Many of us have heard of “The Pepsi Challenge,” a four-decade old promotional campaign by Pepsi in which testers visit public locations and perform sip tests. It’s done how it sounds: Participants are given two unmarked cups with small amounts of Coke in one and Pepsi in the other. After they have tasted both cups…
Google is a great paradigm-breaking example of how “just doing it better” leads to success. Co-founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page had a plan: Take “search” and make it not suck. It’s easy to forget that, before Google, search engines already existed. What Brin and Page sought to do different—to make search not suck—was supply…
Word-of-mouth has always been the most effective form of marketing. People trust their friend’s opinions. Ask yourself: What was the last movie you went to see? What was the last fancy restaurant you visited? What was your last purchase above $200? With those answers in mind, how many of these purchases were influenced largely by…
Companies look for universals, and they look to position messages in a general fashion. It makes sense. It costs money to generate individual messages for specific demographics. But, while this idea made a bit of sense pre-21st century, it is largely outdated. The Internet has fundamentally changed the way we communicate and opened about 2.09 billion doors…
