From all my years in research and consulting, I think I’ve learned a thing or two about marketing worth sharing. Enduring fundamentals, mostly—yet often overlooked. So, this year, I want to share some snippets for your consideration. I hope they’re helpful. This week’s thought: Inclusivity is business 101.
In its most recent January 2025 earnings report, Boeing indicated it suffered a $4 billion loss, roughly four times “worse” than what was expected by analysts and Wall Street. Now what?
It is axiomatic that a successful brand should command a premium price in the marketplace. Customers willingly pay such premiums because the brand offers higher quality, more innovation, greater trustworthiness (and associated reduction in risk), or more personal relevance, among other things. While this is true and justifies investment in brand building, it misses an important strategic advantage of successful brand building.
For decades, marketers have embraced the concept of a “consideration set”—a supposedly stable group of brands that consumers weigh before making a purchase. This idea aligns neatly with the traditional marketing funnel: awareness leads to consideration, which leads to purchase.
From all my years in research and consulting, I think I’ve learned a thing or two about marketing worth sharing. Enduring fundamentals, mostly—yet often overlooked. So, this year, I want to share some snippets for your consideration. I hope they’re helpful. This week’s thought: Business is inherently aspirational. Harvard marketing guru Ted Levitt made his mark with a number of pithy ideas about the role of marketing and the purpose of business, all of which...
