November PromoSweep Report

Use this latest issue of PromoSweep to evaluate your retail promotions.

Launching a New Product into an Overcrowded Category

To launch an unconventional product, use unconventional launch tactics.

Now, What's the Payoff?

How do you move from one-off marketing to pay-off marketing?

Does Good Work Relations Always Improve Work Creativity?

Are your marketing teams producing tired and noncreative work? Perhaps they work too well together.

A Well-Known European Company Takes on the U.S. Coffee Market

Emmi International caused a stir in Chicago for the U.S. launch of their refrigerated coffee beverage.

A Note from CEO Jim Holbrook: The Marketing of a Presidential Candidate

We are always looking - looking at retail, in newspapers, around the web, at other brands' activities and even into people's fridges and medicine cabinets.

Call us voyeurs. Call us curious. Really, it's just that we're never satisfied with the marketing work we're doing for our clients. There's always more to learn, to try, to test. That's what keeps us going - the pursuit of being more and more effective. Being unsatisfied.

Recently, we've been debating the Presidential activities. The "brands" are taking very different approaches to marketing themselves, and it is fascinating (sometimes even nauseating) to watch. The greatest positioning line so far comes from Mike Huckabee, who said on Jay Leno something like, "I'm like a fellow employee; Romney looks like the boss who laid you off." Wow! Incredibly insightful and well articulated. The perfect challenger brand approach. But in a winner-takes-all market share battle, we'll see if it's enough vs. Romney's big "integrated marketing" machine.

And Obama is following a similar strategy - to position Ms. Clinton as the "incumbent" so as to position himself as the outsider.

All these folks shun the label of "marketing" and call it campaigning instead. I guess they don't want to appear to be too slick and manipulative, which is what marketing has become in many people's minds. But call it what you will, figuring out the deep insights, proper messaging, most effective media, and alignment around all of these things, that's how you win!

Jim Holbrook
CEO, EMAK
Publisher of Stay Tuned
jim.holbrook@emak.com

Most Recent EMAK Newsletter

November PromoSweep Report

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Now, What's the Payoff?

Does Good Work Relations Always Improve Work Creativity?

A Well-Known European Company Takes on the U.S. Coffee Market