Posts by Kent Dicken
Culture eats marketing for breakfast
In most companies, brand image is controlled by management, which sets the tone for the corporate culture with a focus on either profits or customers. Amazon.com Founder/CEO Jeff Bezos made news one year for working at one of their fulfillment centers in Kentucky, and has made it a requirement for every employee to spend two days…
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Do you have card-carrying members?
I had to have my son’s car towed recently, and I was certainly happy that I carried my AAA card with me to avoid the tow charge. Then I used it the next week to save a few bucks on a hotel room when traveling. That’s when it hit me. I’m a card-carrying member. Now…
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Why rent eyeballs when you can own?
Traditional media is based on buying exposure – how many people will see this newspaper ad, this TV spot, this outdoor board, this trade show booth. As a result, buyers of traditional media calculate what it will cost to rent eyeballs just long enough to get a message across, then pray for a 1% response…
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Cutting your marketing budget is dangerous
Budget season certainly seems to be the right time for cutting fat, and unfortunately CFOs always seem to feel that the marketing line needs to lose a few pounds. But cutting your marketing budget will not help you improve your bottom line. In fact, it is likely dangerous. Marketing is the oil that allows the…
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Are you marketing to yourself?
A local non-CU client recently called us to do a TV spot. His competition is a big national chain, so he really wants to use his community roots as the main theme. A local non-CU client recently called us to do a TV spot using his community roots as the main theme. Which made sense…
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Building the perfect CU Marketer
I’m not sure how a CEO of a credit union selects a Marketing Director when they have an opening – especially since most CU CEOs come from a dollars and sense background rather than a creative background. Do they simply pick their opposite for Marketing? Or maybe they hire based on something else entirely. I…
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Labels sometimes stick too well
The human mind needs to be able to classify items in order to be able to make sense of them. So we identify everything we run across, slap labels on it, then stick it away in a memory bank, ready for recall at some point in the future. Demographics in marketing are no different. We…
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The Internet is Full
The internet is full. Overflowing. Saturated. At least it ought to be, with all the blogs, tweets, news, videos, music, and pictures of cats. But I suppose as long as they can keep making more hard drives there is always more room for content. So I probably need to rephrase that: Actually, what is full…
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Understanding Branding
For a long time, Branding was considered to be just the logo and/or the name. Need a new brand? Slap a new logo/name on it and somehow it becomes a totally different, “new and improved” whatever. But that’s a pretty narrow view of branding. Depending on who you talk to, branding can be almost anything.…
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What’s in your CU DNA?
Credit Unions care more about their members’ economic well-being than making a profit. Most CU Marketers would agree that’s an accepted part of the credit union DNA, straight out of the “not-for-profit” designation, and therefore Marketing should promote those products most beneficial for the member. But ask a CFO and you will likely hear a different…
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