Lately I have been doing some thinking around a discussion I had with my group of top HR executives a while ago. The general topic was around how organizations position themselves in the market vis-à-vis their values, a question we discussed in the context of knowing that consumers of products and services are increasingly paying […]

At one of my recent roundtables I eagerly listened as my marketing executives discussed how their jobs have  evolved. The change is nothing less than breathtaking. No wonder marketing leaders feel stressed! Here are some of the highlights I took away from this session: While we used to focus on creating consumer demand and awareness, […]

Last week my marketing executive per group explored rebranding. Matt Duncan, VP of Marketing with DatStat and Cathy Cooper, VP of Marketing with Washington Federal were discussion catalysts. We ended up having a rich exchange mostly revolving around how the NEW NORMAL has made it OK for brand to support good causes and make money […]

Last week both my marketing and HR executive peer groups engaged with Catherine Captain and others from Cantadora around the power of storytelling. The topic made for great Fall kick-off sessions that definitely got us all engaged in thinking not only about our company stories, but our personal stories as well. Here are some nuggets the […]

How do internal branding initiatives benefit companies, employees and customers? What is HR’s role in internal branding?  Here are a couple of points I took note of in my HR executive peer group discussion a couple of weeks ago: 1. Internal branding can reinforce a strong recruitment and retention strategy. Prospective and current employees want […]

Over the past several weeks I have been engaging with about fifty executives on the topic of how they manage their careers. It’s been an eye-opening journey. The landscape is definitely changing and you are running the risk of being left in the dust unless you keep up. I will try to distill my key […]

In a recent conversation with my marketing executive peer group we explored internal branding and the importance of effective marketing/HR relationships. If you consider recent research suggesting that organizations lose up to 40% of their marketing expenses if all employees are not able to articulate your brand promise and live it, it behooves us all to […]

Impeccable timing! Several months ago I scheduled a peer group session with my marketing executives and invited guest Aaron Burnett with Wheelhouse Search to discuss web trends. And then, in the midst of migrating to Windows 8 and just a few weeks before our meeting I find out that the web site my daughter’s High […]

So what are marketing executives pondering upon when they think about market research. Here is a sampler of market research pitfalls, challenges and opportunities that created engaged conversation at today’s marketing executive peer group session. • Pitfall:One of the problems we have as marketers is that we some times fall into the trap of thinking […]

Last week we had a session on “Keeping Your Brand Authentic: Is It All About Relationships? As always, this group of executives had a truly authentic dialogue that sprang from a number of powerful questions covering a spectrum. For example, we discussed how we all deal with change, we explored whether marketing at the core […]