Have you ever been to one of those corporate off-sites? You know the ones I mean - where the agenda is filled with all kinds of progressive, well-intentioned paradigm shifting, super-important initiatives. And then, when you get there, it's nothing but a series of 45 slide PowerPoint presentations where the presenter reads every word of each slide.
This is usually followed by checking email in the hallway (to get real work done), then a lively "life coach" in the afternoon that you just know lives in a van down by the river. And then it's all wrapped up with an awards dinner of chicken, beef or fish, a bad comedian and copious amounts of alcohol.
The first part of that was what the "bi-partisan" Healthcare Summit held this week in Washington looked like to me. No matter which side of the argument you fall on, it was as if they all got together beforehand and said "let's get an off-site meeting together. We'll get everybody motivated, and I'm sure we'll get a lot done". Even when every collective eye rolled, they did it anyway.
Obama, ever the good CEO, set the tone in the beginning by reminding everyone why they were all there. Then each attendee, in turn, gave their opinion of... Read more
Archive for February, 2010
Are You Extraordinary? Marketing Lessons From The Healthcare Summit
Trends with Traction: Below the Belt is on the Rise
Gentlemen… do you have dirty balls? I mean you clean them, but do you really clean them enough?
Planting this lingering doubt is more than just a provocative trick I've concocted to get you to read on. It is the marketing strategy that Axe has devised to compel millions of young men across the globe to shell out a few bucks for a new product called the Axe Detailer that helps you… well, clean your balls.
Take a look…
If you're uptight, you may find the video Axe put out to be offensive. If you're not, you'll note that this video is hysterical. If you're nineteen, you might be in your car on the way to Target to pick one up.
Success requires a skillful touch. No, not on your balls. In your creative department.
Axe is not the first brand to push the boundaries of "good taste," speak to a consumer on their own terms, and be shockingly awesome. Advertising has... Read more
Will people pay for content?
There's been quite a bit of talk about whether newspapers can restrict content to subscriber's since Rupert Murdoch said he was going to restrict his news outlets online. Rupert never says anything unless it serves his business interests, so I doubt it was a co-incidence restricting Google access while signing a deal with Bing in which they will have complete access (for a fee) happened at the same time as he was publicly trying to "save the future of newspapers." Today Neilssen released a study into what people will pay for. The PDF is at http://blog.nielsen.com/nielsenwire/reports/paid-online-content.pdf The key findings are:
78% believe that if they already subscribe to a newspaper, magazine, radio or television service they should be able to use its online content for free.
71% say online content of any kind will have to be considerably better than what is currently free before they will pay for it.
79% would no longer use a web site that charges them, presuming they can find the same information at no cost.
People are ambivalent about whether the quality of online content would suffer if people could not charge for it —34% think so, 30% think not; 36% have no idea.
62% believe that once they purchase content,... Read more
