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: Front Page Cereal Launch »
Toronto should offer thanks, maybe a statue, to the one man who has made this city into the world class city it has become. When I was a kid, Toronto was a weak number two city in Canada. Montreal was the most important city with Vancouver a distant number three. Head offices were in Montreal. Everyone… Read More: Toronto Should Thank Its Most Supportive Politician »
Names are funny things. They are the nouns of our lives. They create expectations and label us. They become our brands. We are often asked why we named our company Calexis and what it means. The truth is, we made it up. Our business is creativity. We create brand imagery and names for our clients,… Read More: Hey Calexis, Why the Funny Name? »
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: Trying to Introduce Capitalism »
One minute I was playing squash with my friend Alan, the next minute I was totally in the dark. I could see nothing. Just blackness. Nothing. What happened? The weird thing was that Alan saw the same thing. We had been playing squash on the fifth floor of a club in New York City on… Read More: When You Are Totally in the Dark »
Everyone who has ever managed people should aim to be a “Geppetto Manager.” In the famous Italian story, retold by Disney, Geppetto was the old woodcarver who made a wooden marionette named Pinocchio. Pinocchio, the puppet, dreams of becoming a real boy. The story is about how Pinocchio learns to have a conscience and then,… Read More: Geppetto Management »
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: What’s the Real Price? »
I once gave a class presentation about the psychology used in advertising that leads people to deceive themselves. I outlined some of the techniques to our class of about twenty or so. At the end of the class, a number of students said they did not believe me. They said they could never be fooled… Read More: Hey Nineteen – How Psychological Bias Works »
When we were kids and wanted to play baseball, more than often we had too few players to play a full game with two teams. There were two options: scrub and ping-pong. For scrubs, when the bell rang for lunch or the end of the school day, the boys would make a run for the… Read More: Scrubs and Ping Pong, the Baseball Alternatives »
There was more to Haida Gwaii than the ruins of the Haida villages like SGang Gwaay. We also visited Tanu (T’aanuu llnagaay) the burial place of well known Haida artist, Bill Reid. We also visited Skedans (Koona Llnaagay which means “Village at the Edge” – note the word for village is sometime written llanagaay, llnagaay, llnaagay because Haida is essentially an… Read More: Haida Gwaii Final Days »