"What position did you play?" seemed like an innocent enough question coming from my six-year-old grandson. Basketball is on his mind, as it is everyone's this time of year. The conventional answer, "I played center." says so little. I'd rather tell him what I accomplished for the team - it means more. My high school coach, in [...]...

Stories of Brand Ownership turn up in the most interesting places. For example, take the story of Jarell Carson. Jarell was born with severe hearing loss, but that didn't keep him from connecting with his world. Initially he made up his own form of sign language before learning American Sign Language which he taught to his [...]...

Sometimes customer acquisition is just a matter of luck. That's how my Chevy S10 pickup ended up at a local Tire & Auto Center. I was out of town on a client trip and my wife was driving the truck. While running some errands, it began to overheat. Across the street was a nationally-known Tire & Auto [...]...

Domino's Pizza should never have promised good taste and quality - and they knew it. The moment they did, Domino's disappeared into the sea of marketing noise generated by every other pizza place in the market. The people at Domino's knew exactly what their brand promise needed to be, but were afraid to make it. Domino's founder [...]...

Our toilet would not stop running. You know, the constant sound of a trickle of water from a toilet that won't ever shut off. In an attempt to repair it, we followed the approved process of "turning the red screw" on the shut-off valve. But, that didn't work. Last weekend I mentioned the problem to my father-in-law, [...]...