Tag: marketing

Be remarkable

1. Understand the urgency of the situation. Half-measures simply won’t do. The only way to grow is to abandon your strategy of doing what you did yesterday, but better. Commit.

2. Remarkable doesn’t mean remarkable to you. It means remarkable to me. Am I going to make a remark about it? If not, then you’re average, and average is for losers.

3. Being noticed is not the same as being remarkable. Running down the street naked will get you noticed, but it won’t accomplish much. It’s easy to pull off a stunt, but not useful.

4. Extremism in the pursuit of remarkability is no sin. In fact, it’s practically a requirement. People in first place, those considered the best in the world, these are the folks that get what they want. Rock stars have groupies because they’re stars, not because they’re good looking.

5. Remarkability lies in the edges. The biggest, fastest, slowest, richest, easiest, most difficult. It doesn’t always matter which edge, more that you’re at (or beyond) the edge.

6. Not everyone appreciates your efforts to be remarkable. In fact, most people don’t. So what? Most people are ostriches, heads in the sand, unable to help you anyway. Your goal isn’t to please everyone. Your goal is to please those that actually speak up, spread the word, buy new things or hire the talented.

7. If it’s in a manual, if it’s the accepted wisdom, if you can find it in a Dummies book, then guess what? It’s boring, not remarkable. Part of what it takes to do something remarkable is to do something first and best. Roger Bannister was remarkable. The next guy, the guy who broke Bannister’s record wasn’t. He was just faster … but it doesn’t matter.

8. It’s not really as frightening as it seems. They keep the masses in line by threatening them (us) with all manner of horrible outcomes if we dare to step out of line. But who loses their jobs at the mass layoffs? Who has trouble finding a new gig? Not the remarkable minority, that’s for sure.

9. If you put it on a T-shirt, would people wear it? No use being remarkable at something that people don’t care about. Not ALL people, mind you, just a few. A few people insanely focused on what you do is far far better than 1000s of people who might be mildly interested, right?

10. What’s fashionable soon becomes unfashionable. While you might be remarkable for a time, if you don’t reinvest and reinvent, you won’t be for long. Instead of resting on your laurels, you must commit to being remarkable again quite soon.

Change the World at Walmart

walmart is working with activists now. just like their energy efficient light bulbs push, walmart is smelling opportunity in sustainability. i think this is huge.

But finding someone who can play effectively in that rarefied air has turned out to be more challenging than Ruta and her team ever expected. The right person will need 2 key skill sets: “They will need to have a fairly broad understanding of a range of environmental issues — not necessarily deep expertise, but be more of an environmental generalist. But also be able to operate in a corporate environment. And they’ve got to be able to put things in terms that make sense to Wal-Mart as a company — to translate environmental goals into good business strategy

Product placement

“Marketers are saying, ‘We must be more innovative — to zig when others zag. The industry is desperate to find clever ways to reach people, whether or not it has any legitimate value. … When someone says, ‘Let’s put advertising in bathroom stalls,’ another says ‘That’s great. It’s a captive audience.'”

lazy marketers use more ads as their default solution to combat saturation