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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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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“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.
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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Creative briefs may be brief, but often they aren’t very creative. Rupal Parekh wrote an AdAge article on poor creative briefs last week: “Marketers, Quit Blaming Your Agency — It’s Your Brief at Fault”. It includes this illustrative quote from Casey Jones: “If you rated the industry on a scale from one to 10, with one being a horrifying piece…
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There is an inevitable friction in bringing ideas to life within a company. That friction can polish an idea and make it stronger, sand the edges of the idea and make it weaker, or kill the idea altogether. Anyone who works in innovation is familiar with that tension. Navigating it is part of what makes innovation so difficult. Malcolm Gladwell…
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Many brands bring an advertising campaign mindset to social media. A campaign has a start date and an end date. One campaign ends to make way for another. Yet success at social media requires sustained involvement. Social media doesn’t start and end with a “Like”. It grows over time. There can be individual campaigns as part of a social media…
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“Brands must be made into ‘media properties’”, announced Unilever CMO Keith Weed a couple months ago. Keith oversees the second largest marketing budget in the world at $3 billion, so his words carry a lot of weight. Brands are in the midst of recasting themselves as publishers. This shift conjures examples of self-serving advertorials, which were invented in the Mad…
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Crisis management may not be one of the 4 Ps, but it is every much a part of marketing. How a company deals with a crisis is a far greater litmus test for the brand than how it executes an advertising campaign. Yet often the loudest voice in the midst of a crisis is legal. Sure, a legal liability assessment…
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Social badges are not merit badges. Yet many brands treat social media as checking a box, rather than making a commitment. There’s a “Like grab” underway to accumulate as many friends, fans, followers, and likes as possible. Social proof is not necessarily proof of quality. It’s easy for brands to feel encouraged as a campaign generates a few hundred or…
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Most brand storytelling wouldn’t pass the bedtime story test. Yet there’s never been a greater time for brands that can tell a story well. Content marketing is rapidly becoming a key plank of many marketing plans (now at 33% of the average marketing budget, according to Junta42). However, much of that content, whether distributed in social media or paid media,…
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I just learned I’m speaking at a conference this summer with Geoffrey Moore, author of “Crossing the Chasm”. Geoffrey wrote the book with high-tech products in mind but I find the model useful when thinking about brands as well. Innovations progress across five distinct customer groups: innovators, early adopters, early majority, late majority, and laggards. Geoffrey argued that marketers should…
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On Friday, I spoke at a social media conference with Aaron Calloway, a brand manager from Axe. He shared the story of the provocative Axe Detailer CYB Campaign, which earned Axe a Cannes Gold Lion and propelled the brand to major growth. It was ranked the single most viral video of 2010. At one point, Aaron said, “Marketers often say…
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