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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“All children are artists,” Pablo Picasso famously said. “The problem is how to remain an artist once he grows up.” As adults, I think we often forget how creative we are, and were. I taught a cartooning class last year to my daughter’s second grade class. When I asked the class who liked to be creative, every single kid raised…
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I just spent several days at the Do Lectures, a magical event in Wales with the motto “ideas + energy = change”. We talked a lot about the process of bringing ideas to life, and the barriers that stand in the way. A physician and technologist named Mohammed Al-Ubaydli shared the concept of “Trojan mice”, which I found inspiring for…
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One of the greatest temptations for a brand is whether to stretch into another category. When I worked on the Yoplait brand ten years ago, there was a debate whether to extend beyond yogurt into chocolate pudding. By a few measures, it made sense. Both yogurt and chocolate pudding are dairy products that sit in the refrigerated case. The market…
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Gamification is the latest shiny new object for marketers. It’s the practice of adding game dynamics into your campaigns in order to drive participation and engagement. Badges, points, leader boards, and titles like “mayor” are no longer relegated to Foursquare or Farmville. They are popping up everywhere in marketing campaigns, rewarding consumers for all types of desired behavior. While the…
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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.
Following last week’s news, it is hard to overstate the impact of Steve Jobs on the business psyche. He is arguably the most mythic business leader of our time. It has become almost cliche to reference Apple in a presentation. Apple and Steve Jobs are used as inspiration in every imaginable industry and domain. Articles have referred to various entrepreneurs…
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“Build a better mousetrap, and the world will beat a path to your door.” This is one of the most quoted innovation credos. Yet it’s also untrue. Innovation experts call this the “Better Mousetrap Fallacy”, because the credo focuses solely on the technology and not on the consumer. Consumers really don’t care about a better mousetrap. They care about fewer…
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This cartoon is part of a new series I developed with Motista to parody the state of traditional market research. Motista is giving away a signed print of this cartoon to the first five readers who share a comment or suggest a cartoon idea at the Motista blog. A few years ago, I worked on a brand trying to mine…
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Some marketers are calling 2011 “The Year of the QR Code”, predicting that mobile tagging will become mainstream. Those little black and white tags are popping up everywhere: in billboards, magazine ads, and even tombstones. QR (or quick response) codes carry the potential of connecting the offline world to the online world, giving a call to action to just about…
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In marketing, one size does not fit all. One size fits none. Many brands try to be all things to all people. General Mills CMO Mark Addicks once commented that too many brands were targeted to “women, ages 25-49, with a pulse”. It can be tempting to appeal to everyone. I’ve been in brand discussions where target markets were identified…
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All innovation occurs in some kind of box. It’s always framed by some constraint, whether from the organization, the marketplace, or the consumer. In some cases, those constraints can spark even greater creativity. They can provide focus and a tangible challenge to rally the team. Think about the famous scene in Apollo 13, when an engineer briefed the team trying…
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This cartoon is part of a new series I developed with Motista to parody the state of traditional market research. Motista is giving away a signed print of this cartoon to everyone who shares a comment or suggests a cartoon idea at the Motista blog by August 2. We’ve all been in launch discussions where market research seemed designed to…
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With the recent launch of Google+, marketers are excited to have a shiny new social network. Even though brands aren’t technically allowed on Google+ yet, some (like Ford Motor) are setting up personal profiles to get started and the marketing world is buzzing with possibilities. When thinking about opportunities, it’s important for brands to remember that the message is more…
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There is a natural selection to ideas. Ideas can be strengthened or weakened, launched or killed outright. Any organization is a Galapagos of ideas in various stages of evolution. The Survival of the Fittest law applies too, yet what is deemed “fittest” is in the eye of the organization. Very often, “fittest” means “safest”. Those ideas are smaller than the…
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Not all direct marketing is spam, but a lot of it is. Whether delivered by email, phone, text, post (or mafia henchman), a lot of direct mail is unwanted and unsolicited. To give a sense of scale, at least 85% of all email now sent is spam. Yet the response rate is absurdly low. The Direct Marketing Association pegs response…
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We often treat service as a cost center and promotions as a profit center. Yet amazing service can spread faster than any advertising and there can be a hidden cost from too many promotions. Years ago, I first discovered Utrecht, an art supply chain with stores usually staffed by artists. After an uncommonly helpful artist/salesperson helped me choose a set…
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A friend told me recently that if she listened to her lawyers on a new product launch, the packaging would be blank. Marketing and legal are often the functions with the greatest friction. A legal review of an idea is akin to running the gauntlet. There is inevitably risk in any idea. Removing the risk entirely can sand the edges…
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There is no marketing fairy dust. Yet. However, we marketers often get excited about the marketing fad du jour. Kathy Sierra wrote a wonderful post recently called, “Pixie Dust and the Mountain of Mediocrity“. It includes these insights: “We’re always searching for that secret formula, that magic pixie dust to sprinkle over our products, services, books, causes, brands, blogs to…
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Before running any marketing promotion, give some thought to who you’re attracting to your brand’s congregation. Are they the customers you want? Are they in it for the long haul? These questions are particularly important with daily deal sites like Groupon, LivingSocial, and Google Offers. The sales windfall is tempting, but cautionary tales abound. One cafe owner recently described a…
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So much of management is Whack-A-Mole, the classic arcade game where you club moles that pop up randomly. As soon as you’ve whacked one problem, another rears its head. I’m speaking at an innovation conference this week in Silicon Valley. It struck me that the trouble-shooting mentality in management is related to the idea-shooting mentality that is so common in…
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