Marketoonist is the thought bubble of Tom Fishburne. Marketing cartoons, content marketing with a sense of humor, keynote speaking.
Marketoonist is the thought bubble of Tom Fishburne, a career marketer and cartoonist.
Learn MoreCartoons from 15 Years of Marketing, Business, & Doodling in Meetings
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It’s an irresistible temptation for marketers to see how far their brands can stretch. In the endless search of brand growth, extending into new categories as a master brand can seem like a slam dunk. As the brand consultancy Prophet put it: “Most companies can simultaneously manage budgets and invest in their growth by strategically extending their master brands into…
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Arguably the biggest shift in consumer behavior in the last few years has been the explosion of devices and the number of screens in a consumer’s life. That has a major impact on media consumption and how marketers reach consumers. As Google reported, 90% of people juggle different devices when working toward a goal. As they move between devices, they…
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Few marketing tactics are as hated as the pop-ad ad. A Harris Interactive poll last year showed that Americans find irrelevant pop-up ads even more annoying than ads for male or female enhancement. Yet marketers continue to use them, aggressively (MacKeeper is a personal pet peeve). Pop-up ads are 49% more noticeable than other online ads types. I’ve heard marketers…
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Superbowl is always a showcase of the state of marketing. This year’s Superbowl was dominated by social media war rooms all trying to replicate last year’s Oreo moment. During the Superbowl power outage in 2013, Oreo tweeted “Power out? No problem” with an image that simply said “You can still dunk in the dark”. Oreo was signaled out as a…
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“If marketing kept a diary, this would be it.”
- Ann Handley, Chief Content Officer of MarketingProfs
Packed with nearly 200 marketing cartoons, this new book collection celebrates 15 years of Marketoonist.
It’s common for marketers to exaggerate the importance of their brands in consumers’ lives. Brand positioning statements are often written as if consumers constantly think and obsess about the brand. Social media from brands can make it sound like every consumer is a cult follower. In reality, even “brand loyalists” have complex lives completely separate from our brands. Brands can…
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Last week’s news that Google would buy Nest triggered a lot of discussion on the future of marketing (this cartoon was inspired by a joking tweet from Valleywag’s Sam Biddle). Nest makes smart home devices like learning thermostats (which I personally love) and smoke alarms, with the goal of creating a conscious home. It also collects a lot of data.…
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There’s a funny saying circulating with marketers right now on the current state of Big Data: “Big Data is like teenage sex: everyone talks about it, nobody really knows how to do it, everyone thinks everyone else is doing it, so everyone claims they are doing it.” Gartner recently released a report that 64% of companies are deploying or planning…
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Marketers have gone hashtag crazy. Beyond Twitter and Instagram, Facebook recently incorporated hashtags into its platform. Hashtags are appearing in TV ads and on packaging. Some marketers are referring to hashtags as the new URL. But there’s a fundamental difference between hashtags and a URL. Brands aren’t in control of hashtags. JPMorgan Chase discovered this the hard way a couple…
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Recently Leo Burnett invited me to be artist-in-residence for a day. I gave a talk about marketing worth sharing, and then answered a few questions about Marketoon Studios and the future of cartoons and social. Here’s a two-minute summary.
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Forrester recently released a report on the future of push notifications (those messages that apps send to your mobile device). “Moving forward, we expect to see push notifications integrated as a core component of any direct marketing and relationship program.” That goes for mobile devices, but also for all of the other connected devices like TVs, cars, and game consoles.…
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Santa’s not the only one who keeps a list of naughty and nice. We live in the age of consumer empowerment. Consumers can instantly share feedback on a meal at Yelp, a plumber at Angie’s List, even an ex-boyfriend at Lulu. A Harvard Business School study showed that a one-star increase in Yelp leads to a 5 to 9 percent…
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Marketers have been closely watching the explosive growth of the latest social network, Snapchat. The social app now shares more that 350m photos every day. Because of the one-to-one messaging and pictures that self-destruct after just a few seconds, it hasn’t been obvious how brands could use Snapchat. But it’s only a matter of time before marketers rush in. Some…
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It’s only a matter of time before holiday deals start lapping themselves. Last year, Target kicked off the Christmas shopping season with a holiday ad on October 7th, 79 days before Christmas and 3 weeks before Halloween. This year, Kmart upped the ante with a holiday ad on September 10th, 105 days before Christmas and right in the midst of…
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Many brands place far more emphasis on new customer acquisition than on customer retention. Yet it costs five times more to attract a new customer than to retain an existing customer. According to Bain, a 5% increase in customer retention can increase a company’s profitability by 75%. I’ve been thinking about this dynamic while dropping Comcast after a series of…
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Market research is a vital part of marketing. Understanding the consumer is the foundation of every meaningful brand. Yet market research can go overboard. Focus groups are frequently called as a knee-jerk response to just about everything. Not every question needs to be validated with a focus group. And not every focus group needs to run the same way. I’m…
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I’m in Turkey this week to speak at Brand Week Istanbul. I always love seeing how things are merchandized, marketed, and sold in different countries. The Grand Bazaar is a dizzying experience with over 3,000 shops trying to get the attention of between 250,000 and 400,000 visitors on a typical day (I preferred the smaller bazaars tucked in smaller streets…
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The best marketing doesn’t feel like marketing. Native advertising is one of the more significant marketing trends of 2013. As consumers get progressively better at ignoring banner ads (or any other ad for that matter), marketers are experimenting with new ways to deliver advertising as content. Native advertising is advertising content that looks like editorial. While flagged as “sponsored”, native…
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Partly to appeal to Millennials, many brands are reframing what they do to sound purpose-driven. Many marketers are feeling pressure to define their “brand purpose” and create campaigns with a higher cause. The more brands that jump on the purpose bandwagon, however, the more that consumers will be skeptical and cynical about companies’ motivations, even if their motivations are sincere.…
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Marketing flash mobs peaked with T-Mobile’s famous “Life is for Sharing” series in 2009, but they are still going strong. Samsung did one earlier this year. My local farmer’s market staged a flash mob. There’s even a turnkey flash mob agency. The flash mob is symbolic of the mob mentality of marketers trying to go viral. Marketers see the 38…
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“As a CMO, you get one shot, then you’re pushed out,” said Tony Pace, CMO at Subway. The tenure of the average Chief Marketing Officer has been increasing, but it’s still the shortest tenure of any executive role. As recently at 2006, the average CMO lasted only 23 months. Starbucks replaced their head of marketing five times in seven years.…
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