McGill Buckley

This is true for every workplace and especially true for every creative workplace.

Perhaps a reason why so many players in the same sector can suffer from a lack of originality. ,

A quote we love by Anonymous speaks to our belief that strategy should always come before tactics: "Content is king, but strategy is the emperor." Our latest blog post provides a few examples of how marketing strategy has led to big-time success for some brands you may recognize. By the way, who the heck is this Anonymous person? We see her quoted all over the place.

Why Strategy Drives Marketing Wins Strategic marketing is a superpower, propelling brands like Netflix, Google and Apple to success. Discover marketing strategies that you could use.

If you want to tell great stories, you have to go out with the approach and skills to find them.

Many people do not like puns. We are not those people. A good pun sends gales of laughter throughout the office. With that in mind, we invite all our Facebook friends, family members and followers to enjoy our pun-inspired 2023 holiday recipe - Chia Later Pudding. Happy Healthy Holidays from everyone at McGill Buckley. https://bit.ly/3TRmXbt

Tonight, we are proud to sponsor AFP Ottawa's Philanthropy Awards and celebrate those who give of themselves to improve the lives of others.

Over the years, we have been lucky to have worked with hundreds of hardworking people and essential causes from mental health and substance use, food insecurity, healthcare and care for veterans and aging Canadians. To quote something we heard years ago from a friend, these people and organizations are on the side of the angels.

If your brand struggles to get noticed, remembered and preferred, you may be swimming in a pond of similar brands.

There are too many "us-too" brands in the market when being an "us-only" brand is the way to get noticed and succeed.

It is always best to be a category of one in the minds of your audiences. Strive to find your difference. Discover a niche that you can claim and own.

Be relentless in articulating what sets your organization apart from others.

Be clear about how you address specific needs or help a particular segment of the population in healthcare or social causes. Find the stories that bring your differences to life.

The old saying, "You can't be everything to everybody," is fundamentally connected to the concept of unique value and differentiated positioning in branding.

We're looking for a fundraising Unicorn to start working with us in early 2024. Plainly put, we're seeking a contract Project Manager to work on at least six direct mail campaigns for one of our fantastic, long-time fundraising clients. Ideally, they know their way around segmenting audiences, delving into data, creative problem solving and keeping a keen eye on details, deadlines and deliverables. Does this sound like you or someone you know? Feel free to message us.

In case you've missed the news, there is a shortage of workers in residential construction trades. Working with the Greater Ottawa Home Builders Association to create the My Future is Building campaign was terrific fun and an opportunity to learn more about one of Ottawa's most important sectors for employment and building a vibrant local economy. Collaborating with a bunch of great people at GOHBA, including its members, was a bonus. See more of the GOHBA campaign at https://buff.ly/456mXWN

In marketing and communications, always playing it safe is a recipe for playing to lose. At best, it's playing for the tie. We all know what a tie feels like. Taking well-considered, calculated risks in communication can be a game-changer, market mover, brand builder and results generator.

Embracing risk is about stepping out of your comfort zone, thinking creatively, and daring to express your ideas differently, even if they seem unconventional - even if they scare you.

Here are three benefits of taking risks:

Higher Rates of Engagement: Thought-provoking and daring communication captures attention and fosters engagement. It sparks discussions and builds awareness.

Builds a Culture of Innovation: Pushing boundaries in your communication style can inspire innovation within your team and organization. Magic often follows.

Memorable Marketing: Like yesterday's wallpaper, safe and mundane messages quickly fade into the background. Taking a chance makes you and your marketing last longer and be more memorable.

In the end, and especially in marketing and communications, taking no risks is the most significant risk of all.

These days, marketers, especially in smaller organizations and start-ups, are expected to wear multiple hats and be accountable on many fronts. If you are tizzy over what to focus on regularly, here are three areas every marketer should always be on top of.

1. Target audiences: Like you, your audiences live through interesting, fast-changing times. Make sure you are taking the time to know their needs, preferences, worldviews and pain points. Talk to them regularly and tailor your marketing efforts to resonate with them.

2. Look and language: Be zealous about maintaining a consistent brand image and messaging across all channels. Being consistent in look and language aids in recognition and builds trust. In short, it helps your audience remember and relate to your brand.

3. Measuring: Regularly monitor and analyze data to measure the effectiveness of your marketing strategies. Decide which KPIs matter most to you in what you hope to accomplish. Data-driven decisions can lead to better results and more efficient use of resources.

In a furious quest to grow revenue, many marketers overlook a proven strategy – prioritizing the customers they already have. Successful B2B and B2C marketers always recognize and segment their audiences or target markets, tailoring strategies, messaging and channels according to each group's unique needs and expectations.

Your best customers, those who are loyal and prefer your products and services, are gold. They generate recurring revenue, provide valuable feedback, and advocate for your brand. Strengthening these established relationships should be your primary focus.

Your best prospects are those who closely resemble your best customers and are likely to convert into loyal customers. Crafting marketing strategies for your best prospects is essential to business growth.

Finally, don't neglect the broad market but don't go too broad. Not everyone deserves targeting. Maintaining a brand presence among a wider audience is crucial for brand recognition and long-term growth. Effective marketing increases your chances of attracting more prospects.



PS: If you're wondering who the heck John Romero is, he was a crucial player in the development of iconic games like "Wolfenstein 3D", "Doom" and "Quake."

Are you wondering why your brand is underperforming in the marketplace? Here are three common areas where poorly developed and managed brands fail to gain traction, generate results and build a community of brand advocates.

1. Mixed Messaging: Struggling brands fail to establish a clear and easily recognized identity and overlook the importance of defining their strengths, positioning, points of difference and brand personality. Fumbling with those key brand elements leads to consumer confusion. Not good.

2. Inconsistency: Solid brands are consistent, which would probably annoy Oscar Wilde if he was still around. Brands pay a high price for uneven messaging and erratic visual branding. What's the high price, you ask? Weak or non-existent brand recognition, trust, and loyalty.

3. Paying lip service to brand experience: Focusing solely on shiny external brand elements such as logos, social media and marketing campaigns while ignoring the overall brand experience is the fast track to damaging a brand's reputation, customers leaving nasty reviews and shrinking market share. Brands like Apple, Amazon and Ritz-Carleton have become world-leading brands by winning the brand experience game.

Let us count the most common strategies for helping your brand grow:
1. You can persuade more people to buy.
2. You can charge more.
3. You can get current customers to buy more often.
4. You can retain more customers.

Which one will have the most significant impact on your brand's growth?

While all those strategies can be effective, depending on your current situation, long-term brand growth most often comes from persuading more people to purchase from you. If you're a non-profit organization, it comes from convincing more people to align with your cause, believing in your particular mission, and donating. Once you have customers or donors, strategies to build brand loyalty can come into play.

So, how is your brand persuading more people on its way to growing?

Solid thinking on how to be a winner in the branding game, including foundational ideas such as not staying still, like Blockbuster did on its way to bankruptcy, having the confidence to own a singular idea in the customer's mind like Volvo and Apple did or, sticking with a well-considered strategy like Chobani has.

De-positioning Mastery: How to Outperform the Competition Learn how to dethrone your competition while positioning your brand as the solution through de-positioning.

Don't get us wrong; this is not a post that slams focus groups but rather a cautionary tale about relying on focus groups incorrectly. We always use focus groups and discovery sessions when we are developing brands, marketing, advertising or themes for fundraising campaigns. But, when testing creative concepts, messaging or designs with groups, we proceed cautiously. Sometimes in dread.

Why?
Great creativity or arresting design usually emerges from the unexpected. Group opinions tend to gravitate towards what's familiar, limiting the possibility of groundbreaking ideas. Unexpected gets noticed, and familiar blends into the background.

Ideas that resonate with one group may completely miss the mark for another. Don't let a few voices, or even the loudest or most contrarian voice, decide the fate of great work that may make some people uncomfortable. You can't please everyone.

Great ideas usually start as a spark within one person's mind or a small group. There is a risk, more likely a guarantee, of diluting unique perspectives and compromising a vision by surrendering to focus group testing. Too many potentially great ideas get trampled before they have a chance to bloom.

People's responses in a controlled, facilitated group setting are not the same as in real-life scenarios. What might seem ideal in theory could be a disaster in practice. Not sure? Start with a limited test, with a small market, in the real world.

To get back to our featured quote above, Steve Jobs, arguably his most famous marketing piece, was never focus group tested and received considerable pushback from his board of directors. Today, the "1984" TV commercial is widely regarded as one of the most iconic and influential commercials in advertising history. Not only did it receive significant attention when it first ran (a central goal of every piece of advertising), it contributed to the successful launch of the Macintosh computer.

Update Ottawa Food Bank campaign -

Update Ottawa Food Bank campaign

Thrilled to have helped the Ottawa Food Bank move to a new home and a healthier future - https://mailchi.mp/mcgillbuckley/june-2023-10466841

Many organizations gravitate toward operational silos with minimal crossover. While that may make sense for some functions, it does not work for marketing which is most effective when everyone knows they have a role in customer acquisition, loyalty, revenue and satisfaction. The late Peter Drucker, one of the most widely-known and influential thinkers on management, expressed this philosophy best.

The well-known term strategy before tactics likely applies to many scenarios, perhaps none more than brand-building. A brand struggles to gain traction and build loyalty because there is no strategy behind it. Our latest Brand for Good blog post presents a high-level introduction to brand strategy. https://buff.ly/3o4TxIT

Many people tend to review designs and quickly want to make logos bigger and fonts bolder to lead the reader where they want them to go. We believe in keeping it simple and know that sound design lets readers work through the message naturally and at their own pace. Emphasizing too much ultimately clutters the message, breaks the flow and reduces the effectiveness of marketing and communications. As John Maeda said, "Simplicity is about subtracting the obvious and adding the meaningful."

At the risk of using an overused branding quote, this one from Jeff Bezos is worth repeating. The challenge for brands is discovering where to go to discover what people say about their brands when the brand isn't in the room. As a firm that has conducted plenty of brand audits, we know that customers and prospects are much more likely to spill the brand beans with us, a third party when we promise not to name names. How is your brand listening when it's not in the room?

We're thrilled to be working with the Ottawa Food Bank on their Moving to a Healthier Future campaign. With more and more people in Ottawa facing hunger amid rapidly rising prices, we are proud to support the important work these amazing folks do for adults and children in our communities.

The Ottawa Food Bank is relocating to a larger facility, and we need your help!

Demand for food banks is higher than ever. We're moving to grow our capacity to provide fresh, healthy food to tens of thousands of individuals and families in Ottawa.

We're moving toward a healthier future. Will you join us?

Read about our new home at the link below!

https://www.ottawafoodbank.ca/moving-to-a-healthier-future/

With aging parents and a late father who was a Royal Canadian Air Force veteran, working with the Perley Health Foundation to bring the Answering the Call campaign to life has been an incredible experience to be part of. In , people across Canada will help Perley Health transform care for Seniors and Veterans. Read all about it -

Perley Health Foundation Campaign We felt an immediate connection with Perley Health Foundation when we spoke to them about working on their most significant fundraising campaign ever.

Who wants a lawn sign? Who will answer the call? This morning, we attended the public launch of Perley Health's largest-ever fundraising campaign. Through the $10M Answering the Call Campaign, Perley Health will transform care for Seniors and Veterans through exceptional care, applied research, innovation and education. We are so proud to be part of this incredible campaign.

So proud to have worked on this campaign, for the third year in a row, with the hardworking team at Volunteer Canada. Millions of volunteers across our country deserve our recognition and heartfelt thanks for everything they do to connect communities.

Why Digital Advertisers Should Swap Their Data Addiction For A New Wave Of Creative Flair. A study by Nielson looked at nearly 500 advertising campaigns and found that creativity was the single most influential advertising element when it came to sales.

https://buff.ly/3vjp7nJ