A Tip For CMOs as Agency Reviews Heat Up: Don’t Hire Agency Search Consultants if They Charge Agencies
We recently received an email from a major global agency with the following passage: “I wanted to reach out to talk about partnering with Mercer Island Group on a more formal basis. Do you have anything you can share around how you like to partner with agencies and how you structure the partnership fees?” How […]
Jae Goodman on What Marketers Can Learn From Entertainment Marketing
I first met Jae Goodman back in the early 2000s during his Hal Riney & Partners days. Jae was in his early thirties and was already ECD of that venerable agency. He and I shared a key client — the Sprint business. Sprint was a tough brand challenge in a tough market with a very […]
How P&G Execs Historically Role Modeled Customer Intimacy
Last week I wrote about how, as a young brand marketer at Procter & Gamble, word spread around the company that CEO John Smale would listen to tapes of consumer calls everyday in his car on his drive home in the evening. The. CEO. Listening to consumer calls. That was astounding! I wrote about how soon after, many Brand Managers were mimicking Mr. Smale’s behaviors. We found out that […]
CEOs, CMOs and Agency Leaders Should Role Model Customer Intimacy
When I was a young brand marketer at Procter & Gamble, word spread around the company that CEO John Smale would listen to tapes of consumer calls every day in his car on his drive home in the evening. John G. Smale, Former P&G President, CEO and Board Chair The. CEO. Listening to consumer calls. […]
Build a Better Agency Summit (Chicago, August 10 & 11, 2021)
Is your agency as successful as you’d like? Do you dream of more? There are thousands of marketing agencies in the United States. Advertising agencies, digital agencies, media agencies, PR agencies and more. Most are not growing as much as they’d like or making as much profit as desired. How can you stand out? How […]
Why Great Creative Matters: The World’s Shortest Speech
The late Mike Moser was one of the finest creative leaders of the last thirty years. After a decade at Chiat Day, he helped start Goldberg Moser O’Neil, a high-flying 1990’s agency in San Francisco. He won multiple Clios and Cannes Lions. And he wrote a wonderful (now out of print) book United We Brand: […]
Jim Stengel and Steve Boehler Discuss the Famous P&G “If I Were a Brand Manager Today” Speech
Written by Steve Boehler with Special Guest Jim Stengel Yesterday we shared the text of the famous P&G “if I were a brand manager today” speech. The speech was delivered many times in the 1980s by Procter & Gamble’s Tom Laco and is one of the most famous marketing speeches in history. Jim Stengel and I […]
The Famous P&G “If I Were a Brand Manager Today” Speech
Procter & Gamble’s Tom Laco – at the time an EVP running the global marketer’s US business – gave one of the most famous marketing speeches in history in 1981. He called it “If I were a brand manager today” and in the speech, Tom laid out, in very practical terms, the keys to P&G’s […]
CMO & Agency Leader Guide to Consumer Behavior, Part 2: Creating Better Consumer-Centric Efforts
Last week we discussed a model that helps us to understand consumer behavior. You may recall our conclusion that consumer behavior makes sense and that consumers: Try to avoid making the same decision twice Establish a general set of beliefs and apply those beliefs liberally Avoid re-thinking all but the most pressing decisions This week we’ll […]
CMO & Agency Leader Guide to Consumer Behavior
How can we begin to understand a topic as complex as consumers and consumerbehavior? Years ago I was lucky to have worked with Jim Bangel, a distinguished product scientist at Procter & Gamble. Jim thought deeply about consumers and consumer behavior. He was constantly experimenting with and researching their choices and motivations. The following ideas sprang […]