I would never recommend that a client select a celebrity to be a spokesman for its products. Period. End of story. know the potential benefits of using the right celebrity to draw attention to your company, product or service. just don’t think it is worth the possible problems. Celebrities often seem to have more than their share of moral failings. So, when they fall off the straight and narrow path, the accompanying crash is louder than it would be for you or me. You are ceding the brand to someone over whom you have no control. Here, I have some control. MORE >>

I would never recommend that a client select a celebrity to be a spokesman for its products. Period. End of story. know the potential benefits of using the right celebrity to draw attention to your company, product or service. just don’t think it is worth the possible problems. Celebrities often seem to have more than their share of moral failings. So, when they fall off the straight and narrow path, the accompanying crash is louder than it would be for you or me. You are ceding the brand to someone over whom you have no control. Here, I have some control. MORE >>

Graduates of Marketing 101 all know about the Four Ps of marketing - product, placement and promotion seem to be top of mind. But the forgotten P - in my opinion - is price. Pricing can be an excellent way to differentiate yourself. I’m not talking about low-balling your competitors either. I’m talking about using pricing strategically to address consumer pain. Consider how airlines price tickets and then charge you what in essence are nuisance fees. They charge you extra for bags. They charge you for food and drink. Jackie Huba has a good post on this topic. This hurts your brand. MORE >>

It seems businesses of all sizes are conflicted about how to use social media effectively. In a recent CitiBank/GfK Roper study , about 75 percent of small businesses said that social networks are not working for them.  On the other side of the equation, Gartner says that most Fortune 1000 companies will delve into social media by 2010 but more than half of them will fail. First of all, small businesses may not clearly understand how social media can help them. Nor, do they know how to measure the impact of social networks.  They want to jump into Linkedin, Facebook, and Twitter all at once. MORE >>

You’ve probably read about it by now - the hoax pulled on the media by a group posing to be from the US Chamber. The CopyWrite, Ink blog has a good overview. And it was a hoax on the media, not on the US Chamber of Commerce, as Bloomberg characterized it. Says Bloomberg, The Yes Men, a New York group that pulls pranks on corporations, issued a fake press release and the text of a purported speech by Chamber President   Thomas Donohue   under the chamber’s letterhead yesterday, said Jacques Servin, a Yes Men member. No, this was a hoax on the media. Plain and simple. MORE >>