Super Bowl XLVIII 2014 advertisements are already generating a lot of buzz in social media and advertising industry media, with more to come during and after this weekend’s game. My pre-game wager for the ad that will have the most impact goes on Intuit. Rather than using millions of dollars to communicate about Intuit, the strategically smart software publisher of QuickBooks and TurboTax is using its investment to help its small business customers. Intuit demonstrates co: collective’s storydoing (versus storytelling) at its best. (Read my earlier review of Ty Montague’s True Story book and storydoing as a strategy.) Intuit ran a contest inviting small businesses to tell their story and get their fan base to vote for them. Businesses were then asked to demonstrate they could handle the bump up in traffic from winning. Twenty companies (out of thousands) made it to the…
Are your business model strategy and marketing communications aligned?
A dangerous canyon often arises between business model strategy and marketing. Separate roles, meetings, deliverables, timetables, personalities and consultancies exist on each side of the divide. When business strategy and marketing execution move forward independently – as they often do – spin, distrust, poor customer experiences and commoditization result. A classic case of this problem was the latest branding of Plymouth as “Not your father’s Plymouth,” when the new model was in fact just like the dated car. Needless to say, the brand now belongs to history books. Ty Montague offers a needed bridge across this canyon in True Story: How to Combine Story and Action to Transform Your Business. Montague is co-founder of co:collective, a consultancy that helps its clients develop their strategy and brand story using the principles of Storydoing™. Montague’s premise – and it is a terrific one – is…