One of my favorite positioning examples is Ben & Jerry’s.

Positioning is one of the most foundational, misunderstood, and under-utilized parts of a company’s core business strategy.

Startups think a lot about product-market fit (PMF). Established companies? Not so much. This is a missed opportunity.

Startups think a lot about product-market fit (PMF). Established companies? Not so much. This is a missed opportunity.

The marketing funnel is pervasive. This framework—the dominant mindset among marketing professionals, whether B2B or B2C—is built on a series of assumptions:

You only need to look at a fraction of one of these logos, and your brain fills with images and experiences.

Imagine you’re in the airport, famished, waiting for a flight. You buy an enormous, puffed-up bag of potato chips. You tear into the bag, relishing the idea of stuffing yourself with salty, greasy goodness.

This is my Coach purse. It recently caught my eye in a photo taken 13 years ago when I noticed it hanging over my shoulder. I had purchased it years before that and have used it nearly every day since

First, do no harm. This is a central theme of the modern Hippocratic Oath, a set of principles governing patient care that most medical schools administer to their students. Most, if not all professions, have some form of a code of ethics that outlines behavioral expectations, and marketing is no exception.

Picture this: You’re at a speed dating event and notice that many of your dates fall into one of three personality types.

I started writing this article solely from the lens of environmental claims, with the intent of educating brand leaders about the Green Guides.

A common dilemma I have is whether to recycle my yogurt containers. I know they are made of a recyclable plastic, and my children constantly urge me to recycle, but it’s not so simple.

In 2016, Keurig launched a recyclable K-Cup pod. Customers were thrilled. Those disposable pods, often the boon of environmentally conscious consumers who love a single cup of coffee, could now be dropped into the recycling bin. An asterisk in small print noted: “Check locally, not recycled in all communities.”

I was recently gifted a reusable, insulated travel mug. The box and informational leaflet included numerous claims of “sustainable,” and “eco-friendly.” Excited and curious, I wondered what made it more sustainable. Were the materials sourced differently than traditional travel mugs?

"I'm sorry. It was my fault."

I have come to learn these are among the six most powerful words I can speak as a parent or spouse. Unexpected, disarming, humble, effective, and yet, even with frequent practice, difficult to say.

Effective marketing that influences viewers can, on a larger scale, influence culture. Therefore, the way we communicate—the words we use, the images we select, the values we implicitly or explicitly endorse—all have more power than we realize to shape cultural norms.

 In the book The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry, John Mark Comer rails on advertising, calling it “a multibillion-dollar industry that is intentionally designed to lie to you – to get you to believe that if you will only buy this or that product then you will be happy. Or at least happier.”

This article series is about messaging: how to do it in a way that is transparent, realistic, and uplifting vs. exaggerated, manipulative, and negative.

When I applied to my first job as a brand manager, I explained to my brother what the job entailed. He clarified, “So you’re going to manipulate people into buying things they don’t want?”  

Frederick Buechner asked: “At what points do my talents and deep gladness meet the world’s deep need?” This is a great question to pose when searching for personal purpose, but it also applies to brands and companies. 

We’ve all heard that customers prefer sustainable products and will pay more for them, but what does the sales data actually tell us? Let’s dive in.