Marketoonist is the thought bubble of Tom Fishburne. Marketing cartoons, content marketing with a sense of humor, keynote speaking.
An entrepreneur friend of mine shared that one of the most invariable (and overused) questions he gets asked is what the “moats” are for his start-up. He described the question as a crutch that VCs go to when they don’t know what other questions to ask. As my friend put it: “More troubling is that they are looking for…
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Most organizations use some version of an innovation funnel to bring ideas to life. It starts with lots of ideas at the front end and then launches whatever survives all the way to the back end. Yet this Darwinian process of bringing ideas to life doesn’t necessarily lead to survival of the fittest ideas. If we’re not careful, the innovation…
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In a volatile business environment like this, there’s often pressure to shift gears (and budgets) from long-term brand building to short-term performance marketing that drive quick sales. I recently re-read Tom Roach’s excellent 2020 essay called “The Wrong and the Short of it.” His piece goes after one of the classic “false choices” in marketing — a binary decision between…
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Unilever is the latest major company to rename the Chief Marketing Officer. Having added the word “Digital” in 2019 as “Chief Digital and Marketing Officer”, they got rid of the word “Marketing” altogether last month to announce the role as “Chief Digital and Commercial Officer.” Announcing her new role, Unilever CDCO Connie Braams said: “And no, before you ask, we’re…
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“The number of walled gardens is growing and we can only expect their walls to get higher,” Quantcast VP Mark White observed recently. “Walled gardens” as a business concept describing a closed tech ecosystem is nothing new. John Malone is credited with coining the term in the 90s to apply the world of telecom. But walled gardens are increasingly the…
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A CB Insights study found that 35% of startups failed because they launched a product with no market need. It’s one of the main reasons cited why startups fail. As Sean Ellis, founding Dropbox marketer and “Hacking Growth” author, put it: “Scaling growth before having product/market fit is the fastest way to kill your startup.” Finding product/market fit (PMF)…
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No one knows exactly what form the internet of the future will take, but the frustrations of the current internet won’t automatically go away with new technology. With all the hype and investment in the metaverse, marketers are naturally questioning how big a deal the metaverse will be for brands. Here’s a prediction I found interesting from Jane Lacher,…
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