September 7th, 2011
There is a silent force that affects us every day. It can be your friend or foe. And it’s called color. Color can affect what mood we’re in, what coffee we buy or even what we crave for dinner. It’s part of the reason why some logos are more memorable than others, why brands keep [...]
May 4th, 2011
All too often, marketers wrap up their company brand in their graphic identity – their logo, website, presentation materials, product packaging, etc. – and stop there. In doing so, they fail to recognize the cardinal rule of branding: that a brand identity isn’t tied to a logo or aesthetic, but rather to What You Stand [...]
April 14th, 2011
Blogs are one of the best social media tools for generating visibility in your market and in the media…unless no one sees them. Most people suffering from “invisible blog syndrome” believe the quick answer is to post better content. That’s one answer, but not the best. Even with videos, graphics, links and smart and clever [...]
October 8th, 2010
Employee engagement is critical to your brand. Research by Towers Perrin shows that less than 25% of all workers are engaged – defined as giving discretionary effort on the job – and, worse still, 38% are shown to be working against the company. Setting aside bottom line issues such as presenteeism, it comes down to [...]
December 14th, 2009
Last week, the agency disproved the expression that too many cooks can spoil the soup at our holiday outing to the Viking Cooking School. Sure it got a little crowded by the stoves, but the outcome was nothing to spit at: French onion soup, spinach soufflé, beef wellington, and white chocolate mousse. The evening continued [...]
November 18th, 2009
Michael Schwalbe writes about a lesson he learned as an alpine ski racer known as the “40-30-30 Rule.” His instructor explained that for most sports, success was only 40% physical training, and the other 60% was mental. Of that 60, 30% was technical skill and and experience and the other 30% was the willingness to take [...]
October 9th, 2009
Our very cool designer Kate has a great eye for very cool things, so when she forwards something, I know she’s not going to let me down. Today was no different. She’s a very visual person (which is good, I guess, because she creates visual stuff for a living), but when she sent along this [...]
October 2nd, 2009
September 29th, 2009
What qualities do the best innovators share? Researchers at Brigham Young conducting a six-year study surveying 3,000 creative executives identified five core skills that differentiate them: Associating, Questioning, Observing, Experimenting, and Networking. Professor Jeff Fryer defines these characteristics here in an interview with Harvard Business Review: “The first skill is what we call ‘associating.’ It’s [...]
May 12th, 2009
The alarm was sounded warning of the impending collapse of our nation’s top newspapers, from the San Francisco Chronicle to the Chicago Tribune to the Philadelphia Inquirer, but until recently little attention has been given to the financial well-being of TV news. As many Fortune 500 companies, particularly in the auto and financial services industries, [...]