Martin Agency’s Elizabeth Paul on Selling Your Competitive Strategy with the “Sameness Collage”
Written by Stephen Boehler with special guest Elizabeth Paul CMOs, senior marketers, and agency executives are often tasked with the critical challenge of differentiating their brand or business. Most companies in the same industry look and sound the same. Yet – there is a comfort to management in this similarity! Because of this comfort – […]
Creative Reviews: The CMO Guide to Getting These Right
Last week we covered a simple 5 question process that CMOs can use with their teams to evaluate creative. Now it’s time for the agency to present their work – how should you structure the meeting to be as productive and inspiring as possible? Effective creative review sessions are critical to the brand and the […]
CMO Guide to Evaluating Creative
Dear CMOs: Please teach your people how to evaluate creative! Marketers are constantly evaluating creative presentations. Much of it ends up fabulous – great creative that grabs the target’s attention, is memorable and accomplishes its objectives – advertising that changes feelings, minds, and behaviors. Behind the scenes, it is often very difficult for the client […]
Strategist Caroline Krediet & the Dos Equis Story
Written by Steve Boehler with guest star Caroline Krediet Caroline Krediet was the account planner working on Dos Equis leading up to the famous and incredibly successful Most Interesting Man in the World campaign. Caroline is a strategist with few peers, with an uncanny ability to meld tried and true strategic processes with intuition, delivering […]
10 Questions with Intel’s Tim McDonough
Tim McDonough, VP and General Manager of Intel’s Client Computing Business, is a seasoned marketer with deep strategic marketing experience. He has a blue-chip background including senior roles at Microsoft, Qualcomm, and Unity Technologies. Tim has seen it all and stopped for a few minutes to share his knowledge with us. We had a great […]
What Makes A Great CMO
We have been lucky enough to have worked with many exceptional CMOs and other senior marketing and agency leaders. What have we learned? Senior marketing and agency roles have never been more demanding and challenging. The keys to being successful in these roles have changed in the past twenty years. The most successful senior marketing […]
The Power of Positive Partnerships
I recently came across some notes I had scribbled following a discussion many years ago with a senior, wise and incredibly successful C-suite leader and this quote caught my eye: “It’s impossible to get great advertising without treating the Agency as a valued partner. It’s impossible to get great products without creating a partnership with […]
Three Books CMOs & Agency Leaders Should Read in 2021
CMOs and agency leaders have much in common. A shortage of free time and difficulty adding to their own skillsets is one of those similarities. To help, here are three books that we think all senior marketers and agency execs should read early this year. how not to plan by Les Binet & Sarah Carter […]
Turn Your Biz Dev Efforts Upside Down for Growth & Profit
Agencies everywhere are finding business development to be a greater and greater challenge. Unfortunately, the business development strategies of many agencies are not up to the challenge. Unattainable growth rates are often needed to achieve agency growth objectives The investment required and the low odds of winning pitches is debilitating The stress on organic growth […]
Another One Bites the Dust: Modern Agencies Fail to Differentiate
WPP announced a few days ago that venerable agency Grey would be folded underneath AKQA. Another one bites the dust. Grey – founded in 1917 – isn’t the first historic brand to be purchased by a holding company and eventually retired. Just a sampling of agencies that have disappeared or been merged into other brands […]