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The Chief Outsider
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Recent Posts
What Is Marketing, Really? Why Founders and CEOs Must Lead the Most Misunderstood Function in the Business
This blog is part of Chief Outsiders’ Marketing Leadership for CEOs series, an ongoing examination of the critical dimensions of Marketing (the capital “M” is intentional, as you’ll see) that every CEO needs to understand.
The CEO's Challenge of Staying Relevant in an Accelerated World
Mon, Sep 19, 2016 — And what to do about it Almost all CEOs face the challenge of maintaining relevancy in the markets they serve. More specifically, what keeps many CEO’s awake at night is the realization that something is materially changing in their company, in their markets, or within what was once a marquee product line. Yet, the rank and file just can’t see it. And if they do see it, they aren’t responding fast enough. Maybe our CEO can’t fully understand it. But their instincts tell them that it’s more than a seasonal blip; it’s something systemic that could rock the company off its foundation. In many instances, the problem boils down to the company not innovating fast enough. The world is seemingly passing it by. Relevancy is lost.
Forging a Solid Go to Market Plan – Without the Assumptions
Wed, Sep 14, 2016 — Business owners and entrepreneurs live in a constant state of observation. Equal parts tenacious and curious, they never stop watching, listening, and comparing their product and service offerings to the competition. They ask themselves daily, hourly: “Is the competitor’s product better?” and “Am I really putting an impactful marketing message out there?”-- often secretly wondering if they truly know the answer.
Attention, Company Founders: Keys to Avoiding Colossal Marketing Flops
Mon, Jul 25, 2016 — They’re some of the worst American marketing flops of all time: Smith & Wesson Mountain Bikes, Cosmopolitan Yogurt, and Coors Rocky Mountain Water. These three powerhouses are some of the most well-known brands on the planet – and yet they still hit the skids when their seemingly unique and interesting idea failed to meet customer expectations and gain traction in the market.
What do I do with my Marketing Intern?
Sun, Jul 17, 2016 — Internships are an important part of today's marketing teams. They provide recent college graduates a chance to combat the catch-22 of needing experience to get a job that will give them experience, while employers can select from the cream of the crop, see how a potential employee will fare in a real-life setting, and even create a pool of interns to pull from in the future. However, the key to a successful marketing internship is to make sure their time spent remains a win-win situation for everyone.
Pick a Strategic Direction: What Alice in Wonderland and the Cheshire Cat Can Teach CEOs about Growing Their Business
Tue, Jun 21, 2016 — In the whimsical world of Lewis Carroll’s famous tale Alice in Wonderland, the author paints mind-bending pictures of some of the most pressing questions in modern society. Though many regard this classic as merely a children’s story, every modern CEO can appreciate several scenes woven through the book that can be applied, succinctly and directly, to the challenges of today’s global business environment.
Delivering on Your Brand’s Promise through Lifestyle and Culture
Thu, Jun 2, 2016 — Today’s brands offer a rich means of consumer self-expression. Like digital bumper stickers, the blogs and pages we follow and interact with on the Internet and social media are beginning to serve as a reflection of what culturally defines us as people. Whether or not we, as consumers, build a personal connection with the barrage of brands around us, can ultimately impact the fate of the brand itself. As former IBM chairman and CEO Lou Gerstner said in his interview with Spencer Stuart, “Culture isn’t just one aspect of the game, it is the game.” Since a brand’s authenticity and lifestyle fit is so important to today’s customers, we know that we have to fortify our brand’s promise, so it means much more than a set of two-dimensional, written benefits on our website, social media pages, and product packaging. There are two distinct ways we can achieve this:
Are You Marketing An Organism Or An Ecosystem?
Wed, Jun 1, 2016 — People like to use metaphors. When we are trying to explain something, describe a situation, or develop an idea, we often compare the subject at hand to another thing that the listener may already know. Marketers use metaphors in many situations to reduce the amount of time and effort it takes to grasp a concept or an idea behind a product. Terms like bandwidth, information highway, the cloud, data mining, and even internet and web are all attempts to transfer what we know about one thing to something inherently dissimilar – the definition of metaphor.
Making It Easy: Three Steps To Creating the Ultimate Customer Experience
Tue, May 24, 2016 — Why a commitment to consistent, small improvements in customer experience will lure customers back and cement customer loyalty over time Your nightmare has come true – someone has fraudulently charged a sheaf of frivolous, online purchases to your trusty Visa card. Luckily, the credit card company’s algorithms caught it and shut the scam down – but of course, nobody told you. You actually found out in a bustling grocery store on a Sunday morning, with a cart full of perishable food, two kids in tow, and a long, impatient line behind you. As a warm, gripping panic begins to squeeze your insides, you hope that a simple call to the card service center will be able to fix everything in a flash.
Position Your Brand: Three Questions to Power Growth & Profit
Wed, May 11, 2016 — In Step 1, we began paving our road to a winning brand strategy with the basics. We determined that in order to win in a competitive consumer marketplace, we must first establish an emotional connection with our target audience. We also decided that remaining focused on emotional motivators is the key to the development of that critical connection. It’s time, now, to make sure we are winning with our “head,” as well as our “heart.” For the second step in our quest, we’ll don our lab coats and, utilizing the data from our emotional motivators and target audience surveys, we’ll now engage our sales and marketing teams to develop our company’s positioning statement and brand promise. If we can nail this critical “statement of purpose,” we’ll effectively stand out from our rivals and drive our company forward in the process.