Rohit B. posted an article on Influential Marketing Blog - Feb 6, 2012, 4:40 am
... went for the "dog gets guy a beer" gag. If there ... featured real people in their two inspiring ads that continue to ... . To be the leading girl in two Super bowl spots in ... same gag of almost naked girls and the promise to "see ... Valentine's is less than two weeks away. WORST...
Comment - Like

Rohit B. posted an article on Influential Marketing Blog - Feb 3, 2012, 7:01 am
Last year on a trip back to the US from South Africa, I picked up a magazine about a topic I knew very little about. It is of the common tricks I use to learn about different industries outside of the ones I work directly with – and in this case, the magazine I ended up with was called Farmer’s ...
Comment - Like

Rohit B. posted an article on Influential Marketing Blog - Jan 27, 2012, 7:59 am
When it comes to economic theories, there is plenty of fascination in the business world around how to explain what drives business and purchasing activities. Behavioural economics, the field of economics concerned with examining why people behave the way they do when it comes to their purchasing be...
Comment - Like

Rohit B. posted an article on Influential Marketing Blog - Jan 26, 2012, 11:28 am
A few weeks ago it was my birthday. The day before on a Saturday morning, my two boys came leaping into our room very excited to wake me up. It wasn't so much about my birthday, unfortunately, as it was about getting ready to do their favourite thing on a Saturday morning: going to IHOP for pancakes...
Comment - Like

Rohit B. posted an article on Influential Marketing Blog - Jan 23, 2012, 9:44 pm
Every year at the start of the new year there is something that most of us do without realizing it. It is related to making new year's resolutions, but it is more about sequencing your long term goals into the order in which you want to achieve them. One example might be saying to yourself, "I want ...
Comment - Like

Rohit B. posted an article on Influential Marketing Blog - Jan 20, 2012, 7:53 am
Most of us have heard the statistic that it is about ten times more likely that someone will post a comment online about a negative experience than a positive one.  It is not hard to believe if we just imagine our own experiences.  When we are a satisfied customer, usually the easy thing to do is ...
Comment - Like

Rohit B. posted an article on Influential Marketing Blog - Jan 13, 2012, 7:34 am
Despite how it might seem, this is not another post about how you can create a more “green” business. Being green is a great business practice, and has the side benefit of helping your small business to make a positive difference in the world. When we think of recycling, it is no surprise that m...
Comment - Like

Rohit B. posted an article on Influential Marketing Blog - Jan 12, 2012, 7:16 pm
The land grab is officially starting. For the first time since the popularization of the Internet, the big news today is that ICANN is opening up the ability for the creation of new suffixes that come after the dot, such as .com or .org. The open application process lets any organization apply to be...
Comment - Like

Rohit B. posted an article on Influential Marketing Blog - Jan 11, 2012, 10:11 pm
No one writes a business book about leadership to help hungry children. Leadership, we usually read, is about having a grand vision. It is about the touchdown pass. No one wants to hear about the months you spent in the summer working out in the weight room. In our quarterly culture, fast results ar...
Comment - Like

Rohit B. posted an article on Influential Marketing Blog - Jan 5, 2012, 1:21 am
"3D Catalog" is a phrase you will see in a few articles about the retail industry these days. Unfortunately, it's not a cool new interactive augmented reality thing. This is a term that describes the fears of many real life retailers who are afraid of becoming a place where consumers just go to touc...
Comment - Like

Rohit B. posted an article on Influential Marketing Blog - Jan 3, 2012, 10:11 am
Let me tell you a little secret.  I look forward to putting together an annual trend report the same way that some people look forward to having Turkey for Thanksgiving dinner. I realize that may sound a bit strange, but ever since I did my first trend recap last year I was hooked.  This year,...
Comment - Like

Rohit B. posted an article on Influential Marketing Blog - Jan 2, 2012, 2:39 pm
Before I ever wrote my first book, I had always heard a few things about the process of writing.  The most common was that the experience is kind of like digging yourself into a hole. You "hide" in there while you are writing and finally at the end of the process, you emerge. You deliver the book a...
Comment - Like

Rohit B. posted an article on Influential Marketing Blog - Dec 16, 2011, 6:26 am
We spend a lot of time in marketing thinking about how we might engage our customers to pay attention to what we have to share. In the best cases, we are not just interrupting them, but instead offering a message and content that solves a real problem. Nearly every time you might imagine...
Comment - Like

Rohit B. posted an article on Influential Marketing Blog - Dec 9, 2011, 7:23 am
Groupon has quickly become a lighting rod of debate among many small business owners. On the two sides of the issue about whether the service is good or bad for small business – the disagreement usually comes over the philosophy of deep discounting. Are you killing your profit margin in exchange f...
Comment - Like

Rohit B. posted an article on Influential Marketing Blog - Dec 2, 2011, 7:21 am
As the full swing of the summer is starting up, if you are in any sort of retail business – chances are you have had to hire or release some of your employees to manage the seasonal flow of business. In other industries, keeping your employees motivated through the summer vacation and ...
Comment - Like

Rohit B. posted an article on Influential Marketing Blog - Nov 28, 2011, 10:51 am
The fact that most retailers use the term "doorbuster" to describe their best deals from this weekend should tell you everything you need to know about the frenzied few days of retail activity that traditionally follows Thanksgiving day in America. Despite futile protests from lots of unfortunate re...
Comment - Like

Rohit B. posted an article on Influential Marketing Blog - Oct 28, 2011, 7:44 am
There are several kinds of trees in the Australian outback that need fire in order to survive. The seeds of these trees won’t germinate unless the outer shell of the seeds are burned off by a bush fire.  For thousands of years, this process happened naturally. The aboriginal populatio...
Comment - Like

Rohit B. posted an article on Influential Marketing Blog - Oct 25, 2011, 11:32 pm
Imagine you're the marketing team at the Audobon Society, a group that has been around since 1886 and your mission for that time has been to promote better man-bird relations -- how would you respond to a internationally addictive game which has been downloaded more than 400 million times that portr...
Comment - Like

Rohit B. posted an article on Influential Marketing Blog - Oct 21, 2011, 9:36 am
  There is a relatively fancy term and acronym given to all the work that many large organizations do to combat many types of social causes. CSR – or Corporate Social Responsibility – is an umbrella term for everything from water conservation to fighting all kinds of addiction. Inc...
Comment - Like

Rohit B. posted an article on Influential Marketing Blog - Oct 19, 2011, 7:07 am
There are generally two kinds of businesses, the ones who are afraid of haters and the ones who aren't. A hater is pretty easy to spot - someone who is disgruntled enough to actively turn to every avenue they can find to talk about how much they hate you and your business. They often find their way ...
Comment - Like

Rohit B. posted an article on Influential Marketing Blog - Oct 6, 2011, 4:09 am
A few weeks ago I was asked an interesting question about what inspires me.  As I thought about my answer, I realized that for me it isn't a person but rather an action that I find most inspirational.  The people around the world who have an idea and decide to do something about it deserve to be c...
Comment - Like

Rohit B. posted an article on Influential Marketing Blog - Oct 5, 2011, 7:15 am
Several years ago I had the accidental good fortune to sit next to a flight attendant on a coast to coast flight as she was hitching a ride home. As we chatted, she mentioned that she far preferred working in the economy class part of the plane because travellers expected a lot less, so "you don't r...
Comment - Like

Rohit B. posted an article on Influential Marketing Blog - Sep 26, 2011, 12:13 pm
I actively hate cauliflower. In marketing terms, you could call me a brand dectractor ... as I am generally pretty vocal about my dislike of the sweat-sock-smelling-mush-flavored vegetable. Hate is often extreme like that, and most of us believe passionately in what we dislike. What we "like" on the...
Comment - Like

Rohit B. posted an article on Influential Marketing Blog - Sep 19, 2011, 1:28 am
I have always had a mixed relationship with Apu. The long standing joke in many South Asian communities was that he was really our first and most recognizable movie star. Still, he was a caricature of a convenience store owner - one of several typecasts for South Asians that have included taxi drive...
Comment - Like

Rohit B. posted an article on Influential Marketing Blog - Sep 13, 2011, 9:10 am
How many times have you heard that being successful in using social media is all about engagement? I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but it isn't. For a consumer that is going on Twitter to complain about how their mobile phone doesn't have coverage, they don't want to be "engaged" with your bran...
Comment - Like

Rohit B. posted an article on Influential Marketing Blog - Sep 8, 2011, 2:46 pm
UPDATE: This process did not go so well for me and I am going to try to revert my page back to a profile.  Read my update at the end of this post for why I don't recommend for individuals to do this. For more than a year now, I have had a problem with Facebook. When I first joined the ...
Comment - Like

Rohit B. posted an article on Influential Marketing Blog - Sep 2, 2011, 8:08 am
It is natural to worry about being fair.  When you have current customers and are trying to create promotions to lure in new customers, the last thing you want is for those people or organizations that you already work with or other groups of potential new customers to feel unappreciated or margina...
Comment - Like

Rohit B. posted an article on Influential Marketing Blog - Aug 31, 2011, 4:07 pm
One of the most legendary stories about Zappo's famed culture of customer service above all else is their longstanding business practice of paying people to quit. It is a perfect example of the power of counterintuition - that offering an incentive to leave will actually help you get rid of employee...
Comment - Like

Rohit B. posted an article on Influential Marketing Blog - Aug 26, 2011, 7:02 am
In 1932 the Carnegie Foundation gave a grant to a Professor at Washington State University to develop the design for the ultimate keyboard. They had good reason to try – as study after study showed that the “QWERTY keyboard” (as it was commonly known) had a terribly inefficient des...
Comment - Like

Rohit B. posted an article on Influential Marketing Blog - Aug 19, 2011, 7:57 am
A bad online registration form online has sadly become as American as apple pie. The vast majority of them collect useless information, present an annoying barrier to engagement and generally are reviled by anyone who is unlikely enough to have to fill one out online. For the amount of pain involved...
Comment - Like

Rohit B. posted an article on Influential Marketing Blog - Aug 12, 2011, 7:54 am
There is a new travel website called Hipmunk that has an interesting philosophy about searching for the best flight deal online. Instead of showing you every flight combination that could save you an extra $12, they remove options that no normal human would choose. Sure you could save some money by ...
Comment - Like

Rohit B. posted an article on Influential Marketing Blog - Aug 10, 2011, 11:10 pm
Let me tell you a secret I don't often share: I have a magic social media button. This button has only one special power: when I press it, I can immediately give you a million fans, followers or friends. You can choose whether you want this instant audience on Twitter or Facebook or some other site....
Comment - Like

Rohit B. posted an article on Influential Marketing Blog - Aug 5, 2011, 7:49 am
Let’s not pretend you don’t know what this post is going to be about. Anyone who has worked in or run a small business has felt the ugly sting of an inferiority complex to their larger rivals at some point. Sure, having your own business is liberating and rewarding and life changing. But sometim...
Comment - Like

Rohit B. posted an article on Influential Marketing Blog - Aug 2, 2011, 10:43 pm
I am not usually a fan of curse words. As a Dad with two young boys, I've especially become very conscious of them as I try desperately to help my oldest make it to his seventh birthday without trying it out in conversation. We're just a few weeks away. Still, for some time I've been thinking that ...
Comment - Like

Rohit B. posted an article on Influential Marketing Blog - Jul 29, 2011, 8:37 am
There is a moment when everyone does the same thing. Right around the 4th of July, most people will buy fireworks. And April 15th is one of the universally dreaded days of the year in the US, where millions of Americans seek help to file their taxes. And in the days before Halloween, everyone buys a...
Comment - Like

Rohit B. posted an article on Influential Marketing Blog - Jul 26, 2011, 9:39 pm
If there is one universal truth that almost no one in the world of technology or social media has figured out, it might be this: everyone hates evangelists. No matter what they are "evangelizing" - the world view anyone who claims this title for themselves usually has is that the product, service or...
Comment - Like

Rohit B. posted an article on Influential Marketing Blog - Jul 22, 2011, 4:31 am
Anyone who has ever taken flight lessons knows about a problem called the wingtip vortex. Described online as “the twin tornadoes formed by the difference between the pressure on the upper and lower surfaces of an airplane’s wing” – the wingtip vortex actually creates quite a dangerous situa...
Comment - Like

Rohit B. posted an article on Influential Marketing Blog - Jul 19, 2011, 6:20 am
A few weeks ago, the Cannes Creative Festival brought together thousands of practitioners in every discipline of marketing and advertising to honor the best communications campaigns and thinking from the previous year.  As a marketing writer and strategist, I spend a lot of time thinking about orig...
Comment - Like

Rohit B. posted an article on Influential Marketing Blog - Jul 15, 2011, 9:29 am
Expertise is a beautiful thing when you are a small business. If you are in the right business, you have probably spent a long time building your expertise in whatever your industry happens to be. Whether you provide consultative services for your customers, or use your expertise to help sell retail...
Comment - Like

Rohit B. posted an article on Influential Marketing Blog - Jul 13, 2011, 5:19 pm
The first time that brands were ever allowed on Facebook, the only way they could advertise was by offering a specific promotion. No brand awareness campaigns or focus on engagement ... just a simple offer. It was a symbol of how Facebook (and Mark Zuckerberg in particular) saw brands entering into ...
Comment - Like

Rohit B. posted an article on Influential Marketing Blog - Jul 9, 2011, 4:30 pm
I remember a time when I used to spend hours listening to the sounds that different cymbals made when hit in different locations. If you aren’t a drummer, chances are this moment will be a tougher one to relate to – but trust me when I tell you that the decision to buy a cymbal is a very persona...
Comment - Like

Rohit B. posted an article on Influential Marketing Blog - Jul 6, 2011, 11:54 am
Last month while working on a strategy for a large client, we had a brilliant idea. This was not the kind of idea that agencies come up with all the time while sitting in a room by themselves drawing pictures on a whiteboard. No, this was the kind of game changing idea that could solve a client chal...
Comment - Like

Rohit B. posted an article on Influential Marketing Blog - Jun 29, 2011, 11:27 pm
Tomorrow I am going to Hell ... literally. There is an area on Grand Cayman Island nicknamed "Hell"  thanks to some black limestone formations that (as legend has it) caused a local at one point to explain that "this is what hell must look like!" As you might expect, the area has been turned into a...
Comment - Like

Rohit B. posted an article on Influential Marketing Blog - Jun 24, 2011, 6:12 am
Earlier this year, an issue of Fast Company magazine featured an interesting article by Chip and Dan Heath talking about the art of brand names. They focused on Lexicon, one marketing agency with a track record for creating iconic brand names like Blackberry and the Colgate Wisp. The process they un...
Comment - Like

Rohit B. posted an article on Influential Marketing Blog - Jun 22, 2011, 8:06 am
Yesterday I spent the day at the Corporate Social Media Summit, a big gathering of some of the best minds in leading social media efforts on behalf of large corporate brands. The event was put on by the team at Useful Social Media - and that indeed was the theme of the day as panelists offered real ...
Comment - Like

Rohit B. posted an article on Influential Marketing Blog - Jun 17, 2011, 6:12 am
Of all the small business marketing issues that I have spoken with colleagues or clients with, there is one that seems to come up with regularity. This so-called million dollar question is around the tricky topic of whether to specialize or talk about your services or products more broadly. On the p...
Comment - Like

Rohit B. posted an article on Influential Marketing Blog - Jun 14, 2011, 5:59 pm
Australia has a unique problem that almost no other country in the world would be able to understand. With a population of just under 20 million people, the country is one of the few places on Earth that anyone might be able to describe as underpopulated. The vast distances most people must travel t...
Comment - Like

Rohit B. posted an article on Influential Marketing Blog - Jun 10, 2011, 6:12 am
About two months before I turned in the final manuscript on my first marketing book, it was available for pre-order on Amazon. You could see the cover and the writeup about the book, and unknown to anyone who might have visited that page – the book wasn’t even finished yet. I admit, I did pre-or...
Comment - Like

Rohit B. posted an article on Influential Marketing Blog - Jun 7, 2011, 5:14 pm
If you could have chosen a completely different path for your career, what would you have done? For generations, asking this sort of question was usually an exercise in idle daydreaming. Yet imagine if you lived in a world where you didn't have to choose. Where the alternative career path you never ...
Comment - Like

Rohit B. posted an article on Influential Marketing Blog - Jun 3, 2011, 6:12 am
Late last year a crippled Carnival Cruise ship was brought into port with thousands of disgruntled customers. Their vacations were ruined, they were stuck at sea and the media was having a field day covered their plight and the potential downside of the entire category of cruising. If you were Carni...
Comment - Like