Christopher Lochhead is a co-founding partner @ Play Bigger Advisors with Dave Peterson and Al Ramadan. Along with his co-authors, he has developed a discipline called category design, revealed in the book Play Bigger – How Pirates, Dreamers, and Innovators Create and Dominate Markets. Previously he served as Chief Marketing Officer of Mercury Interactive, a $1B software company […]
Most Recent Articles
“How CMOs Can Build Trust” – Frank Grillo and Kimberly Whitler
Houston, we have a problem. The CMO Trust Gap is real. Many CEO’s have low trust in their CMOs, and very few people trust marketers. As we learned in an interview with Kimberly Whitler and an...
“The Fight for Brand USA” – Mark Blessington
An intense fight is being waged over brand America. While personal views certainly play a role, America’s top CEOs see something much bigger at stake: Should brand America shift toward what some...
“The Silver Lining of Click Fraud” – David Rodnitzky and Frank Grillo
On July 27, the Wall Street Journal reported that P&G cut $100 million out of their second quarter digital ad spend with no adverse effect on their business. They cut ads targeted by bots and...
“The AREA Method: When A Good Strategy Is Not Enough” – Cheryl Strauss Einhorn
As marketers, we sometimes struggle to turn our strategies into results. We asked renowned decision-making expert Cheryl Strauss Einhorn to explain how to execute on good ideas. Recently there’s...
“Improving Economic Prosperity through Nation Branding” – David J Reibstein
The most successful companies spend considerable time, energy, and money managing their brands. Would nations’ prosperity improve if they adopted similar brand strategies? The goal of the Best...
BOOK REVIEW: “Simple Rules: How to Thrive in a Complex World” by Donald Sull and Kathleen M. Eisenhardt
What if I told you that you were thinking about strategy all wrong; that strategy didn’t have to come in an endless PowerPoint deck compiled by consultants, marketing or finance. What if I told...
BOOK REVIEW: “Invisible Influence: The hidden forces that shape behavior” by Jonah Berger
Without our realizing it, other people’s behavior has a huge influence on everything we do at every moment of our lives, from the mundane to the momentous occasion. Even strangers have a startling...
“The Trust Gap Diagnostic” – Elsie Maio
The 2017 Edelman Trust Barometer confirms that trust is in crisis around the world. The general population’s trust in all four key institutions — business, government, NGOs, and media — has...
“View: Should Marketing be Political?” – Karen Puckett and Mark Blessington
Conventional wisdom has always held that marketers should steer well clear of politics, and some won’t hesitate to repeat the warning. The downside risks were typically envisioned with horror and...
“Criticisms and Contributions of Marketing: An Excerpt from Philip Kotler’s Autobiography” – Philip Kotler
PHILIP KOTLER is known around the world as the “father of modern marketing.” For over 50 years he has taught at the Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois....
“The Double-Edged Sword of Thought Leadership” – Karl Hellman, Mark Blessington and Christian Sarkar
The American Marketing Association recently cited a survey by Edelman and LinkedIn, which described what we call the double-edged sword of thought leadership. On the one hand, 90 percent of CXO’s...
“MarTech Maturity—Are We There Yet?” – Frank Grillo and Brett Eckrich
The accelerating shift to digital marketing, especially website, digital commerce, and digital advertising, is fueling unprecedented demand for upgraded marketing technology. It is increasingly...
“The Path to Growth: The Opportunity Algorithm” – Anthony Ulwick
Tony Ulwick is the pioneer of jobs-to-be-done theory, the inventor of the Outcome-Driven Innovation® (ODI) process, and the founder of the strategy and innovation consulting firm Strategyn. He is...
“Why Are CMOs In Trouble?” – An Interview with Kim Whitler
Frank Grillo (CMO of Harte Hanks) interviews Kimberly A. Whitler (assistant professor at University of Virginia’s Darden School of Business). The topic? Low CMO tenure and what to do about it....
“The Big Shift From Engagement to Passion” – John Hagel
For decades now, companies have been relentlessly tracking levels of employee engagement. Every large company I know has an employee engagement survey it regularly administers. Is it possible that...
“What CEOs Can Learn from Uber” – Elsie Maio
Why was the ousting of Travis Kalanick at Uber inevitable? According to the official report from former US attorney general Eric Holder and Covington, the law firm he represents, Uber’s problems...
“Rethinking Retail: From Micro-Moments to Mega-Experiences” – Frank Grillo
The wave of retail closings in 2017 shows no sign of abating. And now, with the shock waves of Amazon’s announcement still reverberating in the market, we should ask: what can retailers do to...
“Amazon’s Strategy Whiteboard: Whole Foods Acquisition Disrupts Retail” – Christian Sarkar
Amazon announces that it will buy Whole Foods Market for $13.7 billion and panic ensues in the retail markets. Shares of Walmart, Target, Kroger, Dollar General, and Costco tumble immediately....
“Social Media: Considerations for B2C vs. B2B” – Frank Grillo
The use of social media channels continues to grow. With over one-third of the world’s population on social media, all signs point to further growth. But companies are falling short in their...
“Driving Toward CRM 3.0 in the Automotive Industry” – Tom Colucci and Daniel Rubin
