The NO BULL$H!# Marketing Podcast

Cut the BULL$H!# Rant: Where do you weigh in on Marketing? Are you on the “Art” side or “Science” side? Ad agencies fall into the Madison Avenue mindset: Marketing is an art. We’re the only ones that can build your brand. Creative drives brand. Brand is king. Those on the Science side love the digital aspect. They love the analytics. They know what works with Search Engine Optimization. Keywords m...

Hit the Bullseye: In 2007, Cheryl Bachelder became Popeye’s Restaurants fourth CEO in 7 years. Before she officially started as CEO, Bachelder attended a franchisee meeting and quickly saw a lack of trust among franchisees towards management. She knew nothing would change until corporate leadership could demonstrate value to franchisees because the company needed to leverage their capital and expe...

Cut the BS: I enjoy the Citi Double Cash Card--Double Means Double commercials that ask the question: “Wouldn’t it be great if everyone said what they meant?” One commercial pokes fun at something most home owners have experienced: The stress of working with contractors on home improvements. The scene in the kitchen has the contractor explaining the situation: It opens with the contractor saying:...

Hit the Bullseye--Golden Age of Beer: If you like beer, you are enjoying what might be described as the golden age of beer. Choices galore, local breweries, all kinds of promotions. A recent Harris Poll of people who drink beer at least several times per year provides some compelling segmentation of who drinks what, where, when and how often.  Read more...Guest: Chef Bill Fuller of the Big Burrito...

Cut the BS--Don't Label Others: When someone asks you what a friend or co-worker does, do you label others? "Oh, she's in sales." "He's an accountant." "He does the billing." If someone from another department sticks their nose in on one of your projects, do you think "What does he know? He's a (Insert Label)." Why do we try to put everyo...

Hit the Bullseye - The Voice First Movement: Alexa let’s talk…The voice of Amazon’s Echo is more than that to a lot of people. “She’ll know the answer” or “I like playing trivia with her” are common phrases from those who own one of the more than 3 million Echo’s sold. Some even say “good morning” and “good night” to Alexa. When Amazon released the Echo in 2014, they didn’t expect people to talk t...

Cut The BS - Managing Interruptions: When a co-worker drops in and asks to see you, how often do you say ‘No?’ Apparently not very often if the results of a study by Basex, a New York research firm are any indication. The study estimates interruptions consume approximately 28% of the average workday, resulting in $588 billion of lost productivity. It’s bad enough we stop what we are doing to handl...

Pop Up Retail is a creative way to Hit the Bullseye. Pop Up Retail focuses on temporary spaces that "pop up" one day, then disappear anywhere from one day to several weeks later. These shops, while small and temporary, are used by companies to build interest in their product or service, and seed their product with cultural influencers. Companies can engage customers through a unique envi...

Cut the Bullshit Rant - Admit Mistakes: Why do people struggle to admit mistakes? Instead of telling the truth and explaining what they learned, people just make shit up and expect those around them to believe them. It’s actually comical. I guess it’s partly what people have grown up with…watching other famous people lie…or maybe their parents told them admitting mistakes were a sign of weakness…w...

Message Discipline: Allen Iverson was recently elected to the Basketball Hall of Fame. He was certainly deserving. A great player and amazing competitor. Yet most people remember him more for his infamous rant during the 2002 NBA Playoffs:“Listen here. I’m supposed to be the franchise player and we in here talkin’ about practice. I mean listen, we talkin’ about practice. Not a game. Not a game. We...

Creepy Clows, Sticky Messages. What’s up with those creepy clowns? In the past few months, creepy clown sightings have been made in at least 10 different states. As strange as it sounds, this actually happened before— in Boston during the 1980’s. That led Loren Coleman, a cryptozoologist who studies folklore around mythical creatures like the Loch Ness Monster and Bigfoot, to come up with what he...

Hit the Bullseye: United Services Automobile Association (USAA) is built on relationship marketing. USAA provides insurance for current and former U.S. Military personnel and their families. The company manages more than $110 billion in assets and still manages to be ranking number 1 or 2 most years in BusinessWeek’s annual list of Customer Service Champs and on Fortune’s list of the 100 best comp...

Cut the Bullshit Rant:  Let's learn from Alanis Morissette’s late 1990’s hit, Ironic. In the song she talks about supposed ironies like ‘a free ride when you’ve already paid’ followed by her saying “Isn’t it ironic, don’t you think?” You can guess how I’ll change the wording…Supposedly undecided voters are interviewed and go on to explain in detail what they don’t like about ONE of the candid...

Hit The BullseyeFight the Technology Paradoxes: Control/chaos: Technology can facilitate regulation or order and it can lead to upheaval or disorder. Freedom/enslavement: Technology can facilitate independence and it can lead to dependence or more restrictions. Competence/Incompetence: Technology can facilitate feelings of intelligence and it can lead to feelings of ignorance or ineptitude. Effici...

Cut the BS Rant: Less control, more productivity. Think about it. Our desire for control, lack of self confidence and innate drive for self preservation combine to make us behave irrationally, lowering our productivity. Examples abound… You bring in an expert to help in an area where you know you’re not the expert…then your need for control and lack of confidence lead you to not do what they tell...

Hit the Bullseye: Yes, you can build a business promoting politically incorrect stuff if you clearly define your target market and creatively meet their needs. That’s what Ad Magic, a NJ based printer has done. Ad Magic CEO Shari Spiro saw an opportunity back in 2011 when Ben Hantoot, one of the founders of Cards Against Humanity, the politically incorrect party game, approached her to produce the...

Cut the BS: According to the American Job Satisfaction Survey, 49.6 percent of Americans are satisfied with their work. That's the highest level since 2005 and yet still only about half of  us like our jobs. The major reason cited by unhappy workers is they don't find their jobs interesting. Economists say the lack of passion will hurt productivity while health care practitioners worry a...

Hit the Bullseye: Cabela’s is the largest mail order, retail and internet outdoor outfitter in the world. The company started off as a specialty cataloger selling fly fishing lures but quickly grew around its customer first philosophy built around the company's Employee Marketing Program. Cabela’s 250,000+ items could have made it difficult to match customers with products. Instead, the compa...

Since less is more in both design and writing and since we as a society scan quickly rather than read, words matter as much as ever. Yet we’ve reduced the value of some and clouded the meaning of others. Ultimate is supposed to mean the best imaginable of its kind. A student used it as an example of horrible messaging by a restaurant featuring Ultimate Nachos that barely filled the plate. Value is...

Hit the Bullseye: Zane’s Cycles in Branford, Connecticut uses service as a strategic differentiator. It’s helped the company grow from a local bicycle and hobby shop, to the largest P&I (Premiums and Incentives) distributor of bicycles in the United States. Chris Zane is CEO of the company he started as a 16 year old and built through strategic differentiators like one-to-one marketing and exe...

Branding. It's the difference between exciting and bland. Memorable and forgettable. Alec, Brevin and Carter Mastovich talk Branding on part 2 of the 100th episode of the No BS Marketing Show.*LeBron or Steph: Who do they think has the better brand? Probably can guess their choice based on their picture with the NBA Championship Trophy.*College marketing and messaging: Alec and Brev have both...

Why do athletes continue to say dumb things when they have to know better? They know about Twitter, Facebook, SnapChat. They know about SportsCenter. Yet time and again they screw up from a PR standpoint. The good news is it helps PR firms. But let’s review a couple of common sense PR Lessons we were all taught in kindergarten:PR Lesson #1: Tell the truth. Pick your favorite sports media gaffe tha...

Hit the Bullseye: LEGO, the colorful interlocking plastic bricks that can be assembled and connected to construct whatever kids imagine, vehicles, buildings, robots, knew they had a problem. Boys played with LEGO’s way more than girls did—only 9% of the primary users of the toy were female. LEGO committed to an intense four year Marketing Intel Program involving 3,500 girls and their mothers to fi...

Cut the BS Rant: In the movie “A Few Good Men,” Tom Cruise’s Lt. Daniel Kaffee and Harry Caesar as Luther the News Stand Guy have an ongoing communication battle to spout the best (or worst) cliché. These scenes resonated with some of us because we suffer from cliché overload—we’ve heard too many clichés, too many times.  But cliches can help communication if you use a No BS approach and apply the...

Hit the Bullseye: Knowing your target audiences and what they want—is essential to marketing success. Yet companies often miss the mark and don't clearly and truthfully define their target markets. One company that took the Hit the Bullseye approach to a whole new level is Kolcraft, a international baby product manufacturer based in Chicago. Kolcraft wanted the target audience for buying thei...