Never a Lack of Ideas

What a Week While playing golf in Texas a few weeks ago, my uncle made two holes-in-one within four days. Incredible! (That's him on the right after the first one.) According to Callaway, there are fewer than 150 people who have done this while using Callaway golf balls, like my uncle was. And that includes professional golfers. (My uncle is not a professional golfer.) That got me thinking: Have you ever seen an ad for golf equipment? Every single one of them features a pro golfer. Every single one. Why doesn't one golf manufacturer take a different approach and focus on everyday golfers with incredible stories like my uncle? That's much more appealing and approachable to the vast majority of people who play the game. Sure, there's something to be said for inspiring amateur golfers by showing them that professionals play with their equipment — and I'm not saying golf manufacturers should ditch their professional player sponsorships. I'm just saying that t...

Train Station Take Over In March, the Lincoln Motor Company took over nearly all the billboards in Chicago's Union Station. The ads (examples seen on the right) all talked about "firsts" and invited people to share their firsts on Twitter by using #Linco l nFirsts. Now, I try not to use this blog as a way to critique marketing campaigns very often because as a n observer, I don't know what Lincoln's goals were for this campaign, nor do I know how it performed against those goals. But I can make some educated guesses and I've come to the conclusion that this campaign was an example of marketing priorities gone wrong. Just look at some of the responses Lincoln received on Twitter. I assume Lincoln was hoping for better responses than these actual Tweets : The first time I saw this ad at Union Station I wanted to punch it. The first time I stole a car. The first time I pee'd in a bottle in a car The first time I went to a concert it was PDiddy. A r...

An Idea Worth Spreading I'm incredibly excited to be presenting at TEDx at the University of Illinois at Chicago this Friday evening — Ap ril 12th . I'll be discussing a few of the frame works outlined in my new book , Hey Marketers, Get Your Priorities Straight . I'm speaking at 7:20 pm , which is late in the evening, so I'll do my best to keep it lively and enter taining. TEDx is f or ideas worth spreading, and I hope you'll be inspired by my talk . Tickets for t he event are sold out , but you can tune in via the event livestream . But don' t worry if you can 't view the event live — I'll post a link to the video of my talk after the event organizers post it. See you on the stage!