Terry O'Reilly Interview

For the latest issue of Canadian Gaming Magazine, I interviewed Terry O'Reilly of Pirate and CBC's The Age of Persuasion. Terry spoke quite passionately about the need for any brand to do some brand advertising - in addition to what terry called "the tougher aspects of marketing."

Download the article here from Docstoc.

I had forgotten to post this article, but I was reminded about it, after writing my last post. What is the balance between the tougher aspects and branding? I work with a lot of small businesses, or brands with smaller budgets, and finding that balance is one of the bigger challenges. In the end, as Terry says, a good ad will make the cash register ring. But is it just one ad?

Great branding should create that happy association - elicit the consumer response of, "I like you."

Then, when you get to the tougher aspects, actually selling me a car for instance, I am open to the relationship, I have a sense of trust and I'm willing to deal with you. It doesn't give the brand carte blanche though. As I learned again in our losing pitch last week — you still need to give me something I want. The branding won't help if there's no value in it for me at the end.

Anyway, read the article, it's for Canadian Gaming Magazine so it does have a Casino focus, but the ideas are universal. Love to hear your comments. Except on the spelling. I don't know whether it was Canadian Gaming Business who made me look bad, or whether I rushed this article off without proper proofing—either way, cut me some slack!

A lesson from a losing pitch

This week we lost a new business pitch; it was one I really wanted to win. In hindsight, I know why we lost. We pitched on our reputation. Really not much else. We have done so much great work, it was irrisistable to simply tell the stories. The stories demonstrated the attitude and thinking we would bring to the account. Basically we told our brand story.
It was strong but it was all about us. We, we, we all the way home.
Hardly a word about what we would do for them. Not even one idea about them.
If I were on the other side of the table I would have thought, "well these folks think they're pretty hot shit."
It's a great lesson for any brand; you can't rely simply on your reputation no matter how great you think it is—the customer still needs to know what you are going to do for them.
The brand, in many ways, sets the table. You still need to serve a meal.
It was ridiculously easy to get caught up in myself. To prattle on about the many meals we have served, how great they were, how satisfied everyone was, while at the same time completely ignoring the hungry client in front of me.

I promise

Once a week. At least. There. I've said it. Now, let's see how long it will take to reach 100 readers