- There are measurable (in $ terms) marketing investments for driving revenue and sales

- There is also a portion of investment for building a brand and shaping perception of the brand, which is sometimes forgotten or at times ignored

They are both important (although not always equally, as it varies for each brand and business). It is easy for a CEO or CMO to say we want both, but a lot of thinking and planning need to be done to come up with strategies, priorities, roadmap, transformation plan and timeline. We are also not living in a world where things happen step by step like in a chess game, everything is happening in a thousand miles simultaneously. So focus on the goals and objectives, keep moving fast but always find time to take a step back and think and revaluate.

What he said could be summed up by “Kaizen” in Japanese, which means “continuous improvement”.

In today’s fast changing digital marketing field where the core competencies required for success are ever evolving, embedding the concept of Kaizen in the corporate culture of digital agency workplace is simply business critical.

A business process reengineering exercise performed by a few key senior executives is not Kaizen.

Kaizen strategy calls for “NEVER-ENDING efforts for improvement involving EVERYONE”.

It is a daily process. It is a long-term cultural change.

When consumers see these perfect sites and banner ads,  they acknowledge these materials are pretty but they are also common, typical, ordinary, conventional and routine. This creative and execution standard has become expected and average, they are not impressed and they probably won’t tell anyone.

Besides aiming for perfect and flawless, try aiming for remarkable, too.

Being remarkable is being extraordinary, unusual, surprising, amazing and spectacular. Most importantly, it is something worth talking about.

This article on The Guardian tells you how to be remarkable.

By the way, remarkable becomes unremarkable over time, you need to reinvest and reinvent all the time.

They are only seeing price because they believe “X” is a commodity.

If what you do has turned into a commodity, don’t take it personal, it has nothing to do with how good you are at making X, if they believe X is a commodity, all they want is the cheapest.

You can try to change their belief or you can re-invent what you do instead, how about making “X 2.0″ or “Y” or “Z” or “xyz”?

“We are an integrated, full service digital agency that specializes in creative brand building solutions”

Point of difference is what makes you different from your competitors.

When 80% of agencies have the same point of “difference”, it is time for a change.

AND

There is a surplus of similar agencies, employing similar people, with similar educational backgrounds, working in similar jobs, coming up with similar ideas, producing similar ads, with similar prices and similar quality.

*Inspired by Kjell Nordstrom

Opt out = junk mail / spam

Another example, when you sign up for netvigator broadband, the sales person will convince you to take some free trial services for 2 months, i didn’t want it but he insisted so i said ok do whatever you want. Then 2 months later, they started charging me for the extra services that i didn’t want and didn’t use, they said i had to contact them to cancel the service. I complained and they waived the charges, the decision was made in an instance, they probably get the same complaints a lot.

Why do they keep pissing off their new customers like that? Instead, why don’t you offer the 2 months free trail and then have the same sales person to follow up after 2 months and ask if i want to continue the services and start paying for them?

He thinks it should be called the year of the cow as it sounds more gentle. And I think it should be named the year of the bull, he thinks it sounds too threathening and reminds people of the economic crisis.

But the term “crisis” in Chinese is a combination of the characters of “danger” and “opportunity”, sounds rather exciting to me.

Everyone in the 4As advertising industry is panicking, but now that clients have less money to spend on TVC, outdoor and print ads, they turn to us for digital, viral and word of mouth campaigns that deliver measurable results.

Businesses also realize that only their loyal customers and fans are still spending on them, we help them formulate permission based marketing strategies and build, feed and nuture their tribes, allowing them to find and build products for their customers instead of finding customers for their products.