Zoom Zoom

Recently, one of our 3 cars (the one for the driving teens) blew an engine. Around the same time, I was ready to sell off the used car I’d been driving for business, and lease a new one. So, I had to sell one used car, buy another used car (hooray for Craig’s List!), and [...]

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Steve’s Sticky Stuff 10_19

Breathtaking image of a lunar eclipse.Plants are apparently far more complex than we thought. First, they “talk” to one another. Now we find out that one plant species absorbed the lessons of Arsenic and Old Lace and poisons its neighbors with acid! And finally, Pinot Noir grapes are genetically more complex than we are!
Why didn’t [...]

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Thanks

It’s now been one year – exactly – since launching the StickyFigure blog. One year, 212 posts.
I did not know what to expect when starting out. I knew that I had an insatiable desire to write about branding and marketing, and even if it wasn’t my main line of consulting work, I figured that I [...]

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A Turkey of a Newspaper Ad

Reading the Wall Street Journal this morning, I caught a glimpse of an ad that caused me to do a serious double-take – well nigh unto whiplash (OK, a bit of a dramatization there…)
I could not believe the juxtaposition that I saw:
Only upon careful reading could one figure out that the division of Microsoft located [...]

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A Final Withdrawal

I had the painful responsibility this past weekend of seeking to support my teen-aged sons through the unexpected death of one of their friends.
This young man, only 18 years of age, began experiencing curious vision problems a couple of weeks ago. Quickly, he was diagnosed with a tumor behind his eye. The diagnosis and prognosis [...]

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How would Branding Consultants brand…consultants?

The posse of marketing experts at BrandingWire are taking on, this month, the challenge of branding and positioning a B2B consulting firm.
Here’s the outline of the situation:
A profile of the ideal client/customer for the consulting firm:
Revenues: $1 million to $25 million
Employees: 150 or fewer
Verticals: High-tech and health care
Location: North America
The challenges [...]

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Greetings…done right

Today, I am at a Hyatt hotel in Chicago, which (apparently) has had a major renovation recently. I guess that must have meant big-time improvements, but one very simple thing has impressed me more than anything.
When I arrived to check in, instead of a monolithic counter behind which employees are half-hidden and walled-off from customers, [...]

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Avoiding Ad Fatigue

An interesting article from the Wall Street Journal yesterday (on-line article here; subscription may be required) about creative ways companies try to stave off ad fatigue:
Marketers get Creative to Stave of Ad Fatigue 
When the same ad runs too often, consumers grow bored, annoyed or hostile. But some marketing executives are finding new ways around the [...]

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