It’s never tied at halftime.
Agency leaders need a game plan to finish strong and avoid the tie.
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Open vs. Closed Agency Review?
New Practices for Brand Marketers The search for the right marketing agency and creative partner is a little bit like going to the dentist. It can bring you the anticipation of feeling refreshed and confident or depending on your prior experiences, that all too familiar sense of dread. Traditional agency sourcing models have evolved […]
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Are you CMO Material?
Change Management is Marketing. Earn a Triple A Rating: Marketing leaders today are valued for their business acumen, analytical minds and adaptability. Most are focused on helping their companies implement fundamental shifts in the digital economy to retain customers and find new ways to grow. The best ones see themselves as agents of change. In […]
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Didn’t 2021 go as fast as 2020 went slow?
2022. Wait, what? It feels like we blinked and the world stopped and then re-started and is now operating in a more full gear than ever before. It’s been a whirlwind. More people needed, but less people available. More pitches to swing for, but less time to swing. More sales to drive, but less stores […]
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How Agile Marketers Maneuver through Winter
Brrrr… it’s time to gear up for the winter season. Marketing maneuverability will be key. There is a unique team culture that surrounds winter sports, but perhaps none more polarizing than ice hockey. Hockey culture is characterized by a group of tough players and loud fans as tightly woven as my boiled wool scarf. They […]
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CMO’s lead teams with “Clear eyes, full hearts.”
CMO’s lead teams with “Clear eyes, full hearts.” CMOs can lead remote teams with a cohesive culture that connects across their networks, employees and their agency partners, transcending geographic and social differences. I confess to a little binge watching Friday Night Lights here during fall football season! Who doesn’t get fired up when we see […]
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Why do our (best) Agency Partners Sometimes Disappoint us?
Three client-agency challenges & solutions to work better together Dog gone it. We want our relationships with our agency partners to be great, and result in great work. Sometimes they don’t. (Sigh.) Delays happen, complexity sets in, frustrations grow. Discover the reasons why. Then beat the dog days of summer with fresh, practical solutions to […]
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Under the Mask
Marketers Look Under the Mask to a new era with new awareness on how people and their core values impact successful client-agency team practices
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How Many?
Sweet Question. How many Advertising Industry Agencies does an advertiser need to evaluate to find the right one? Knowing how many of anything is a balance of how many we think we want vs. how many are actually good for us. When is many too many? When is many still not enough? How many is […]
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Win Like A Buc
A week ago, we witnessed Tom Brady and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers become NFL champions. While anyone can read the box score, the real storyline for the game is as valuable a lesson for Marketers as it is for football and following the principles of the playbook will help any team win more often. Let me start […]
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Agency Relationships Can Be A Real Trip
I remember driving to Florida for a holiday break with a friend a long time ago. As teenagers with no income of our own, we decided to drive through the night without stopping. What we saved in hotel expenses, we more than made up for in memories. Part of any such right of passage are […]
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Become Undeniable
Agency Growth doesn’t come from just winning a pitch. When a pitch is won, there’s something that usually matters more than anything else. The win is rarely just because of a piece of work, a plan or an impressive tech stack. The deciding factor is the totality of the entire team coming together. The choice and the agency become undeniable. I’ve lost count of how […]
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Culture can be your Superpower
How to Build Cultural Capital in a messy world As eyes stayed glued to media outlets reporting election results, one thing becomes more clear. Today people make choices through the lens of character, values and cultural filters as much as they consider issues of politics and public policy. We are voting for the who and the how […]
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Sound the Call for Cultural Connection
Strengthen Marketing Teams, Increase Cultural Capital Cultural Capital is the emerging frontier of competitive advantage. Brands need it more than ever. Increasing cultural capital starts with building influential connections through the company’s teams of marketing resources. The brand teams, creative agencies and digital marketing suppliers who work closely together to make sure the brand shows […]
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Elephant Theory
Three elephants walk into a bar… It sounds like the start of a joke, but there is nothing funny about the impact that a few elephants can have on the retail landscape. While there are many, let’s start with the three named Google, Amazon and Walmart. Here’s the Punch… Google can put Amazon out of business. Amazon […]
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