After reading a post about Tom Fishburne, director of marketing for Method, illustrator of lampooning cartoons and now author of This One Time at Brand Camp, I rejoiced in finding a client peer who believes the same things I do and is not only is willing to state things as they are but also has the talent to eviscerate some truly dysfunctional corporate practices in cartoons.
Notwithstanding the fact that Tom shares a similar history to myself - working at a large corporation (my P&G to his General Mills), leading marketing efforts on household products (my brand management of Tide and his on Method) and venturing out and doing something about the chaos (my launch of Agent Wildfire and his cartoon blog TomFishburne.com), he just makes so much sense for people like me, who have worked in corporate marketing organizations.
From the perils of brand management to a fear of standing out in companies, the insanity of mass marketing to the absence of remarkable thinking, the need for transparency and the power of storytelling, Tom provides a tonic for what ails big company marketing and the smaller companies who repeat their mistakes.
Read the full post at Church of the Customer but I connected with the first two answers in particular:
Q: What's the biggest challenge in being a brand manager today? Remarkable thinking. Then shepherding that thinking through the organizational gates. Too often the edges of a great idea get sanded, eventually launching as a pale shadow of the original idea.
I love this quote from Robert Stephens, founder of Geek Squad: "Advertising is a tax you pay for unremarkable thinking."
Q: What's the biggest trap most brand managers stupidly fall into? The mass market trap. Chasing market size. Trying to appeal to everyone and avoiding alienating anyone. By trying to appeal to everyone, no one gets excited.
In my past brand lives, we joked that our target was "a woman, age 25–39, with a pulse." Instead, if you cater to a passionate and vocal niche, you become more meaningful. Consumer loyalty follows. Niche marketing isn't just for small brands. General Mills does a great job of training marketers to find and truly understand your niche's brand champions. You create your products and marketing just for them. When you do, much of the mass market will follow, too.
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