How Are You Growing Your Business

For one company to grow it is at the expense of a competitor.

How are you guarding your market share?

Do you know why your customers shop with you? 

If so, are you using those whys to tell others why they should shop with you?

Always be protecting against your core business.

Defending against market threats will not go away. 

And never lose sight of your competitor.  For them to grow their market share it has to come at someones expense and that could be you.

Free For All Fridays

Jerry Seinfeld is back with a new show broadcast on the internet, comediansincarsgettingcoffee.com.


I still believe Tiger can win the US Open.

Reading The Tower of Babble, written by former CBC boss, Richard Stursberg makes me want to poke my eye out for not taking the job with CBC 25 years ago. I could be retired now thanks to taxpayers who shell out over a billion dollars a year for the public broadcaster.

And try not to walk and text in public this weekend.

Why Ad Agencies Still Target Young Demos

A colleague was preparing a pitch for an ad agency wanting to reach men 35-54 for a sports outdoor outfitter.  I am not a hunter and fisher but have friends and acquaintances who live to do both.  They are all pushing the other side of 50.

So why then such a narrow age target?    Isn't the 50-65 a very lucrative age group considering that age group is getting into their best earning years with probably less expenses at home?

When will the ad world wake up to baby boomers?  Thanks to Chuck Nyren for this video.

Is there disconnect in Nissan's latest TV ad

Nissan has a new TV campaign, Summer Saving Days.  The have taken and rewritten the lyrics from Summer Nights, a song featured in the movie Grease. 

The ad looks like Glee doing Grease.

The movie came out in 1978.  If you are under 40 you likely don't know the movie.  So for those of us that do, why didn't Nissan at least dress their actors like the movie?  That I can relate to.

QR Codes Fad or For Real

A QR code  is a matrix bar code.  They are likely to appear in print advertising.

I am just not sure what purpose they serve.  The ones that I have seen just clutter the page.

And most of the ones that I have clicked on, for the most part serve no purpose other than take me to the company's homepage or if its a contest to that page to enter.

Question. You have invested in a website. Why not use every bit of advertising to brand your website address?

Big or Little Coincidence

There is a Seinfeld episode with Elaine arguing that there are big coincidences. Her combatant insists there are no degrees. It either is or isn't.

This was running through my head as I took a phone survey about my cell phone service.  My answers based on a scale of 1 to 10 with 1 being no and 10 yes. 

That leaves a lot of assumption from 2 to 9? 

Big coincidence they haven't figured it out because I still have lousy service!

Will your business survive on just social media

The all day dim sum caught my eye of the new restaurant in my neighborhood. Our server happened to be the owner. I was surprised they had been open 6 months. I asked what he is doing in the way of advertising. He shared the disappointment of his mailers and discount calendar. But he was excited about the social media expert he hired to create a facebook page. The only thing that facebook page will do is chronicle his demise. Social media is not advertising.