If you had $86 billion in cash-on-hand like Google, maybe you should be looking into teleportation, buying Mars and acquiring NASA, as this whimsical rendering suggests. The problem with most pitch decks is that they’re […]
It’s time to bury focus groups, not to praise them
The evil that they do lives after them; The good is oft interred with their bones. Shakespeare, you see, wasn’t really writing about Marc Antony’s view of Caesar. Rather, The Bard was prophesying the future. […]
Let’s fix it: Hire the person, not the credential
What do Bill Gates, Larry Ellison, Steve Jobs, Mark Zuckerberg, Michael Dell and, yes, Oprah — and innumerable other great entrepreneurs have in common? They couldn’t get hired by their own companies today — as […]
10 salary negotiation myths women & millennials should beware of
Why women? Because the data show that they negotiate less and therefore get less. According to payscale.com, “Compared with men, women are more uncomfortable with negotiations. Women say that their uneasiness with this process is the […]
Why most company & product names suck and how to make sure yours doesn’t
When you want feedback on your outfit from other fashion-oriented people, would you go to “Fashism”? Especially if, as the website and app said, you were “New To Fashism”? Perhaps because fashion-forward women didn’t identify […]
Great names require great strategies, not tactical roadmaps
Is there a best naming tactic or set of tactics? No. Tactics don’t automatically predict outcomes. But there is a best naming strategy. That’s because a name is an invented concept that integrates all salient aspects of the brand and […]
The Zero Friction Branding™ Philosophy
An obvious—but oft-ignored—truth is that consumers never simply buy a product. First, they must find it on the shelf; next, they must pick it up; then, based on the names, designs, illustrations, and copy, they […]
The #1 mistake in hiring a marketing, branding, or copywriting expert
Vertical market or domain expertise, for a person who has more than a modicum of smarts, is easily acquired (if not already possessed). But if the ability to communicate compellingly does not exist, no amount […]
The Brand Mason 