Do you know the one about Jerry and Jeff walking into a coffee shop? “I love advertising because I love lying.” Jerry Seinfeld tells the room as he accepts a Clio award for his work with American Express. He goes on to describe how people are happy in the time between seeing an ad and experiencing the disappointment of the product. He continues “I think spending your life trying to dupe innocent people out of hard-won earnings to buy useless,…
In days long gone a company’s brand story typically emanated from a single place, from the company itself. Today, technologies like Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, blogs, Yelp, and (insert technology dijour here) have given customers a powerful platform to get in on the act. Too often there are two completely different brand stories being told; the story you tell yourself about your own brand, and the story your customers are spreading. Which version of those two stories is most likely…
When I talk to marketers about their creative briefs the responses I get are about as diverse as the undie aisle at Target. Their briefs come in all shapes, styles, and sizes and only the most brave and defiant don’t bother to use briefs at all. Some will preach on about the virtue of briefs and their necessary role in covering the company’s marketing essentials. Most complain their creative briefs offer too little support and grant their agencies too much…
Over the course of almost two decades, Jeffrey and I have worked directly with hundreds of content writers. Many of them were our secret weapons in many of our most exciting client success stories. Once the writers understood the personas they were writing for, had a clear sense of the narrative flow of the scenario and the context (where their content piece fit with in that scenario) they almost always delivered content that was both relevant and persuasive. However, a…
There are bad companies, good ones, great ones, and then there are legendary companies. Legendary companies that disrupt, innovate, revolutionize their space. These companies lead, not just in market share, but in the hearts and minds of their customers. They come in all shapes, sizes, and business models. Yet each one can teach us something about how our companies can become legends. In just under two decades Amazon.com has become in the digital age, what the Walmart was in the…
Jeffrey and I built our business on content. When we first started our agency in 1998, we had zero capital (even rent & grocery money was tough). What we did have, for those of you who really know us, was lots of opinions. So we started writing, first in discussion lists (remember i-sales, etc.), then our own newsletter and then ClickZ. We started blogging before it was even called blogging or even thought of as content marketing. All these years,…
Brands must make sure their stories are being told properly across all channels and that they can measure alignment and congruence across the channels as well. In 1967 Maytag aired its “lonely repairman” TV commercial, telling the first of many tales of a Maytag repairman with nothing to do and nothing to repair. The Maytag repairman became an icon and for more than 40 years the campaign bound the word “reliability” together with Maytag in the minds of millions of…
Dear Cognoscenti Friends, Thank you for following the link from the Monday Morning Memo. Wizard Academy is our home and you are part of our tribe. We appreciate your interest and want to keep you informed. Here’s a little more information about Buyer Legends, the ebook to be published this summer, and a Wizard Academy course. Buyer Legends is the process of using narratives and storytelling in your marketing and selling efforts. By writing stories – or buyer legends –…