9 Favorite Story Examples of Failure and Persistence

Failure and persistence go hand in glove, don’t they? But not everyone can muster the success of these story examples of failure and persistence. We can all learn a ton from these examples and personalities. And when applied, these lessons can be the difference.

Ultimately, leadership is not about glorious crowning acts. It’s about keeping your team focused on a goal and motivated to do their best to achieve it, especially when the stakes are high and the consequences really matter. It is about laying the groundwork for others’ success, and then standing back and letting them shine.

Social media is like a bank account. You simply cannot withdraw more value than you deposit into your account! Too many people wrongly view social media as an auto-pilot cash cow, money tree, or limitless personal ATM. I assure you… it is not. It requires effort and careful planning, and you will only get out of it what you are willing to put into it.

A quick splash of value-free content will only produce quick and limited results at best. Just as Chinese food always leaves you hungry an hour later, quick social media splashes always leave you dying of thirst in a social media desert sooner rather than later.

Here is a short video on famous failures.

Story Examples of Failure … Tom Watson

Failure can often be the highway to success. Tom Watson Sr. (of IBM fame) said, “If you want to succeed, double your failure rate.” If you study history, you will find that all stories of success are also stories of great failures. But people don’t see the failures. They only see one side of the picture and they say that person had lots of luck on his side: “He must have been at the right place at the right time.”

I spent the first 17 years of my career at IBM before they sold the division I worked in. I learned a great deal about Tom Watson in those years. He was an awesome example of persistence in both business and life.

Abraham Lincoln

There is probably no better example of failure and persistence that I know of. Let me share Lincoln’s life history with you. This was a man who failed in business at the age of 21 ; was defeated in a legislative race at age 22; failed again in business at age 24; overcame the death of his sweetheart at age 26; had a nervous breakdown at age 27; lost a congressional race at age 34; lost a senatorial race at age 45; failed in an effort to become vice-president at age 47; lost a senatorial race at age 49; and was elected president of the United States at age 52.

Would you dare call him a failure? He could have quit anywhere along the line. But to Lincoln, defeat was a detour and not a dead end. And a great source of learning.

Story Examples of Failure … Colonel Sanders

Colonel Sanders, at age 65, with a beat-up car and a $100 check from Social Security, realized he had to do something. He remembered his mother’s recipe and went out selling. How many doors did he have to knock on before he got his first order? It is estimated that he had knocked on more than a thousand doors before he got his first order.

How many of us quit after three tries, ten tries, a hundred tries, and then we say we tried as hard as we could? Quite a lesson of persistence for us all, isn’t it?

Another story for you: Great Stories and Storytelling Can Have a Very Healing Influence

Wright Brothers

A New York Times editorial on December 10, 1903, questioned the wisdom of the Wright Brothers who were trying to invent a machine, heavier than air that would fly. One week later, at Kitty Hawk, the Wright Brothers took their famous flight.

Walt Disney.

Walt Disney

As a young cartoonist, Walt Disney faced many rejections from newspaper editors, who said he had no talent. Even fired from one who told him he lacked imagination and original ideas.

One day a minister at a church hired him to draw some cartoons. Disney was working out of a small mouse infested shed near the church. After seeing a small mouse, he was inspired. That was the start of Mickey Mouse.

How many people would have received the spark of inspiration from that source? Not many I’m afraid.

W. Clement Stone

Have you ever heard of W. Clement Stone, the fantastic self-builder model? He was just 3 when his father died, leaving nothing but gambling debts and his wife and son in poverty. At age 6, he was selling newspapers on the street to help support his family.

He frequently told the story of his early business life which started with the selling of newspapers in restaurants. At the time, this was a very novel thing to do, which deviated dramatically from the normal practice of young boys hawking newspapers on street corners.

This story showed the persistence, style and initiative of Stone … one that would stay with him for his entire very successful career.

Eminem

Marshall Bruce Mathers III better known by his stage name Eminem is an American rapper and record producer.

Rolling Stone magazine ranked him 82nd on its list of The 100 Greatest Artists of All Time.

A high school dropout whose personal struggles with drugs and poverty culminated in an unsuccessful suicide attempt. Having persistence and failure is not easy, is it?

Lee De Forest

In 1913, Lee De Forest, inventor of the triodes tube, was charged by the district attorney for using fraudulent means to mislead the public into buying stocks of his company by claiming that he could transmit the human voice across the Atlantic. He was publicly humiliated.

Can you imagine where we would be without his invention?

Thomas Edison

One day a partially deaf four year old kid came home with a note in his pocket from his teacher, “Your Tommy is too stupid to learn, get him out of the school.” His mother read the note and answered, “My Tommy is not stupid to learn, I will teach him myself.”

And that Tommy grew up to be the great Thomas Edison. Thomas Edison had only three months of formal schooling and he was partially deaf.

The bottom line

Do you consider any of these people failures? They succeeded in spite of problems, not in the absence of them. But to the outside world, it appears as though they just got lucky.

“I knew that if I failed I wouldn’t regret that, but I knew the one thing I might regret is not trying.”

For some reason, many of us have been conditioned to be more afraid of failure than we are of inaction. However, failure, in addition to being inherently valuable as a learning process, contains within it the chance of success. And no matter how small that chance is, it’s better than the chances of success when we choose not to even try.

Successful people don’t do great things, they only do small things in a great way.

All success stories are stories of great failures. The only difference is that every time they failed, they bounced back. This is called failing forward, rather than backward. You learn and move forward. Learn from your failure and keep up your persistence.

All you get is what you bring to the fight. And that fight gets better every day you learn and apply new ideas.

When things are not what you want them to be, what’s most important is your next step.

Test. Learn. Improve. Repeat.

Are you devoting enough energy to innovate your social media strategy?

Do you have a lesson about making your advertising better you can share with this community? Have any questions or comments to add in the section below?

Digital Spark Marketing will stretch your thinking and your ability to adapt to change. We also provide some fun and inspiration along the way.

Insurance Advertising War … 8 Examples to Learn From

Advertising works the way the grass grows? Not in our minds. Check out what’s going on in the insurance advertising war.

But first, let me share a story with you:

Once upon a time, a very strong woodcutter asked for a job with a timber merchant, and he got it. The pay was really good, and so were the work conditions. For that reason, the woodcutter was determined to do his best. His boss gave him an ax and showed him the area where he was supposed to work.

The first day, the woodcutter brought in 18 trees, and of course, his boss congratulated him. Motivated by his boss’s words, the woodcutter tried harder the next day, but he could only bring in 15 trees. On the third day, he tried even harder, but he could only bring in 10 trees. Day after day he was bringing in fewer and fewer trees.

The woodcutter thought he was losing his strength, and he went to the boss and apologized, saying that he couldn’t understand what was going on. His boss then asked, “When was the last time you sharpened your ax?” Appalled by the question, the woodcutter harshly replied, “Sharpen my ax? I have no time to do that. I’ve been busy cutting trees.”

So I pose this question to you: Are you too busy chopping trees on the front line and not allocating the time needed to sharpen your marketing skills? What is that costing you and your business? Furthermore, how much time would it really take to keep your marketing ax sharp?

Check out our thoughts on creative marketing.

Back to the main story: in many ways, you can trace the insurance ad war back to one man — Warren Buffett, who in 1996 made Geico a subsidiary of his Berkshire Hathaway. To this day, Geico Chief Marketing Officer Ted Ward can repeat what Mr. Buffett told him that year. The one thing I don’t want you to have stand in your way is money. That’s what I’ve got.

That moment would launch an onslaught of advertising the likes of which the car-insurance industry had never seen before — filled with pigs, cavemen, googly eyes, and, of course, a little green lizard that was conceived on the back of a napkin and debuted in ads in 2000. Geico’s advertising strategy propelled the insurer to yearly market-share gains and forcing competitors to step up their game. Insurer after insurer is now hitting the airwaves with character-driven campaigns, from “Mayhem” to State Farm’s “magic jingle” to Nationwide’s “Greatest Spokesperson.”

Do you ever see an insurance commercial that you liked and watched it? Can you remember the brand? We would love to hear what it was. Would you do us a favor and tell us in the comments section? It would be greatly appreciated by our readers and us.

And who doesn’t remember those jingles? “Nationwide is on your side” and “You’re in good hands with Allstate” can be accurately sung by almost anyone who watches television. You’re probably singing one of these jingles right now. All of this smart and pervasive advertising leads to a few questions: How much does all of this cost? Are your premiums higher because of all the cartoon lizards and cavemen? Do you select an insurance company based on their commercials?

Or has this ad blitz brought in so many new customers and so much new revenue that your policy rates will go down? Not likely, as the competition is to win market share mostly from each other.

The costs? That is the shocking part. Data provider SNL Financial found Geico had spent about $994 million on advertising in 2011. That was fully 22 percent more than next-largest spender State Farm, even though State Farm’s ad spending grew at nearly three times the rate Geico’s did.

SNL found that Geico’s ad budget represented 6.5 percent of the premiums it wrote in 2011. Wow, 6.5% of its revenue! That’s shocking to us. Among the rest of the five largest auto insurers in the country, none spent more than 4.9 percent of premiums on ads. State Farm spent 1.7 percent of premiums on advertising.

For the whole industry, in fact, the average is just 2.4 percent. [Allstate spent $745 million or 3.0 percent on advertising; Farmers spent $718 million or 4.9 percent, and Progressive paid $536 million or 3.9 percent, according to SNL.]

But is the spending sustainable? And how are insurers differentiating themselves in the crowded market? By these commercials? If so, consumers need to wake up. There are no fewer than 11 major TV campaigns on air … creating lots of consumer confusion?

State Farm, which has 18.6% of the market with premium revenue of $30.5 billion in 2009, and Allstate are fending off pesky challengers Geico and Progressive, while smaller players such as Liberty Mutual and American Family Insurance are seeking attention with very un-Geico-like serious messages.

Behind it all is an important market dynamic: the shift from the traditional insurance agent to do-it-yourself rate shopping hyped by companies like Geico and Progressive that taught millennials, the 76 million people born between 1977 and 1992 increasingly entering the insurance market, to seek quotes online. Some 48% of millennials turn to the web first, according to J.D. Power & Associates’ 2010 Insurance Shopping Study.

The goal is to grab the attention of consumers who would rather not think about insurance. Experts say most people only ponder policies when they have an accident, buy a new car, move, or renew their existing agreement, which usually happens twice a year, at most. Today there are about 187 million insured privately owned vehicles on the road. Turnover is relatively little from year to year — 11% of consumers switch their policies while an additional 20% shop but don’t switch, according to J.D. Power. But that still means more than 20 million people are in the market each year.

The average shopper can name just four insurance brands off the top of their head, according to J.D. Power. But is it going to remain faithful that the way to get on that list is to advertise — all the time?

So let’s review the ad strategy of each of the largest market share holders.

State Farm

State Farm leads the pack in 2012 with 10.3 % of the market. Their strategy is to boost its digital marketing and to roll out a series of humorous TV ads that highlight affordability and service. Some feature Green Bay Packer stars Aaron Rodgers and Clay Matthews and gaping fans. Others feature a sad sack who dumped State Farm for a discounter right before plowing into a utility pole.

To keep its current customers, State Farm spells out how turning to another insurer that looks better on the outside can cause regret—and lets customers know that it’s OK to “let it out.” Tagline points to getting to a better state.

Liberty Mutual

Liberty Mutual had 5.4% of the market in 2012. With so many light-hearted campaigns running, some insurers think the way to break through is to get serious. Liberty Mutual touts car-replacement coverage in an ad, where a car is rear-ended, shattered and then magically put back together as somber piano music plays. Messages show Liberty Mutual understands that accidents happen to even the most responsible people. And pointing out that they are at their best when humans are at their worst.

Insurance advertising war … Allstate

Allstate follows in 2012 with 5.1% of the market. You may know Dean Winters as a television actor, appearing on shows such as 30 Rock. But you know him as “Mayhem” in Allstate’s favorite ad campaign. Mayhem was a unanimous selection for the best commercials.

The 2-year-old Mayhem campaign, with character actor as a cross between Dennis the Menace and a devious frat boy, has been an effective counter to Progressive and Geico’s discount themes. At least a partial concept of claim service?

Travelers

Travelers had 4.4% of the market in 2012. They are taking a more emotional approach to their campaign. Dogs are advertising gold, and Travelers knows it. The company has been featuring an adorable scruffy dog in a series of ads that show how they can cover home and auto and reward customers for “good behavior.” In this particular ad, the Travelers dog falls in love and soon finds he needs more protection than ever before.

Geico

Geico had a 3.9% market share in 2012. Anyone who has watched television in the United States even briefly knows the Geico brand — talking British geckos, erudite cavemen, greasy-haired announcers with mock baritones, all of them mostly running gags used to get the company’s name to stick in peoples’ heads.

Geico has had some advertising campaigns that are loved for their humor by some, and disliked by their frequency and lack of value by others (See our article The Geico Happiness Advertising Series: Most Effecting Advertising?). But who doesn’t know the most famous tagline… 15 minutes can save you 15% or more. What don’t we understand is how a business that pays so much on advertising can be lowest in premiums or even competitive?

Nationwide

Nationwide with 3.3% market share in 2012 uses its campaign featuring “the world’s greatest spokesperson” appearing with a microphone at the side of customers in trouble—echoing the company’s slogan and the commercials’ closing jingle of “Nationwide is on your side.” In this commercial, he is sitting next to a customer in his overturned vehicle, delivering the bad news that the car is most likely totaled. However, he brings some good news and cheerful banter to make light of the situation and make customers feel comfortable and safe with Nationwide on their side.

Progressive

Progressive’s commercial spokesperson “Flo” is admittedly getting old, but the addition of two awkward insurance clerks from a nameless rival company has breathed some life back into their campaign. In 2012 they had a 3.2% market share. The lying rivals—who are called out for claiming they offer a service that is only available from Progressive—send customers the message that they should stick with a company they trust, or else they could end up losing their “pantaloons.”

While Flo is designed to close the deal with consumers who are already in the market, Progressive’s new character, called the Messenger, is meant to get more people thinking about insurance. In ads, the mustachioed, leather-jacket-wearing pitch man sneaks up on customers, pushing them on discounts.

A smarter way to shop around … now that’s progressive.

Insurance advertising war … USAA

Another competitor, USAA Group, has rolled out its first-ever national marketing campaign, which Vice President of Marketing Chris Owen credit’s for the carrier’s 8% jump in market share last year, at 2.6%. USAA caters to military personnel, veterans, and their families, so USAA Group eschewed humor for six TV spots featuring customers. The key message is the legacy of the company in its service to the military … passed down from generation to generation. Bringing peace of mind in claims and service in your times of need.

Much of the marketing and jawboning may make little difference in the long run. While consumers may be shopping around more, Bob Hartwig, president of the Insurance Information Institute trade group, says only about one in 10 drivers switch policies, a level that’s been consistent for a decade — even with the big ad push. The so-called retention rate during the recession didn’t change much. Rather than switch carriers, many cuts cost by raising their deductibles or dropping coverage.

The bottom line

The experience should match the customer’s expectations. For example, a customer’s expectations will be different for a roadside hotel versus a full-service luxury hotel like the Four Seasons. That smaller, roadside hotel may have a brand promise that includes a clean room and friendly service. The Four Seasons promises much more with a luxury experience. Both of them are making a commitment to you in the form of their brand promise. By keeping the brand promise, they meet the expectation.

What will have to change is the marketing mindset. The fundamental questions in the coming years will not be how to deploy this or that new technology, but how to can solve fundamental marketing problems, such as how to earn consumers’ trust and how to create experiences that are more impactful, useful, productive, and beneficial.

Customer engagement improvements are worth the effort.

So how do you select your insurance company? Does thinking about the commercials, their messages, and costs make you rethink your decision? It certainly does for us.

All you get is what you bring to the fight. And that fight gets better every day you learn and apply new ideas.

When things are not what you want them to be, what’s most important is your next step.

Test. Learn. Improve. Repeat.

Are you devoting enough energy to improving your advertising design?

Do you have a lesson about making your innovation better you can share with this community? Have any questions or comments to add in the section below?

Digital Spark Marketing will stretch your thinking and your ability to adapt to change. We also provide some fun and inspiration along the way.

Business Proposition: The Practical Design Guide to Winning Business

Does your business have a winning business proposition. We have found many clients that cannot articulate their unique business proposition. In our opinion, trying to win against your competition without good business discrimination is like trying to sail with no wind. Nothing is more important for your business than competitive advantages … the more you have, the stronger your business. So pay close attention as we tell you how to build a winning business proposition.

Check out our thoughts on creative marketing.

Marketing is often confused with promotion, but it’s more than that. As Peter Drucker put it, “the aim of marketing is to know and understand the customer so well the product or service fits him and sells itself.” In truth, marketing is about insights more than anything else.

So how do you derive good differentiation and insights? For starters, make sure you understand the concept of a value proposition:

Here is a short video explaining the concept of a value proposition.

Start by understanding there are two ways to win in a competitive market:

Achieve sustainable lower cost (and therefore price) than your competition for the same products and services (very difficult to sustain)

Deliver more value, despite equal or higher price

A business is a value delivery system. The heart of a winning value proposition is the end-result experiences of value a business intends to deliver to its target customer segments. It needs to be articulated for the customer value end-state … not for your product, service, or business process.

Here is a short 4-minute video to refresh you on this subject:

How to write a value proposition? Defining 6 core elements of Value Propositions

To understand your potential value to customers:

Be your customers … study and creatively infer value by observing/learning from what they do.

Do your claims surpass the value alternatives in the marketplace? Do your customers believe your claims?

So where should you look for value in your business’s value delivery chain? The top areas include:

Best value

The most useful definition of unique selling propositions (USP) is a believable collection of the most persuasive reasons people should notice you and take the action you’re seeking.

This way, it guides your decisions much more clearly and can be used as the basis for marketing messages.

If you don’t have strong selling propositions, people don’t have good reasons to do either of those.

For example, if your online bookstore has average selection, decent prices, delivery, a guarantee, good customer service, and a website, why would anyone buy from you? There’s surely a competitor who beats you in at least some of those aspects.

You don’t have to be the best in every way. Sure, it’s great if you are. But realistically, it’s difficult enough to be the best in just a couple of ways.

However, if you’re the best in at least several ways, you’re the best option for the people who value those propositions.

Starbuck’s doesn’t have the lowest prices. Amazon isn’t the most prestigious book seller. Zappos’ isn’t the easiest way to shop. People buy from them for other reasons.

So, if your bookstore has the largest selection, for example, but the other things are just average, the people who value a large selection have a reason to buy from you.

You must have some product or service elements that are unique. Something has to make you the best option for your target customers.

Otherwise, they have no good reason to buy from you.

Business proposition … the heart of the proposition

The heart of a winning unique selling proposition is the end result experiences of value a business intends to deliver to its target customers. The end result experiences are what you should consider.

For example, a customer shopping for an electric drill is looking for one that can deliver holes as easy and conveniently as possible. Also, one that can deliver the most multiple functions.

Time

Time is the most important of customer priorities today. What can you do to keep your time demands to a minimum?

Convenience and easy to work with

Ones related to customer time for sure. Do everything you can to make things simple as possible.

Customer experience/service

Great service creates a great experience and becomes something worth your customer talking to his friends about. It is the most important element of your word of mouth marketing campaign.

Trust and warranty

Trust is the most often named reason customers say they select businesses to do business with. Good warranties are great places to start building trust.

*Business proposition template … n**ew ways*

Consider value in new ways of doing business. The best example for this value proposition in my mind is Netflix.

Demonstrate the proof

If you say, my pizza is the best in the world; will people flood your restaurant? No. They won’t believe you.

Without proof, you can’t say much before it starts to sound like marketing talk. No one pays attention. Or remembers. They just don’t believe. No believing, no trust. It is all downhill after that.

For example, I recently saw a digital marketing competitor site where they claimed to be the secret weapon of digital marketing for the most successful companies in the world. Needless to say, we doubt anyone can take that seriously when nothing supports the claim.

As long as you don’t prove your claims, people are unlikely to really believe them. And your unique selling proposition becomes of no use.

Use studies, testimonials, and common sense, among other methods, to prove your claims.

Impressive numbers can be the right choice, but they don’t always work.

To end this lesson, ask yourself the following questions:

Can you validate and deliver your unique selling point?

Is it sustainable, at least in the near term?

Is it simple, clear, and specific?

So apply these two lessons. What is the unique selling point for your business? How does it stack up with competitors?

The bottom line

True innovation often doesn’t make us comfortable. It makes us uncomfortable. And yet, it is in that discomfort that the new ways, the new ideas, and the new feelings come to light.

When you drive to work via a different route, you see different places and sights. If you go to the newsstand and peruse the magazines that you never otherwise look at, you will see things you simply would never think about otherwise

So, if you were wondering where to put your marketing time and energy to optimize how to win customers from your competitors, focus on defining and delivering winning unique selling propositions.

All you get is what you bring to the fight. And this struggle gets better every day you learn and apply new ideas.

Test. Learn. Improve. Repeat.

Are you devoting enough energy to improve your marketing, branding, and advertising?

Do you have a lesson about making your marketing strategy better you can share with this community? Have any questions or comments to add in the section below?

Examples of Values … 17 Creative Value Proposition Ideas

Proposition Examples … 6 Awesome FiOS Value Statements

Creative Tips to Build Small Business Differentiation

Value Proposition Mistakes That Lose Customers

Mike Schoultz is a digital marketing and customer service expert. With 48 years of business experience, he consults on and writes about topics to help improve the performance of small business. Find him on Facebook, Twitter, Quora, Digital Spark Marketing, and LinkedIn.

Selling Point … The Best Multiple Ones from a Single Brand

Do you agree with Jack Welsh? With no competitive advantage, you will compete and lose. Why would anyone want to do that? That is why we wholeheartedly agree with Jack Welsh. We have found many businesses that cannot articulate a single way how their business is truly unique. Forget the best multiple unique selling point.

Check out our thoughts on creative marketing.

What analogy to this situation stands out in our mind? Trying to win against your competition without real business differentiation is like trying to sail with no wind. Is no way there? Business is a value delivery system. Do you know the ‘value experiences’ your business delivers? Do you know your targeted customer segments?

A strong, unique selling proposition speaks directly to your target audience, and it tells them exactly why they should purchase your products and services (and in the case of non-profits, it’s why your donors should support your organization, members should join your programs, etc.). A selling proposition is a clear statement of the concrete results a customer will get from purchasing and using your products and services.

A unique selling proposition is a short statement that tells your prospect why they should buy from your company. It is focused on outcomes. Your proposition distils all the complexity of the value you provide into an easy-to-remember phrase that your client can easily grasp and remember.

This helps spread word-of-mouth marketing, and it differentiates you from the competition. Keep in mind that your value proposition should identify and remedy an unmet need that your customers face. It should relieve their pain.

Here is a short 5-minute video that will refresh this subject further:

How to write a value proposition? Defining 6 core elements of Value Propositions

Regardless of the size of your business or the type of industry you are in, your company should have a selling proposition that stands out from your competition. To help you, here are some guidelines to follow in creating one for your business. A strong value proposition does the following:

Creates interest, so that your prospects ask questions and want to learn more. Your value proposition opens the door so that someone might be willing to meet with you instead of blowing you off when you call or mail them for the first time

Differentiates your offer from your competitors’ offers and creates a substantial differential between you and your competitors

Focuses on your customers’ point of view.

Aligns your business operations more closely to customer needs

Increases the quantity and quality of your sales leads and makes conversion to a client much easier

Wins your business greater market share in your targeted segments

Include demonstrated results that will catch the attention of decision-makers

Are you starting to get a feel for a strong, unique selling proposition? It is specific, often citing numbers or percentages. It may include a quick synopsis of your work with similar customers as a proof source and demonstration of your capability. It is a clear statement of the tangible results a customer gets from using your products or services. Its outcome focused and stressed the business value of your offering.

So how do you derive real business differentiation? To build creative, unique selling propositions for your business, consider the following:

Business is a value delivery system. Do you know the ‘value experiences’ your business delivers? You must start by understanding your targeted customer segments well.

The heart of a winning selling proposition is the end-result experiences of value a business intends to deliver to its target customer segments. It needs to be articulated for the client’s value end state … not for your product, service, or business process.

Be your customers … study and creatively infer value by observing / learning from what they do.

Do your claims surpass the value alternatives in the marketplace? Will your customers believe your claims? Does your value differentiate you in the client’s eyes?

Can you validate and deliver your value proposition?

While many businesses have a difficult time deriving one good unique selling proposition, a few have defined multiple unique selling propositions. The best brand we could find with the best multiple selling propositions is Safelite Autoglass.

Have you ever heard of Safelite Autoglass and their business model? They have created The Safelite Advantage^™ as a bundle of unique selling propositions providing what consumers have identified as their primary vehicle glass service needs. It’s why leading insurance and fleet companies, as well as more than four million drivers, choose Safelite each year. Let’s examine what this bundle is made up of.

The automobile windshield is a critical part of your vehicle’s safety system, protecting you in the event of a collision or rollover and aiding in proper airbag deployment. When you choose Safelite^® – America’s largest vehicle glass specialist – you get the reliability of the Safelite Advantage™.

Selling point … always being there

Glass damage can happen at any hour. Safelite^® is always here for customers with 24/7 live representatives in our renowned contact centers, as well as the web and mobile app scheduling.

Selling point examples … knowing who to expect

When you schedule Safelite^® mobile service, customers receive peace of mind with our Technician Profile Email, including the technician’s name, photo, and credentials before he or she arrives.

Key selling point … the industry’s only nationwide lifetime guarantee

Safelite^® is proud to feature the industry’s only nationwide lifetime guarantee. We back it up with about 5,000 state-of-the-art

MobileGlassShops^™ and company stores in all 50 states.

Safelite AutoGlass^® repair

Skilled Safelite^® technicians can often repair glass damage up to the size of a $1 bill, and the work typically takes less than 30 minutes. If you notice a chip, get your windshield repaired as soon as possible before it cracks and needs replacing. Catch it early and a fast, low-cost repair could be all you need.

If we can’t repair your glass, you can be confident of a top quality windshield replacement.

Safelite goes to customers

One of their certified technicians can come directly to your home or office, or you can visit one of more than 300 facilities nationwide. Come to you for the windshield repair or replacement. Now that is a convenience, isn’t it?

With this list of strong unique selling propositions, it is evident Safelite understands its value well.

The bottom line

To be effective in this new era, we as marketers need to see our jobs differently. No more just focusing on metrics like clicks, video views, or social media shares. We must successfully integrate our function with other business functions to create entire brand experiences that serve the customer all the way through their experiences throughout the business.

We can do better. Much better. But first, we need to stop seeing ourselves as crafters of clever brand messages and become creators of positive brand experiences.

WINNING ADVERTISEmeNT DESIGN — Want to build a winning advertisement design?

Need some help in capturing more customers from your marketing strategies? Creative ideas to help the differentiation with potential clients?

All you get is what you bring to the fight. And this struggle gets better every day you learn and apply new ideas.

When things are not what you want them to be, what’s most important is your next step.

Test. Learn. Improve. Repeat.

Are you devoting enough energy to improve your marketing, branding, and advertising?

Do you have a lesson about making your marketing strategy better you can share with this community? Have any questions or comments to add in the section below?

Digital Spark Marketing will stretch your thinking and your ability to adapt to change. We also provide some fun and inspiration along the way.

Examples of Values … 17 Creative Value Proposition Ideas

Proposition Examples … 6 Awesome FiOS Value Statements

Creative Tips to Build Small Business Differentiation

Value Proposition Mistakes That Lose Customers

Mike Schoultz is a digital marketing and customer service expert. With 48 years of business experience, he consults on and writes about topics to help improve the performance of small business. Find him on Facebook, Twitter, Quora, Digital Spark Marketing, and LinkedIn.

Word of Mouth Marketing Examples … 11 Effective Ones to Study

Is your marketing strategy focused mostly on word of mouth marketing? It definitely should be. It is the best marketing technique in my mind, hands down. The key to its success is the way to get people to talk about you and start the buzz. These are called word of mouth triggers and word of mouth marketing examples will be the focus of this article.

Check out our thoughts on creative marketing.

The first thing you need to know about word-of-mouth marketing is this: generating consumers to talk about your business isn’t as random as you think. There’s a science to creating a marketing buzz, and it’s something you can learn to do.

Remember, the main goal of your business is not just to create customers. It is to create customers who then will also create customers (that is, customer advocates). This is the perfect marketing solution for 99 % of all businesses and is why we believe word of mouth marketing is your most important marketing campaign tool.

Word of mouth marketing takes consumers by surprise, makes an indelible impression, and pops up where and when people least expect it. It often has a large targeted audience and often can be accomplished at reduced cost.

By being a little more clever and unpredictable, you challenge consumers who appreciate a little fun in their products.

Let’s examine some excellent ways others have created a marketing buzz. Many of these can be easily copied by your company.

Word of mouth marketing examples … weird experiences

At Catbird Creamery in Maine, when you order a conventional flavor, they’ll insist that you sample something a little more adventurous. And even if you’re going to order vanilla anyway, they want you to at least try the strawberry balsamic, or green tea ginger. Catbird knows that anyone can make a good vanilla, but what makes them stand out is helping their customers see all of the other fantastic flavors they also make.

They’re giving their customers an experience to talk about. Even if the customer doesn’t order the hot pepper flavor they just sampled, they will likely tell others they tried it.

Learn more: Portland Press Herald

Word of mouth marketing ideas … delight customers

Headsets.com sells headsets and phone accessories, but they are most likely remembered for adding Tootsie Rolls to every order they ship. It’s a great word of mouth tactic and they like feedback. They use it to do something even more special. When customers thank their operator for the Tootsie Rolls received in an order and mentioned their favorite flavor, you can guess that information is noted for the next time.

Little actions to surprise and delight your customers can easily be created all the time. Follow Headsets.com example and treat feedback like a well-oiled machine, carefully gathering the information and doing something about it every time.

Word of mouth ads … mystery

Are you mysterious? Do you think you can be? We looked at how people delight in the puzzle-solving aspect of pattern recognition. Now, let’s go a bit deeper and explore what drives this pattern seeking behavior: curiosity.

Great storytellers know how to turn an ordinary event—say, a trip to the grocer—into a suspenseful one by withholding information. In new relationships, flirtation often involves some element of playful teasing, whether through conversation or more sensual revelations.

And newsrooms have made a science out of crafting irresistible headlines: “Your PC might be infected!” or “Are you prepared for the tax law changes?”

We are captivated by unanswered questions. So try and put this mystery to good use.

Make people feel special

Comodo restaurant in New York encourages customers to snap pictures of their meals and contribute them to an “Instagram Menu” by adding #ComodoMenu to their posts. It’s a great way to collect all of their recommendations and photos in one place, but more importantly, it makes those contributors feel like a part of the restaurant.

Customers are often going to take Instagram photos of their fancy dinners. Why not make the most of that word of mouth by making those customers feel special?

Learn more: Signal v. Noise

Make people smile

Fleur, a florist shop in Chicago, puts a bucket full of bright balloons by the door of their shop both inside and out, with a handwritten sign that says: “Take a balloon.” That’s all. No logos, no catch. It is just a small action to make people smile. Inside the store, it makes a pretty display, and outside the store, people are likely to ask where you got the balloon.

That’s a simple, fun way to get a conversation started without a marketing message. A bucket full of balloons is a bucket full of word of mouth memories waiting to happen. It doesn’t have to be branded or a part of a larger campaign — in fact, the simpler you make it, the better.

Personalization

Have you ever tried to create conversation starters? Consider this technique by Krochel Kids Intl. Every product they make has a tag that is signed by the person who made it. They are not the standard garment tag. They are large and prominently displayed on the outside of the clothing. It makes each product one of a kind that makes the clothing stand out.

With this kind of visual message, your customers don’t have to bring up the subject because their friends usually ask about it.

Word of mouth marketing examples … demonstrate synergy

Synergy is a quality that often gets overlooked, isn’t it? But it can be a very valuable tool in many ways. You don’t have to be a genius to know that student housing is frequently in demand. Likewise, you’d guess that seniors in nursing homes like to have companionship. So to solve both problems, one nursing home in the Netherlands provides a place to stay for college students, rent free, in exchange for visiting with the elderly for 30 hours per month.

Not much in common, you say? At least they have similar needs. Perhaps your customers who seem very different may have more in common than you think.

Learn more: PBS

Create surprise

Surely you have seen the tear-jerker commercials for abused or abandoned puppies or kittens. Not something you’ll often share with friends, is it? North Carolina’s Wake County SPCA tried a very different approach to this problem. They made a lip-synching music video to ABBA’s song “Take a Chance on Me”, with the entire shelter staff and most of the adoptable animals.

A success? It was watched on YouTube over 3.4 million times the last time we looked. Just because others do the standard tear jerking videos doesn’t mean they are popular. Surprise your audience with original things that are fun and approachable like this SPCA did. It may even surprise you.

Learn more: YouTube

Unique value propositions

The typical thrift store or vintage shop isn’t all that glamorous. But they do have one thing on their side when it comes to fashion: lots of rare and one-of-a-kind clothes. Goodwill capitalized on that concept by revamping some of their stores to look like upscale boutiques instead of the place you drop off your oldest clothes. Their new Rare by Goodwill stores are smaller, and they collect some of the more trendy vintage or antique stuff their regular stores have to offer.

Perhaps your business has more in common with your upscale competitors than you think, yes? What can you learn from them about attracting new customers?

Learn more: Small Business Trends

Do something different

Restaurants have a lot of overhead: plates, utensils, pots, pans, glassware, and the like. And this doesn’t last forever either. As table cloths wear out or coffee mugs chip, restaurants have to replace them. But at Cotogna and Quince, two neighboring restaurants in San Francisco, they use this aging inventory as an opportunity. They set out this type of used material for their annual “Smallwares Sidewalk Sale” and invite the community to shop, catch some brunch, and help them clean house.

Now that’s a fantastic way to address a standard problem and turn it into clever marketing. They’re saving a little money, bringing people into their restaurant, and getting rid of stuff they don’t want all at the same time.

Learn more: Restaurant Business

Tell awesome stories

When several guys had to give up the 1957 Land Rover they bought together in college, they were disappointed. So when Land Rover saw the boys’ ad for the sale, they bought the car and restored it down to the smallest of details.

But before surprising the guys with the return as a gift, they created a video commercial. Each place in the commercial reflected a memory of a car adventure from the group.

Your customers will often surprise you with many more great memories than you can build yourself. Look for them and put them to good use.

Learn more: Brains on Fire

The bottom line

The triggers of word-of-mouth marketing are all around us. All we have to do is be open-minded in how we look.

Our world is in flux. There is no part of the consumer experience that is untouched. Digital technology is disrupting the marketplace, while changes in our understanding of the psychology of decision-making have overturned centuries of conventional wisdom. Even a brief summary such as this one can make the challenges seem overwhelming.

So what to do? First, start somewhere. It can be one place or the other, but at least start. The change will be unfolding for years and everyone else is as confused as you are.

Looking to create a smashing brand image?

Now it’s your turn. What is the creative word of mouth marketing ideas from your business?

Need some help in capturing more customers from your social media marketing or advertising? Creative ideas to help the differentiation with your customers?

All you get is what you bring to the fight. And that fight gets better every day you learn and apply new ideas.

When things are not what you want them to be, what’s most important is your next step.

Test. Learn. Improve. Repeat.

Are you devoting enough energy to innovate your social media strategy?

Do you have a lesson about making your advertising better you can share with this community? Have any questions or comments to add in the section below?

Digital Spark Marketing will stretch your thinking and your ability to adapt to change. We also provide some fun and inspiration along the way.

Leadership Collaboration Skills: Everyone Focuses on Developing These

It takes a great entrepreneur with vision to start a business, but it requires strong leadership collaboration skills and a collaboration of many people to make it a success. And belive me Neil Patel would know about leadership collaboration skills.

Check out our thoughts on team leverage

Collaboration is working together to achieve a goal. It is a recursive process where two or more people or organizations work together to realize shared goals, Note that collaboration is NOT cooperation …it is more than the intersection of common goals, but a collective determination to reach an identical objective by sharing knowledge, learning and building consensus.

According to an old military axiom, the weakest point always follows success. At those times it’s hard to resist the temptation to loosen up, take a breather, and abandon the intense concentration needed to fight your way up the next hill.

Once a battle is won, soldiers are liable to ignore the sound of a twig snapping beneath the boot of an approaching scout, or overlook the glow of a distant campfire. Like soldiers, mountaineers say the most dangerous moment of their ascents is after they’ve reached the peak of a mountain. That’s when they’re most likely to fall into a crevasse or slip on a ledge.

Surgeons, too, can find it difficult to stay focused once an operation has apparently succeeded. Until then, the demands of operating absorb their attention so completely that the scalpel seems almost to move itself.

Here is a short video on the leadership lessons from first follower.

Collaboration is an attribute that cuts across many businesses and business processes. We need to make it an intentional process and cultivate it into the team’s culture.

That’s where leadership comes in as a key ingredient, to drive the collaborative process to make the whole team better than the sum of the parts.

If you don’t mind, let me ask you the importance of collaboration in your business team? We would love to hear an example of it. As a favor, please share it below. It would be greatly appreciated by us and our readers.

Let me illustrate a point about difficulties with collaboration with this story.

Once upon a time a scorpion looked around at the mountain where he lived and decided that he wanted a change. So he set out on a journey through the forests and hills. He climbed over rocks and under vines and kept going until he reached a river.

The river was wide and swift, and the scorpion stopped to reconsider the situation. He couldn’t see any way across. So he ran upriver and then checked downriver, all the while thinking that he might have to turn back.
Suddenly, he saw a frog sitting in the rushes by the bank of the stream on the other side of the river. He decided to ask the frog for help getting across the stream.

“Hellooo Mr. Frog!” called the scorpion across the water, “Would you be so kind as to give me a ride on your back across the river?”

“Well now, Mr. Scorpion! How do I know that if I try to help you, you wont try to kill me?” asked the frog hesitantly.

“Because,” the scorpion replied, “If I try to kill you, then I would die too, for you see I cannot swim!”

Now this seemed to make sense to the frog. But he asked. “What about when I get close to the bank? You could still try to kill me and get back to the shore!”

“This is true,” agreed the scorpion, “But then I wouldn’t be able to get to the other side of the river!”

“Alright then…how do I know you wont just wait till we get to the other side and THEN kill me?” said the frog.

“Ahh…,” crooned the scorpion, “Because you see, once you’ve taken me to the other side of this river, I will be so grateful for your help, that it would hardly be fair to reward you with death, now would it?!”

So the frog agreed to take the scorpion across the river. He swam over to the bank and settled himself near the mud to pick up his passenger. The scorpion crawled onto the frog’s back, his sharp claws prickling into the frog’s soft hide, and the frog slid into the river. The muddy water swirled around them, but the frog stayed near the surface so the scorpion would not drown. He kicked strongly through the first half of the stream, his flippers paddling wildly against the current.

Halfway across the river, the frog suddenly felt a sharp sting in his back and, out of the corner of his eye, saw the scorpion remove his stinger from the frog’s back. A deadening numbness began to creep into his limbs.

“You fool!” croaked the frog, “Now we shall both die! Why on earth did you do that?”

The scorpion shrugged, and did a little jig on the drownings frog’s back.
“I could not help myself. It is my nature.”

Then they both sank into the muddy waters of the swiftly flowing river…

Well, I guess scorpions are going to be scorpions.

And people are always going to act according to human nature.

We can try to fight it and resist it, but at the end of the day, people are going to be people.

So here it is … it all starts with how to be the leader in your own life, but then extends to learning the following skills for building a great collaborative team:

Build and maintain trust … trust is a key element we all need to set aside vulnerability, but it is hard to build, and easy to lose. It is not built on words, but through actions and evidence. Only when it works can a team address the necessary issues to win.

Related: Building Collaboration and Sharing Skills in your Staff

Expect conflict to reach consensus … conflicts and fights are not the same thing. Conflicts are normal and required factual push backs in business, whereas fights are emotional, often personal, disagreements which do not lead forward to consensus.

Embrace change … change is the only constant in business, so make it your competitive advantage. Initiate change rather than react to it, and give clear instructions to help the team understand why the change is necessary, and how it will make the situation better.

Establish a level of analysis, structure, and control … the challenge is to strike the right balance. With none, things fall into chaos, but too much can have the effect of stifling innovation and creativity.

Make decisions … in general, any decision is better than no decision. Usually a blended approach is the best, between independent decisions, and collaborative decisions factoring in the best team input. Picking the best team members is a the right starting decision.

Foster continuous communication … communication is the glue that forms the bond between leaders and teams, and holds great teams together. Credibility is a required base.

Provide recognition … recognition drives motivation and human behavior, and human behavior drives results. Recognition validates people and their purpose. Intangible rewards can have an even greater impact than tangible ones, but they must be relevant.

Create learning experiences … we all have a desire to learn and grow. The best learning opportunities are experience and sharing .

In today’s fast-moving digital business age, we face an entirely new environment for innovation and collaboration. The best companies are the best collaborators.

In the new networked world, more and more business will be done through collaboration within, as well as, between businesses. This will occur for a very simple reason: the next layer of value creation – whether in technology, marketing, service, or manufacturing- is becoming so complex that few companies or company departments are able to master them alone.

The bottom line

We all have our talents, but the innate ability will only take you so far. In the final analysis, what makes transformational leadership different is its ability to transform themselves to suit the needs of their mission.

Need some help in capturing more improvements for your staff’s leadership, teamwork and collaboration? Creative ideas in running or facilitating a team or leadership workshop?

All you get is what you bring to the fight. And that fight gets better every day you learn and apply new ideas.

When things are not what you want them to be, what’s most important is your next step.

Test. Learn. Improve. Repeat.

Are you devoting enough energy innovating your social media strategy?

Do you have a lesson about making your advertising better you can share with this community? Have any questions or comments to add in the section below?

Digital Spark Marketing will stretch your thinking and your ability to adapt to change. We also provide some fun and inspiration along the way.

More leadership material from Digital Spark Marketing’s Library:

Leadership Characteristics that Improve Influence

6 Favorite Brands and Why I Like Them So Much

Have you ever defined your favorite brands and questioned why they are favorites? It is a key exercise we often use with our clients. This exercise helps to evaluate what should be the heart of your company’s strong brand identity by examining the best of the best.

Check out our thoughts on creative marketing.

We like to quote from the book Funky Business Forever when we discuss brands or branding with our clients:

The ‘surplus society’ has a surplus of similar companies, employing similar people, with similar educational backgrounds, coming up with similar ideas, producing similar things, with similar prices and similar quality.

It is not easy being different, is it? But all the more important.

Before we continue, let me ask you a question.

What works best for branding design in your business? We would love to hear what it was. Would you do us a favor and post it in the comments section below? Be the one who starts a converstion.

With the advent of the Internet, the number of marketing options available to both budding and experienced entrepreneurs has become staggering.

Here is a short video on brands that millennials like.

The key to a good brand is being different. There are 4 critical things to remember about brands and branding:

Every business has a brand, whether explicitly defined or not. The important question to be answered is how good is the brand?

Brands deliver emotional connection to a business’ products and services. Most purchase decisions have critical emotional components.

Your brand represents a collection of your customers’ perceptions of how they see you, how they feel about you, and what they say about you.

Your brand communicates every time it touches a customer. This makes you, as a marketer, responsible for this communication ‘moment of truth’.

Most brands sell products or services. GM sells cars. Borders sells books. Real estate brokerages sell homes. The best brands, however, satisfy desire to get at the emotional heart of the matter.

Here is a short video that will refresh a brand for you:

Beginning Graphic Design: Branding & Identity

Let’s review my favorite 6 brands and why they stand out as the best for me. This is a great way to appreciate the importance of branding and emotion.

KLM Airline

I prefer brands that are most innovative and very eager to try lots new and different ideas. And not afraid of a failure or two. KLM Airlines certainly deserves to be this camp. Real social media marketing innovators. They frequently come up when marketers are discussing the best in social media marketing.

They have been successfully executing their social media marketing plan for over 4 years, and their strategies has played a key role in their marketing and customer engagement.

If you’re not familiar with KLM Royal Dutch Airlines, known by its initials KLM, it is the flag carrier airline of the Netherlands. With headquarters is in Amsterdam, KLM operates scheduled passenger and cargo services to more than 90 destinations worldwide. It is the oldest airline in the world, still operating under its original name (Founded in 1919).

Their brand identity is built around a culture of innovativeness. Over the past four years, KLM has launched a number of social campaigns – some big, some small. They had a few failures along with great successes but they keep exploring and testing what consumers like the best.

LEGO

The Lego brand is another of my favorite brands I like best for their ability to adapt and innovate by trying lots of things. They teach us many things through their stories, storytelling, and messages. The words and images they use, then, reflect who they are, what makes them distinctive, and the brand values they want to represent to all their stakeholder communities. The brand represents their ability to influence how people see them, feel about them, and talk to others about the brand.

It is human and emotion, and at that critical time when a customer engages with one of their employees or someone in their channel, or even one of their products, their brand comes alive with engagement.

We are big fans of the Lego Company and its products. The LEGO brand is more than simply a familiar logo. It is the expectations that people have of the company towards its products and services, and the accountability that the LEGO Group feels towards the world around it.

When Lego tells its creative branding story , the Lego Brand experience teaches us to create a distinctive voice with unique words, feelings, emotion and images … dare to create differences with your communities.

JetBlue

I like this brand for creating unique selling propositions that have real value for me. They are my favorite airline, no question. JetBlue’s brand success centers on the achievable – the simple things – they knew would make a difference for their passengers. This set the stage for direct TV and XM radio, the provision of first-class seats to everyone, more legroom, great snacks and high end service at lower end pricing. No other airline offers this unique set of value propositions. They are different and their brand stands out because of those differences.

Simple. Attainable. Targeted. They delivered.

Zappos

Zappos brand is the top of my list for their awesome culture from the top to bottom of their company. They don’t sell shoes. They deliver that extra dose of love we all need from time to time. There is no secret here. Zappos became Zappos because of the fanatical customer support it offered. That, is the company’s brand.

As Tony Hsieh, the Zappos CEO, puts it,

Back in 2003, we thought of ourselves as a shoe company that offered great service. Today, we really think of the Zappos brand as about great service, and we just happen to sell shoes.

Starbucks

A favorite of mine for their aggressive innovation style and the way they engage customers. Starbucks brings us a space to enjoy the products they sell, rather than a just a product.

Some would say that it fills a psychological need that other companies have not had to do in quite the same way. The emotion is all about uplifting moments and daily ritual. Stimulating all our senses.

Disney

The Disney brand is a huge favorite because I love their products so much. Magical, fantasy entertainment. Being bringers of joy, affirmers of the good in each of us, to be — in subtle ways — teachers. To speak, as Walt once put it:

not to children but to the child in each of us.

Disney’s brand does this through great storytelling, by giving guests a few hours in another world where their cares can be momentarily put aside and by creating memories that will remain with them forever. I love living in their world of imagination.

While there are many brands I like very much, these 6 qualify as my favorites. So what stands out the most for your favorite brands?

Need some help in capturing more customers from your branding design strategies? Such as creative branding ideas to help the differentiation with potential customers?

Call today for a FREE consultation or a FREE quote. Learn about some options to scope your job.

Call Mike at 607-725-8240.

All you get is what you bring to the fight. And that fight gets better every day you learn and apply new ideas.

When things are not what you want them to be, what’s most important is your next step. Call today.

Test. Learn. Improve. Repeat.

Are you devoting enough energy to improving your continuous learning for yourself and your team?

Do you have a lesson about making your brand marketing better you can share with this community? Have any questions or comments to add in the section below?

Digital Spark Marketing will stretch your thinking and your ability to adapt to change. We also provide some fun and inspiration along the way. Call us for a free quote today. You will be amazed how reasonable we will be.

New York Yankees … 11 Awesome Lessons From Yankees Brand

The CVS Rebranding Strategy: a Case Study

Building a Brand … A How-to Guide for Small Business

Brand Management … 12 Ways to Humanize the Brand to Build Trust

Walmart E-commerce Strategy … 6 Reasons Why It Won’t Beat Amazon

Mike Schoultz is a digital marketing and customer service expert. With 48 years of business experience, he consults on and writes about topics to help improve the performance of small business. Find him on G+, Facebook, Twitter, Digital Spark Marketing, and LinkedIn.

Guinness Marketing Campaign … 7 Ways They Make Storytelling a Winner

Have you seen the recent Guinness marketing video? A significant change in the Guinness marketing campaign we believe. The strategy is using simple storytelling to gain our attention. Refreshing.

Start here with this short video showing an excellent Guinness marketing campaign.

Let’s examine this video and strategy and what contributes to their strengths and weaknesses. We want to evaluate if it has the ability to influence and persuade with its storytelling.

Everyone hates TV commercials, and this is a well-known fact amongst the people who make TV commercials. Fortunately, a few brands and ad agencies are turning things around with genuine, heartfelt storytelling marketing. Guinness is trying to become one of these brands.

First, some comments about the video. Here is a useful marketing video.

As you can see, this Guinness ad veers away from the clichéd beer model and creates its own: beer-drinking, manly men that can be both strong and sensitive. It also creates an impactful and unique message promoting qualities like dedication, loyalty and friendship:

The choices we make reveal the true nature of our character.

Guinness is no stranger to effective video marketing. This new video reached three million views within four days of online release. A simple plot; a game of wheelchair basketball followed by a pint of Guinness. The twist is that only one of the men in the group is an actual wheelchair user – the rest, it seems, are his friends who are playing wheelchair basketball so that they can all play together.

Marketing or advertising, you need to create information that your customers find interesting and worth talking about and remembering. This video certainly achieves this goal, don’t you think?

Let’s evaluate other keys to this video and storytelling marketing strategy:

Guinness marketing campaign … be relevant to your target market

Keep in mind that one message does not fit all. It starts with knowing your target market. Here the target market is young adults with a high focus on maturity. It focuses on the traits of friendship and sharing happiness. This video is certainly relevant to this market.

Define your positioning

The positioning of your business is your frame of reference. Make comparisons to your competitors if you can.

Not only does this ad do a great job of building a beautiful story, it positions Guinness as a different kind of beer brand. By taking the opportunity to break the mold, Guinness stands apart from a pool of brands targeting the stereotypical girl-chasing, party-loving man-child. Guinness is much more than that and we like it.

Guinness certainly knows who its major competitors are and but chooses to not take them on in this video. A good move we believe.

Grab and hold viewers’ attention

The Guinness goal is to hold the audience’s attention with interesting information. Keep in mind that people don’t watch ads … they watch what interests them. Your ad messages must be interesting to your target communities. This message certainly grabs and holds attention based on simple emotion.

Define a value proposition

The value proposition should truly discriminate you from your competition. Give your customers reasons to select you. Maybe not the most significant visible feature, it does illustrate Guinness as a company that puts high priority on caring, which is their clear objective.

Guinness marketing campaign … simple messages

Simple messages that the reader will quickly understand are the goal. Keep in mind that pictures are far more valuable than words. Videos, well, they do even better than pictures. Creating customer emotion does not get any simpler than this, does it?

This video from Guinness flips the switch by presenting a group of athletic, beer-drinking men who are defined as much by their kindness as their physical strength.

The spot’s “Made of More” message is refreshing, memorable and heartwarming—acting as a breath of fresh air within the beer industry.

Consider the end state values to your customers

Guinness’s marketing strategy has flipped traditional beer advertising on its head by getting rid of the template and telling a story – a real story – that connects with people.

The responses were overwhelmingly positive… customers and particularly the target customers are looking for meaningful stories. The marketing strategy certainly is addressing this end state in our opinion.

Guinness marketing campaign … influence and persuasion

There is no better means of influence or persuasion than emotion. It is hands down the best, in our opinion. The video focuses on emotional appeal in grand fashion. They are saying that people who drink Guinness are decent people who are good to the core. This advert scores 10/10 for emotional engagement factor. It is the secret of this video’s message and story’s success.

The bottom line

Aaron Tube hit the nail on the head when he wrote:

“For the most part, [beer commercials] depict men as unfeeling doofuses who only want to hook up with hot women and watch sports without being bothered by their wives.

… Guinness flips the switch by presenting a group of athletic, beer-drinking men who are defined as much by their kindness as their physical strength.”

The reason I admire this spot so much is simple: it’s different, thoughtful and has an unexpected ending. While many beer advertisements rely on slapstick humor, an overkill of masculinity and a simple message, “drink our beer,” this one takes a different approach. It is both effective and creative. The spot’s “Made of More” message is refreshing, memorable and heartwarming—acting as a breath of fresh air within the beer industry.

Guinness has definitely taken advantage of this open opportunity in the beer marketplace—and they are doing it with style and class.

EMPLOY CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE — Employ customer experience, yes?

After looking over these enablers, we believe Guinness has created a very effective commercial. What do you think? Does this video story persuade you?

What are some of your experiences with advertising as a component of an integrated marketing campaign?

Need some help in capturing more customers from your marketing strategies? Creative ideas to help the differentiation with potential customers?

Call today for a FREE consultation or a FREE quote. Learn about some options to scope your job.

Call Mike at 607-725-8240.

All you get is what you bring to the fight. And that fight gets better every day you learn and apply new ideas.

When things are not what you want them to be, what’s most important is your next step. Call today.

Test. Learn. Improve. Repeat.

Are you devoting enough energy improving your marketing, branding, and advertising?

Do you have a lesson about making your marketing strategy better you can share with this community? Have any questions or comments to add in the section below?

Digital Spark Marketing will stretch your thinking and your ability to adapt to change. We also provide some fun and inspiration along the way. Call us for a free quote today. You will be amazed how reasonable we will be.

Target Market … How to Target for Best Marketing Campaigns

11 Steps to Media Framing Messages for Optimum Engagement

What Marketers Need to Know about Personalization Strategies

Mike Schoultz is a digital marketing and customer service expert. With 48 years of business experience, he consults on and writes about topics to help improve the performance of small business. Find him on Facebook, Twitter, Digital Spark Marketing, and LinkedIn.

Never Give Up on Your Dreams

Your dreams

Story

Love what you do

Your goals

Show enthusiasm

Believe? Do you believe in having dreams? Holding on to them? Here is a story that says never give up on your dreams that we found on several websites (all listed author unknown). We believe it is an excellent story that illustrates the power of holding onto your dreams.

The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.
– Eleanor Roosevelt

Imagine you could go back in time and give your 20-year-old self a bit of advice on investing in the creative process, coming up with new ideas, and producing good, fun work.

What would you say?

I have a friend named Monty Roberts who owns a horse ranch in California. From time to time he permitted me to use his home for youth at risk fund raising events.

The last event he introduced me by saying:

I want to tell you why I let Jack use my home for this fund raising. It goes back to a story of a young man who was the son of an itinerant horse trainer, who traveled from town to town training horses. As a result his son’s education was continually interrupted. When he was a senior, he was asked to write a paper about what he wanted to be when he grew up.

That night he wrote a seven page paper describing his goal of someday owning a horse ranch. He wrote about his dream in great detail and he even drew a map of a 200-acre ranch, showing the location of all the buildings, the stables, and the track. He also drew a detailed floor plan for a 4000 square foot home that would be located on the ranch.

He put a great deal of his heart into the project and turned in the paper the next day. Two days later he received his paper back. On the front page was a large red F with a note from his teacher that asked him to see him after class.

The student went to the teacher after class as instructed and asked why he had received the failing grade.

The teacher said:

This is an unrealistic dream for someone like you. You have no money. You come from an itinerant, poor family with few resources. Owning a horse ranch such as this requires a lot of money. There is no way you could ever achieve this dream. Then the teacher told him he would reconsider the grade if the paper was rewritten with a more realistic goal.

The boy went home and thought about what to do next long and hard. He asked father what he should do.

His father said:

Son, you will have to make up your own mind on this. It is a very important decision for you.

Finally after careful thought, the boy turned in the same paper, making NO change. His remark to the teacher was:

You can keep the F and I’ll keep my dream.

Another story for you: A Story About Living as Told by a Six Year Old Boy

My friend Monty then turned to the assembled group and said:

I tell you this story because you are sitting in 4000 square foot house in the middle of my 200 acre ranch. I still have that school paper framed over the fireplace.

He added:

The best part of the story is that two summers ago that same schoolteacher brought 30 kids to camp out on this ranch for a week. When the teacher was leaving, he said: Look, Monty, I can tell you this now.

When I was your teacher, I was something of a dream stealer. During those years I stole a lot of kids’ dreams. Fortunately you had enough gumption not to give on yours.

My takeaway from this story?

Don’t let anyone steal your dreams. Never give up on them, no matter what.

Belief is a powerful word – the state of knowing and feeling certain that something special is coming your way. Through my own personal experience I’ve found that creating that state of certainty – to believe in your dreams – requires 3 steps:

Love what you do

To believe in your dreams, make sure to find what you absolutely love to do and then make it your dream.

Document your goals

When you know exactly what you want, you create a state of absolute certainty – a belief that cuts through any doubt.

To believe in your dreams, you’ve got to know what you want. One of the best ways to figure that out is to write it out.

Wear the enthusiasm your dreams generate

Your dreams take consistent enthusiasm to keep them burning. A small movement or a small action is all you need to keep your that enthusiasm. Take a small action each day to keep it alive. By doing this consistently you’ll start to realize your dreams, one step at a time.

Another story: A Story About Living as Told by a Six Year Old Boy

Do you have a lesson from your experience vault for this community?

Need some help in capturing more customers from your marketing or advertising campaigns? Looking for creative ideas to help the differentiation with potential customers?

Call today for a FREE consultation or a FREE quote. Learn about some options to scope your job.

Call Mike at 607-725-8240.

All you get is what you bring to the fight. And that fight gets better every day you learn and apply new ideas.

When things are not what you want them to be, what’s most important is your next step. Call today.

Test. Learn. Improve. Repeat.

Are you devoting enough energy improving your enthusiasm?

Do you have a lesson about making your motivation better you can share with this community? Have any questions or comments to add in the section below?

Digital Spark Marketing will stretch your thinking and your ability to adapt to change. We also provide some fun and inspiration along the way. Call us for a free quote today. You will be amazed how reasonable we will be.

Great Stories and Storytelling Can Have a Very Healing Influence

The Story of Tank the Dog or Is It Reggie?

Surprising Story Lessons on Making a Difference

Mike Schoultz is a digital marketing and customer service expert. With 48 years of business experience, he consults on and writes about topics to help improve the performance of small business. Find him on G+, Facebook, Twitter, Digital Spark Marketing, and LinkedIn.

The Story of Tank the Dog or Is It Reggie?

We love great stories about pets, especially when there are special meanings behind them. That is especially true when the story also involves people in our military. We came across this story of Tank the dog recently. It has since become one of our all-time favorites.

This story, and no doubt there are many more like this in one way or another, showcase love, loyalty, service, and companionship of both our beloved canine companions and our troops. Those men and women, who put their lives on the line so that others like us may live with the freedoms we, more often than not, take for granted.

They told Tom the big black Lab’s name was Reggie as he looked at him lying in his pen. Tom had only been in the area for six months, but everywhere he went in the small college town, people were welcoming and open.

But something was still missing as he attempted to settle into his new life, and he thought a dog couldn’t hurt.

At first, he thought the shelter had misjudged him in giving up Reggie and his things, which consisted of a dog pad, bag of toys almost all of which were brand new tennis balls, his dishes, and a sealed letter from his previous owner. See, Reggie and Tom didn’t really hit it off when they got home. They struggled for two weeks (which is how long the shelter said to give him to adjust to his new home). Maybe it was the fact that Tom was trying to adjust, too.

For some reason, his stuff (except for the tennis balls – he wouldn’t go anywhere without two stuffed in his mouth) got tossed in with all of Tom’s other unpacked boxes.

Here is a short video on puppyhood.

Tom tried the normal commands the shelter told him he knew, ones like “sit” and “stay” and “come” and “heel,” and Reggie would follow them – when he felt like it. He never really seemed to listen when his name was called. When he was asked again, you could almost see him sigh and then grudgingly obey.

The relationship just wasn’t working. Reggie chewed a couple of shoes and some unpacked boxes. Tom was a little too stern with him and he resented it. The friction got so bad that Tom couldn’t wait for the two weeks to be up, and when it was, he was in full-on search mode for his cell phone amid all of his unpacked stuff.

Finally, he found it, but before he could punch up the shelter’s number, he also found Reggie’s pad and other toys from the shelter. Tom tossed the pad in Reggie’s direction and he snuffed it and wagged, some of the most enthusiasm that he’d shown since arriving at his new home.

But then Tom called, “Hey, Reggie, you like that? Come here and I’ll give you a treat.” Instead, he sort of glanced in his direction – maybe “glared” is more accurate – and then gave a discontented sigh and flopped down, with little to no interest.

Dogs and tennis balls — Sleeping dogs and tennis balls.

Well, that’s not going to do it either, Tom thought. And he punched the shelter phone number.

But he hung up when he saw the sealed envelope. It had been completely forgotten and ignored until now. “Okay, Reggie,”
Tom said out loud, “let’s see if your previous owner has any advice.”

The note was addressed:

To Whoever Gets My Dog:

Well, I can’t say that I’m happy you’re reading this, a letter I told the shelter could only be opened by Reggie’s new owner.

I’m not even happy writing it.

My last visit with my dog was when I dropped him at the shelter. He knew something was different… I had packed up his pad and toys before and set them by the back door before a trip, but this time… it’s like he knew something was wrong. And something was wrong… which is why I had to try to make it right.

So let me tell you about my Lab in the hopes that it will help you bond with him and he with you.

First, he loves tennis balls, the more the merrier. Sometimes I think he’s a part squirrel, the way he hordes them. He usually always has two in his mouth, and he tries to get a third in there.
Hasn’t done it yet. Doesn’t matter where you throw them, he’ll bound after it, so be careful – really don’t do it by any roads. I made that mistake once, and it almost cost him dearly.

Next, commands. Maybe the shelter staff already told you, but I’ll go over them again: Reggie knows the obvious ones – “sit,” “stay,” “come,” “heel.” He knows hand signals: “back” to turn around and go back when you put your hand straight up; and “over” if you put your hand out right or left. “Shake” for shaking the water off, and “paw” for a high-five. He does “down” when he feels like lying down – I bet you could work on that with him some more.

He knows “ball” and “food” and “bone” and “treat” like nobody’s business.

I trained Reggie with small food treats. Nothing opens his ears like little pieces of a hot dog.

Feeding schedule: twice a day, once about seven in the morning, and again at six in the evening. Regular store-bought stuff; the shelter has the brand.

He’s up on his shots. Call the clinic on 9th Street and update his info with yours; they’ll make sure to send you reminders for when he’s due. Be forewarned: Reggie hates the vet. Good luck getting him in the car – I don’t know how he knows when it’s time to go to the vet, but he knows.

Finally, give him some time. I’ve never been married, so it’s only been Reggie and me for his whole life. He’s gone everywhere with me, so please include him on your daily car rides if you can. He sits well in the backseat, and he doesn’t bark or complain. He just loves to be around people and me most especially. This means that this transition is going to be hard, with him going to live with someone new.

And that’s why I need to share one more bit of info with you….

His name’s not Reggie.

Tank or Reggie?

I don’t know what made me do it, but when I dropped him off at the shelter, I told them his name was Reggie. He’s a smart dog, he’ll get used to it and will respond to it, of that I have no doubt but I just couldn’t bear to give them his real name. For me to do that, it seemed so final, that handing him over to the shelter was as good as me admitting that I’d never see him again. And if I end up coming back, getting him, and tearing up this letter, it means everything’s fine.

Another story for you: Never Give Up Your Dreams

But if someone else is reading it, well… well, it means that his new owner should know his real name. It’ll help you bond with him. Who knows, maybe you’ll even notice a change in his demeanor if he’s been giving you problems.

His real name is Tank … because that is what I drive.

Again, if you’re reading this and you’re from the area, maybe my name has been on the news. I told the shelter that they couldn’t make “Reggie” available for adoption until they received word from my company commander.

See, my parents are gone, I have no siblings, no one I could’ve left Tank with… and it was my only real request of the Army upon my deployment to Iraq, that they make one phone call the shelter…in the “event”… to tell them that Tank could be put up for adoption. Luckily, my colonel is a dog guy, too, and he knew where my platoon was headed. He said he’d do it personally. And if you’re reading this, then he made good on his word.

Well, this letter is getting too downright depressing, even though, frankly, I’m just writing it for my dog. I couldn’t imagine if I was writing it for a wife and kids and family. But still, Tank has been my family for the last six years, almost as long as the Army has been my family.

And now I hope and pray that you make him part of your
family and that he will adjust and come to love you the same way he loved me.

That unconditional love from a dog is what I took with
me to Iraq as an inspiration to do something selfless, to protect innocent people from those who would do terrible things… and to keep those terrible people from coming over here.

If I had to give up Tank in order to do it, I am glad
to have done so. He was my example of service and of love. I hope I honored him by my service to my country and comrades…

All right, that’s enough. I deploy this evening and have to drop this letter off at the shelter. I don’t think I’ll say another good-bye to Tank, though. I cried too much the first time. Maybe I’ll peek in on him and see if he finally got that third tennis ball in his mouth.

Good luck with Tank. Give him a good home, and give him an extra kiss goodnight – every night – from me.

Thank you, Paul Mallory

Tom folded the letter and slipped it back in the envelope. Sure he had heard of Paul Mallory, everyone in town knew him, even new people. Local kid, killed in Iraq a few months ago and posthumously being awarded the Silver Star because he gave his life to save three buddies. Flags had been at half-mast all summer.

He leaned forward in his chair, rested his elbows on his knees, and said quietly: “Hey, Tank,”. The dog’s head whipped up, his ears cocked and his eyes bright.

“C’ mere boy.”
He was instantly on his feet, his nails clicking on the hardwood floor. He sat in front of me, his head tilted; searching for the name he hadn’t heard in months.

“Tank,” Tom whispered. His tail swished.

He kept whispering his name, over and over, and each time, his ears lowered, his eyes softened, and his posture relaxed as a wave of contentment just seemed to flood him. Tom stroked his ears, rubbed his shoulders, buried his face into his scruff and hugged him.

“It’s me now, Tank, just you and me. Your old pal gave you to me.”

Tank reached up and licked his cheek. “So whatdaya say we play some ball?” His ears perked again. “Yeah? Ball? Do you like that? Ball?” Tank tore from Tom’s hands and disappeared in the next room.

And when he came back, he had three tennis balls in his mouth.

My takeaway from this story?

Do what you can, with what you have, where you are … and you can make the difference you may be looking for.

Do you have any stories from the experience vault that you could share with this community?

Like this story? Follow Digital Spark Marketing on LinkedIn for 3-4 short, interesting blogs, stories per week.

Digital Spark Marketing will stretch your thinking and your ability to adapt to change. We also provide some fun and inspiration along the way.

A Story About Living as Told by a Six-Year-Old Boy

Never Give Up Your Dreams

Surprising Story Lessons on Making a Difference

Mike Schoultz is a digital marketing and customer service expert. With 48 years of business experience, he consults on and writes about topics to help improve the performance of a small business. Find him on G+, Facebook, Twitter, Digital Spark Marketing, and LinkedIn.

Failure and persistence go hand in glove, don’t they? But not everyone can muster the success of these story examples of failure and persistence. We can all learn a ton from these examples and personalities. And when applied, these lessons can be the difference.

A quick splash of value-free content will only produce quick and limited results at best. Just as Chinese food always leaves you hungry an hour later, quick social media splashes always leave you dying of thirst in a social media desert sooner rather than later.

Here is a short video on famous failures.

Story Examples of Failure … Tom Watson

I spent the first 17 years of my career at IBM before they sold the division I worked in. I learned a great deal about Tom Watson in those years. He was an awesome example of persistence in both business and life.

Abraham Lincoln

Would you dare call him a failure? He could have quit anywhere along the line. But to Lincoln, defeat was a detour and not a dead end. And a great source of learning.

Story Examples of Failure … Colonel Sanders

How many of us quit after three tries, ten tries, a hundred tries, and then we say we tried as hard as we could? Quite a lesson of persistence for us all, isn’t it?

Another story for you: Great Stories and Storytelling Can Have a Very Healing Influence

Wright Brothers

A New York Times editorial on December 10, 1903, questioned the wisdom of the Wright Brothers who were trying to invent a machine, heavier than air that would fly. One week later, at Kitty Hawk, the Wright Brothers took their famous flight.

Walt Disney

As a young cartoonist, Walt Disney faced many rejections from newspaper editors, who said he had no talent. Even fired from one who told him he lacked imagination and original ideas.

One day a minister at a church hired him to draw some cartoons. Disney was working out of a small mouse infested shed near the church. After seeing a small mouse, he was inspired. That was the start of Mickey Mouse.

How many people would have received the spark of inspiration from that source? Not many I’m afraid.

W. Clement Stone

Have you ever heard of W. Clement Stone, the fantastic self-builder model? He was just 3 when his father died, leaving nothing but gambling debts and his wife and son in poverty. At age 6, he was selling newspapers on the street to help support his family.

He frequently told the story of his early business life which started with the selling of newspapers in restaurants. At the time, this was a very novel thing to do, which deviated dramatically from the normal practice of young boys hawking newspapers on street corners.

This story showed the persistence, style and initiative of Stone … one that would stay with him for his entire very successful career.

Eminem

Marshall Bruce Mathers III better known by his stage name Eminem is an American rapper and record producer.

Rolling Stone magazine ranked him 82nd on its list of The 100 Greatest Artists of All Time.

A high school dropout whose personal struggles with drugs and poverty culminated in an unsuccessful suicide attempt. Having persistence and failure is not easy, is it?

Lee De Forest

In 1913, Lee De Forest, inventor of the triodes tube, was charged by the district attorney for using fraudulent means to mislead the public into buying stocks of his company by claiming that he could transmit the human voice across the Atlantic. He was publicly humiliated.

Can you imagine where we would be without his invention?

Thomas Edison

One day a partially deaf four year old kid came home with a note in his pocket from his teacher, “Your Tommy is too stupid to learn, get him out of the school.” His mother read the note and answered, “My Tommy is not stupid to learn, I will teach him myself.”

And that Tommy grew up to be the great Thomas Edison. Thomas Edison had only three months of formal schooling and he was partially deaf.

The bottom line

Do you consider any of these people failures? They succeeded in spite of problems, not in the absence of them. But to the outside world, it appears as though they just got lucky.

“I knew that if I failed I wouldn’t regret that, but I knew the one thing I might regret is not trying.”

Successful people don’t do great things, they only do small things in a great way.

All success stories are stories of great failures. The only difference is that every time they failed, they bounced back. This is called failing forward, rather than backward. You learn and move forward. Learn from your failure and keep up your persistence.

All you get is what you bring to the fight. And that fight gets better every day you learn and apply new ideas.

When things are not what you want them to be, what’s most important is your next step.

Test. Learn. Improve. Repeat.

Are you devoting enough energy to innovate your social media strategy?

Do you have a lesson about making your advertising better you can share with this community? Have any questions or comments to add in the section below?

Digital Spark Marketing will stretch your thinking and your ability to adapt to change. We also provide some fun and inspiration along the way.

More inspirational stories from Digital Spark Marketing’s Library:

Never Give Up Your Dreams

The Story of Tank the Dog or Is It Reggie?

Mike Schoultz is a digital marketing and customer service expert. With 48 years of business experience, he consults on and writes about topics to help improve the performance of small business. Find him on G+, Facebook, Twitter, Digital Spark Marketing, and LinkedIn.

Advertising works the way the grass grows? Not in our minds. Check out what’s going on in the insurance advertising war.

But first, let me share a story with you:

Once upon a time, a very strong woodcutter asked for a job with a timber merchant, and he got it. The pay was really good, and so were the work conditions. For that reason, the woodcutter was determined to do his best. His boss gave him an ax and showed him the area where he was supposed to work.

Check out our thoughts on creative marketing.

Do you ever see an insurance commercial that you liked and watched it? Can you remember the brand? We would love to hear what it was. Would you do us a favor and tell us in the comments section? It would be greatly appreciated by our readers and us.

Or has this ad blitz brought in so many new customers and so much new revenue that your policy rates will go down? Not likely, as the competition is to win market share mostly from each other.

Related post: A How-To Guidebook for Creating Winning Advertising

The costs? That is the shocking part. Data provider SNL Financial found Geico had spent about $994 million on advertising in 2011. That was fully 22 percent more than next-largest spender State Farm, even though State Farm’s ad spending grew at nearly three times the rate Geico’s did.

For the whole industry, in fact, the average is just 2.4 percent. [Allstate spent $745 million or 3.0 percent on advertising; Farmers spent $718 million or 4.9 percent, and Progressive paid $536 million or 3.9 percent, according to SNL.]

But is the spending sustainable? And how are insurers differentiating themselves in the crowded market? By these commercials? If so, consumers need to wake up. There are no fewer than 11 major TV campaigns on air … creating lots of consumer confusion?

State Farm, which has 18.6% of the market with premium revenue of $30.5 billion in 2009, and Allstate are fending off pesky challengers Geico and Progressive, while smaller players such as Liberty Mutual and American Family Insurance are seeking attention with very un-Geico-like serious messages.

The average shopper can name just four insurance brands off the top of their head, according to J.D. Power. But is it going to remain faithful that the way to get on that list is to advertise — all the time?

So let’s review the ad strategy of each of the largest market share holders.

State Farm

To keep its current customers, State Farm spells out how turning to another insurer that looks better on the outside can cause regret—and lets customers know that it’s OK to “let it out.” Tagline points to getting to a better state.

Liberty Mutual

Insurance advertising war … Allstate

Allstate follows in 2012 with 5.1% of the market. You may know Dean Winters as a television actor, appearing on shows such as 30 Rock. But you know him as “Mayhem” in Allstate’s favorite ad campaign. Mayhem was a unanimous selection for the best commercials.

The 2-year-old Mayhem campaign, with character actor as a cross between Dennis the Menace and a devious frat boy, has been an effective counter to Progressive and Geico’s discount themes. At least a partial concept of claim service?

Travelers

Geico

Nationwide

Progressive

A smarter way to shop around … now that’s progressive.

Insurance advertising war … USAA

The bottom line

So how do you select your insurance company? Does thinking about the commercials, their messages, and costs make you rethink your decision? It certainly does for us.

All you get is what you bring to the fight. And that fight gets better every day you learn and apply new ideas.

When things are not what you want them to be, what’s most important is your next step.

Test. Learn. Improve. Repeat.

Are you devoting enough energy to improving your advertising design?