ITS NOT EVERY DAY A CLIENT HIRES US TO LEAVE THEIR BRAND ALONE. As you might imagine, this was a surprising request coming from Redwood Credit Union when they engaged our team in the fall of 2013. Instead, this $2.4B credit union asked us to help distill their highly successful brand, succinctly documenting core strengths to ensure ongoing alignment with […]
Author Archives: Kristiana Lockman
Brave brands take center stage
Brands aren’t sitting back waiting to be discovered. They’re trying to get in front of us, working up a sweat as they audition for the spotlight in our heads. But you know who doesn’t have to work so hard? You know who walks right up and takes the stage? The brand that starts a conversation that matters.
Does content marketing make you more interesting?
Content marketing isn’t new. In fact, it’s older than you are. When you consider that John Deere produced The Furrow magazine to “educate” farmers all the way back in 1895, and since then, persuasive copy has been used to sell everything from tires to toys to toilet paper, you realize that we’ve all been marketing content for centuries.
Of course, that doesn’t mean we’re good at it.
Your biggest social media fans are sitting right next to you
If you could hire someone to exponentially improve your social media program’s organic reach, increase the number of word-of-mouth referrals you receive, generate thought-provoking, branded content for your website and social media platforms, and deepen and enrich your relationships with your members, you’d do it, right? Guess what? You already have. And they’re sitting right next to you.
Evolution takes courage
Sometimes relying on our history can hinder our best efforts to evolve an established brand. When things aren’t going as well as we’d hoped, when we feel unsure about what to do next, we long for the days when we had momentum working in our favor. It may be tempting to emulate past successes, even though the market has changed. Even though we’ve changed. Evolution takes courage.
Watching JCPenney revert to its pre-2011 logo is like watching an old friend get sucked back into a relationship with the high school quarterback, the guy who still pulls up VHS tapes of past touchdowns when you drop in to say hello. This is obviously a company struggling to find a safe landing, and one that is unsure about its future.
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Playing Offense
At first glance, disruptive innovations can be hard to get your head around. Take 3D printing. How is that possible? If I draw a ball on my computer and click print, will it come bouncing out of my HP Laserjet printer? Cool. And what about Amazon’s delivery drones? My mind goes right to small, black, ninja-like helicopters bonking their noses on my low porch overhang, dropping the Ming vase I just scored for $9.99 on eBay. How is that going to work exactly?
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Did Cadillac fully rise to the occasion?
Cadillac’s new ‘poolside’ ad is hard to swallow. It’s the one in which an assertive, confident master of the house surveys his domain and reminds us why Americans are so great. I’m pretty sure this is one of those ads that will reflect the worst of America’s culture when we look back on it in 50 years, and not just to the liberal idealist.
Regardless of whether the ad makes you feel proud or ugly, from a marketing perspective, I think they missed a terrific cross-promotional opportunity. To truly celebrate our culture, they should have leveraged another uniquely American campaign: Viagra.
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Trust me
My fifth grade teacher had a motto about not trusting someone who says, “trust me.” Mr. Rhodes was one of those gray, gruff, grizzled teachers you adore as a kid, the kind of teacher who grows larger in esteem as he grows smaller in the rearview mirror. He was a sharp guy, and his valuable lesson about thinking for myself has served me well.
What can Little House on the Prairie teach you about growing your membership?
I’m currently reading theLittle House on the Prairie series with my six year old. For those not familiar, this is a story of a little girl and her pioneer family, set in the late 1800s. What’s fascinating to me is what my daughter is absorbing from the story and how it’s changing her behavior. What can this teach credit unions?
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