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Category: Marketing

Semantic confusion surrounding modern marketing

There are numerous marketing terms that are being misused so often these days that I often find it necessary to give a quick lecture on semantics before presenting, training or consulting with clients. If this is not done from the get-go, then consensus within a group is nearly impossible to attain. Even if two people fundamentally agree on something, they have no way of knowing due to the fact that their initial paradigms are different. A great visual example of this is the famous illustration of the old lady/young lady I have included in this post.

The Girl Effect

I was going through some overdue Social Marketing ListServe reading today, when I happened to stumble across this Girl Effect video in one of Nancy Lee ‘s responses.  She came across it by reading a Nicholas D. Kristof article in the New York Times (Build, Boast, Sell). The debate on the ListServe revolved around the differences between Social Marketing and traditional Marketing. This video (created by Nike) illustrates how re-branding the approach on poverty (note that re-branding is a marketing technique) could have a powerful effect on how we deal with it. I only wish this great ListServe discussion had occurred on a more modern platform as it is now lost in email archives.

If your service/product sucks then it’s really going to suck online

Those of you that know me personally, know that I like to be blunt, no beating around the bush. This isn’t always easy when dealing with clients, but is often necessary nonetheless. One issue I have run into on a few occasions now is organizations thinking that social media engagement is the be-it-end-all solution to all of their marketing problems. Usually the mentality behind this is that social media engagement will allow them to drastically increase awareness of their product/service at very little cost and have more people using it as a result.