A Different Kind of Brand Guide For Startups

Having advised early-stage startups at the UC Berkeley SkyDeck and worked with mid-stage series C round funded companies, I’ve seen a wide range of business models with amazing ideas. Some take off others do not. The challenges are many and they really test your focus and commitment. Here are some thoughts that might be helpful…

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Traction

The value of engagement is in staying connected. No, traction is not the treads on your tires or the treads on the bottom of your hiking boots. In the start-up, world traction means the success you’ve seen so far or the proof you have that demonstrates to customers the value and unique solution you have that solves…

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Radiant Insights: Millennial Housing, Experience-Retail and B2B Marketing

Marketing Apartments to Millennials —  Social Media, Fitness Centers and A Dog Wash.  Lifestyle and Housing for Millennials is Online, Social and Connected As one of the largest living generations in America, millennials have come of age and officially proven themselves a force to be dealt with just about everything. Born sometime in the early…

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Radiant Insights: Nudging, Brand Trust and Netflix

Nudge, How Subtle Influences Can Shift Motivations and Change Behavior.  When it comes to marketing or forming strategies in economics that shift how people do things we usually see the goal of direct incentives—rules or penalties that are supposed to get folks to do the right thing, make the right choices. In the New York…

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Doing Things vs. Knowing Things

Orchestrating many specialists is always possible, but what’s your strategy? Where Are You Going? Expertise in doing things should not be underestimated in the creative/marketing world. Having the best “doers” is very useful and often essential: the expert WordPress person, that excellent Photoshop editor who can make all the photos look great, copywriters who grind out…

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Radiant Insights July

Big Data May Be Great, but Interviews Give You Hidden Insights.  Easily accessible analytics for digital campaigns, website traffic, and ad responses give many marketers the false impression that they know who their customers are and what they want. Well, these kinds of results do show trends and provide much-needed insights into what’s working but…

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Humans need stories. Good brand marketing gives them meaning.

We all remember stories. We invent stories. We have to explain why. Some scientists say that humans are different from all other primates because we need explanations, reasons — the why?— to understand the meaning of what happens in our world. We primates live in a way of seeing our past and future; the stories…

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Not Enough Microchips or Ketchup, Now That’s a Problem

How human behavior shifts everything in markets. When the pandemic came, how people lived, what they did and how life occurred for millions of people changed overnight. Restaurants were shuttered, toilet paper and cleaning supplies disappeared off the shelves and people stopped driving and worked from home, hunkered down with their laptops. Human behavior is…

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