customers received a free roll of Fuji… Read More: How to Shoot Yourself in a New Business Pitch »
Anyone who has worked in marketing or advertising, particularly in packaged goods, has worked on a lot of new product ideas that were never a success in the market. Some products died in concept testing, some actually made it to prototype then test market in regional or local markets, and some made it nationally before… Read More: Lost Products: The Hall of Lame »