Brand Learning - The Capable Marketer™ Blog

The Power of Storytelling in Leadership

22/05/2012 12:24:05

Storytelling is everywhere you look and has been for centuries. Whether it is at home with kids or sharing stories about your career designed to inspire and excite your team or stories helping...

Making connections to create value

17/05/2012 16:55:10

Making connections plays a critical role in creating value. Not only in the broadest sense - identifying and connecting a customer need with a solution that a business can offer - but across many...

Leading for a higher purpose

08/05/2012 15:50:31

The recent publication of the GROW study by Millward Brown and Jim Stengel, featured in this quarter's edition of Market Leader, highlights one of the most impactful leadership roles marketers can...

Marketing isn't Dead

02/05/2012 17:14:45

"Marketing is dead!" Makes you sit up and take notice, doesn't it? I guess that was exactly the reaction that Kevin Roberts, CEO of Saatchi and Saatchi Worldwide was aiming for when he addressed The I

Scenario Planning – the secret weapon?

16/04/2012 10:28:53

We are all rapidly getting used to living in a fast changing world, which requires a dynamic and flexible approach to building brands and doing business. The future feels increasingly closer and ...

What matters is making it matter

04/04/2012 17:07:08

"What's the single biggest tip you can give me?" was a question I was asked whilst running a facilitation skills course last week. I replied instantly. My answer had nothing to do with an...

Marketing Relief

29/03/2012 17:53:36

Haven't we all been moved and inspired by Sport Relief last week? From the epic endeavours of John Bishop and David Walliams to the enthusiastic endeavours of the local primary school, combined with..

Experience - the Road to Mastery

16/03/2012 18:03:04

Have you ever found yourself slavishly following directions even when your instincts are telling you something is wrong? It happened to me last weekend – in a momentary pursuit of being a domestic...

Purposing Marketing For The Future

09/03/2012 16:42:39

It's careers fair time of year – when the up-and-coming talent of the future are encouraged to think about the longer term as they choose their A Level options. I have recently spoken at two schools..

Can You Answer These 3 Questions For Your Organisation?

01/03/2012 14:35:10

We’ve been working with a number of clients who have recently gone through the major exercise of redefining and refocusing their business strategy. Given how disruptive the inevitable reorganisation..

Strive to Thrive!

23/02/2012 17:08:37

A recent HBR article, “Creating Sustainable Performance” shared some interesting insights into what makes for a consistently high-performing workforce. At the core of the team’s research findings...

Be like a brand to give love a helping hand

14/02/2012 10:33:29

Love is in the air, but mindful that many haven’t found their perfect Valentine as yet, I was interested in what makes for marketing yourself successfully in the internet dating world! So I asked...

Super Bowl Marketers are Playing to Win

08/02/2012 16:30:12

Having just moved to New York, last Sunday marked my first Super Bowl Sunday in the US and it was an eye opening experience both as a viewer and as a marketer. For the uninitiated (like myself)...

Be more social at work

02/02/2012 10:43:17

The focus of attention on how to use social media to best create competitor advantage is shifting. For a while now brands have fully embraced its role as a brand engagement tool, but it seems to me th

Flex for the Future

27/01/2012 09:45:21

At a recent meeting of our US team, stories abounded from our colleagues of the continuous pace of organisational change facing global companies and their marketing departments. The frequency of...

Game On – Time to play to learn

19/01/2012 15:09:58

What type of gamer are you? Here are the four Bartle player types and is one common way to describe the psychology behind games. An Achiever who likes to accomplish & master things...

Too busy being busy? Take time out to focus on what’s important.

11/01/2012 16:16:38

Like most people, I think of the New Year as a perfect opportunity to step back and pause for a moment to think about things differently – to regroup, reassess, get things back into perspective...

Marketing is on the move

21/12/2011 10:55:09

As we turn our thoughts towards 2012, I’m not sure I can remember a time when there has been such radical change underway...

Email is banned. Long live Connectivity

15/12/2011 11:10:17

So says Thierry Breton, CEO of Atos, one of Europe’s largest information technology services companies, who has caused something of a sensation by announcing he is banning staff from sending each...

Marketing Leaders should show no fear

07/12/2011 11:01:09

The 'fearless leaders' who make up the CMO community are, on first reading, not so fearless, according to the recent IBM CMO survey From Stretched to Strengthened. On the contrary, it suggests CMOs...

The Growth Drivers: book now available!

01/12/2011 17:57:05

We're delighted to say that our book - The Growth Drivers: The Definitive Guide to Transforming Marketing Capabilities – is now available on Amazon and other e-retailers internationally and in...

Unleash the power of the 'Squeezed Middle'!

24/11/2011 16:03:47

According to the Oxford English Dictionary team, in both the US and UK, the word of the year is… 'Squeezed Middle'! Whilst being more of a phrase than a word, the argument is that it now has...

Marketers must break the marketing straitjacket

16/11/2011 09:32:23

In his recent address to the Marketing Society, Sir Terry Leahy challenged marketers to be bold and to ‘break the straitjacket’ and encouraged them to “take a fresh look at the business, yourself...

Is the customer always right?

09/11/2011 09:31:45

It’s that time of year again. No, I don’t mean the start of the rush to buy all things for the seasonal holidays, but the time of year we reflect on what we've achieved so far, and what we still...

Beware Branding without Brand-Building

01/11/2011 10:04:54

Two recent encounters reminded me of the unique role marketing plays in driving business growth – and how misconceptions around what marketing is still remain. Attending the inaugural BrandMAX...

Simple, not simplistic

25/10/2011 11:04:34

In well-meaning drives for structure, rigour and process we see many organisations struggling with an overburden of complexity. This can be driven by the need to make both Marketing (the department)..

Digital must sort the Great from the Good

17/10/2011 10:39:12

If it seems that the crowdsourcing elements of your marketing plan are gaining in momentum then you are in very good company as Unilever, Walmart and PepsiCo have all been in the news recently for...

Winning with people – engage, engage, engaged!

07/10/2011 09:33:28

One of the most important and exciting aspects of my job in the world of capability building is people. Because people really matter! My week is heavily influenced by a focus on how to engage the...

Coming Soon – The Growth Drivers

30/09/2011 10:36:52

There's one topic dominating the news at the moment and it's likely to do so for some time – the risk of widespread global recession. But the urgent questions about how businesses can continue to ...

Flipping the classroom

15/09/2011 17:15:05

I was struck whilst listening to Salman Kahn on Ted Talks describe how his online approach to teaching maths has changed the role of the classroom, and what parallels we can draw for learning in...

The ‘Marketing Funnel’ – not obsolete but in need of a re-brand

12/09/2011 10:52:09

'The Marketing Funnel is obsolete'. So kicked off a recent fascinating conversation in a special interest group within LinkedIn. Some of us who have been around a while will remember being taught...

Google TV: The next Internet frontier?

01/09/2011 11:48:19

At the MediaGuardian International Television Festival held in Edinburgh last Friday, Google’s Chairman, Eric Schmidt delivered the annual MacTaggart Lecture, confirming Google TV will launch in...

What's the big idea?

24/08/2011 09:10:52

There is a lot of debate at the moment about the value of ‘the big idea’ in marketing. As evidence, this week the Marketing Society is hosting a debate on the motion ‘the big idea is dead’...

So why don’t we empty The Man Drawer?

16/08/2011 10:59:07

One of my favourite stand-up comedy sketches is the one about the Man Drawer from Michael McIntyre. If you haven't seen it already, it's well worth a look. What I love about this sketch is that it...

Life’s a beach: how Brazilian brands went global

10/08/2011 12:06:35

For the last few years, Brazil has been in the headlines for questionable reasons (who hasn't seen the violence between police and drug gangs erupting in the streets of Rio last year?)...

The Marketing Model must become more Fluid

04/08/2011 13:54:50

In a recent conversation with one of our clients, she said 'The problem with our company is that everyone does marketing now'. Interestingly, she saw this as a barrier to growth and certainly a ...

Authentic leadership - A call to marketers

28/07/2011 11:58:05

Many eminent commentators continue to dissect the ongoing News Corp/Murdoch debacle, not least the FT’s management writer, Andrew Hill, in his wonderful satire, “Enrolment open for an MBA in Murdoch”.

Sharing Best Practice: Less Give and More Take?

22/07/2011 11:54:51

I was involved recently in a panel discussion at a global conference for one of our multinational clients. A question came from the floor asking what the marketing group could do to get better at...

Take your seats

19/07/2011 14:57:29

In one of my favourite business books, "Good To Great", Jim Collins describes how great leaders begin by "getting the right people on the bus, the wrong people off the bus and the right people in...

Re-arranging the furniture while the house is burning?

12/07/2011 10:52:53

Forrester has undertaken a research study showing that "an astonishing 75% of chief marketing officers plan to rearrange their teams by the end of this year." Astonishing? Well, not really.

Introducing The Capable Marketer™ Blog

07/07/2011 09:25:14

Sharing views on what world-class marketing means and how to build marketing capabilities in practice.