BIG IDEAS ARE TRUTHFUL, deep-seated convictions and rooted in what a product can do for you.  They want the world to be better off.  They are the key to a high ground no one else can claim.  When everyone has the same technology and the same products, ideas make you unique, Ideas have the power to inspire, to make small things big and to hold big things together.

IDEAS ARE RALLYING CRIES IN A DIZZYING, CONFUSING WORLD WHERE PEOPLE CONSTANTLY SEARCH FOR MEANING.  They stand for something.  People are drawn by their sense of purpose.  Ideas make people want to be part of what’s happening.  Ideas make people love your brand.  Or buy your product. Or want to work for you.  Or invest in you.  Big ideas dissolve the boundaries between consumers and brands.  They make us all want to belong to the same cause, commitment or concern. … Read More >>

The consumer is a hijacker, a burglar and a gangster.  The consumer is now holding big companies for ransom in ways that were unthinkable a few years ago.  Our businesses have been tied up, gagged and forced to submit to demands and rules we cannot afford to pay or play by.  How did we allow this to happen?  Where did we go wrong in not bringing up the man or woman in the street to be obedient, docile and compliant?  Why are they not watching what we want them to watch, behaving how we want them to behave, buying what we want them to buy?

Perhaps we should learn to listen.  Instead of telling them how it should be, how we know better, how our rules are better for them in the long run.  We should have seen the writing on the wall ten years ago.  When the Internet allowed them to create, to communicate and to converse without depending on our media.  Now we must all listen to how they need us.  Because they are calling the shots.  The consumer is in control.  And we must get used to it.  OR suffer at their hands.  Over the next twenty years it is our belief that the most successful brands will merely be facilitators in what we might term “Conversational Marketing.” … Read More >>