BODIS ON B2B MARKETING

Platforms evolve; principles endure. Bodis on B2B is dedicated to the marketing mind that just can’t get enough of a good case study, wants to make some sense of the new new thing, likes a little psychology with their cereal, and loves our hero Jack Trout. Want to know more about Bodis? Visit our website

Posts Tagged ‘marketing’

Are you ready for an agency?

Posted by Suzanne Abate on April 8th, 2010

When I say advertising, you all scatter.

In elementary school we played a game called Spud – someone would count to ten and the rest of us would run as far out as we could to avoid getting hit by a big rubber ball.  The word Advertising has a scatter effect too.  It sends our minds in far out directions.  To the Superbowl and Coca-Cola; to dollar amounts with many zeroes and knee-jerk use of the “television” example.   Or it sends us the other way to simpler, affordable methods like flyers, printed post cards and the beloved “Fabric, fabric” (30% off fabric) man at the corner of Toronto’s Queen St. and Spadina Ave.  What’s left is the big space in the middle.

Are you caught somewhere in between here and there?

With so much distance between concepts it’s hard to know where you fit in.  Have you developed a quality consumer product and a profitable business in a sector dominated by international players? Do you have a successful regional brand that’s come far on word of mouth alone? Are you looking to break into new markets and unsure how to go about it? If you’re asking these questions you may be ready for an agency.

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Dear Upper Management,

Posted by Suzanne Abate on March 29th, 2010

As I downloaded the latest Radiohead song I was reminded how the Music industry fell asleep then fell apart.  Then I thought of Television, who seems to have woken up just in time to make peace with advertisers and the Internet.  Change is afoot and yet we seem to be dragging ours!

The times they are a changing

You see how our little new technology division has become the beacon of hope for the company?  How even as we watch the numbers climb, slowly to be sure, elation evades us because those numbers are migrating from our own market share in other categories? You see how it has all come down to survival and still you won’t grant me a marketing budget?

How can you expect sales to increase by doing nothing?

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Miracle Fish. Bodis on Trout.

Posted by Suzanne Abate on March 22nd, 2010

Based on the “stickie” rating system.  Learn more at http://www.stickybusinessbooks.com

Would I recommend Positioning: The Battle for your Mind?

First, some context.  I would recommend red wine over white (which is for cooking).  And that you watch all of Werner Herzog’s documentaries, especially Encounters at the End of the World.  I would recommend that you pay more to fly Emirates and that you don’t pass up the chance to dine at Bhukara, if you should find yourself in Cape Town.

I would not recommend this book if you like your information delivered with diplomacy and delicacy. But if what you like is unabashed conviction and history as persuasion, then this marketing classic is your compulsory reading.

Overall Stickiness:

Five.

Application:

Industry veterans (which I am not) will all tell you that in the nineteen seventies Al Ries and Jack Trout forever changed the way people think about marketing.  And the proof is in the circulation pudding – with millions of copies in print more than thirty years since its original release.

But the dedication (to the second best advertising agency in the world, whoever they might be) is somewhat restrictive.  This book belongs to every small entrepreneur and C-level executive.  To genius inventors and the world’s investors.  To all the ad agencies big and small, and, of course, to all of us marketers whose job it is to create compelling stories.

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