Category Archives: Life

Front Page Cereal Launch

There were established rules that limited the use of well known persons in advertising to children in Canada.  Then our client, General Mills, let us know they had signed a deal to launch a cereal, Pro*Stars in 1983, that would feature Wayne Gretzky, the Great One, on the package.  It was the brainchild of Mike… Read More »

Naming Things: An Advertising Solution

Human beings have an obsession for naming things.  This is not surprising since it is the basis of all society, all language and all communications. We name ourselves first.  We grow up knowing our labels and very few of us change those labels.  This is us adding our own version of metatags with each choice… Read More »

Trying to Introduce Capitalism

A freelance assignment in Hungary came up in 1989. The country was just breaking free from Russian domination and communism. A bank in Budapest, called DunaBank, wanted to launch a credit card. I was hired based on my marketing work with Texaco’s credit card operation, and the fact that Canada was less scary and more… Read More »

What’s the Real Price?

When buying a new car in the US, you are given two prices on the vehicle as you browse: Manufacturers Suggested Retail Price (MSRP) and Market Adjusted Price (MAP). Why?  MSRP is required disclosure on all vehicles and is commonly called the “sticker price.”  It used to be an anchor price that told buyers what… Read More »