Can you imagine your clients designing your next hit product? Or paying a tenth of what it would cost with an agency to develop an excellent advertising campaign? These are just some of the advantages of co-creation. Expert on marketing and innovation Mohanbir Sawhney focused on this key theme during his opening speech at the World Marketing Forum Mexico.

“You don’t control your brand, your brand now belongs to your clients,” challenged Sawhney. So what do you do? There is only one option: to take advantage of the creative potential of your clients and engage them. After all…”the conversation and the debate about your product is happening on social media with or without your participation,” said Sawhney. So participate and co-create alongside your clients! In the following we discuss what this strategy is all about and the distinct type of collaboration you can achieve.

Wednesday, June 27th, 8:00AM

Today at WOBI...a day to celebrate marketing more than ever! We are coming to you live from the World Marketing Forum in Mexico City. Just an hour until the  most important marketing event of the country begins for it's ninth consecutive year, and we are already seeing hundreds of the expected 850 executives entering the venue, ready to listen to innovative ideas to apply to their next marketing strategy. In the following we give you the latest on what is already happening on the first day of the event.

Author Ken Blanchard is famous for saying, “Feedback is the Breakfast of Champions.” When businesses apply this sage advice to customers, it can improve customer experience across the entire value chain from product development to marketing effectiveness. Customer feedback gathered through surveys and two-way mirrors were once the best method for learning what customer’s value, but the time and costs associated with holding focus groups is no longer an efficient process for many businesses. They want feedback, and they want it real-time. Here’s a process serial entrepreneur Joel Appel created that is fast, effective and pure genius in simplicity.  This is a process any business can apply to create or improve their own system for customer feedback.

For anyone interested in marketing and communication, this piece by Buffer co-founder Leo Widrich is well worth a read.  It focuses on the science of colors – how we react to them, what they communicate to us and why the tones that you choose to communicate and package your product may be one of the most critical decisions that you make.

From breakfast cereal to coffee, from soft drinks to mouth wash – whether you’re 15, 35 or 55 it’s difficult to imagine that you haven’t tried some of these household names.  Today we reveal a little bit of the history behind some of the products that are part of our day to day lives.

Marketing effectiveness is an issue business leaders have struggled with for a long time. What is so perplexing is the same issues have continued to resurface for decades without resolution. Borrowing from Rodney Dangerfield, it’s no wonder “Marketing Gets No Respect.”

Focus on resolving the five issues outlined below and you can greatly improve your company’s success—not only in marketing but several areas across your organization.

If the saying, “a camel is a horse designed by a committee” is true, then a confused or weak brand is a brand designed by a committee of agencies. 

Without question, we live in a time of collaboration and integration. But where and when the integration happens is still a matter of debate. 

A brand touches and is touched by consumers in dozens, if not hundreds of ways. Each of those touch points has executional experts. Yet all touch points are not created equal. And at different times, different touch points need to take or share the lead. 

Here at WOBI we’re a little partial to a drop of the black stuff every now and again - and what better excuse to indulge than Saint Patrick’s Day?  In recent y

Marketing leader: still struggling with the reality that you’re no longer in control of your brand? Get over it. It’s time to further loosen the reins on your Type A personality. Our speedy, hyper-connected world dictates that it’s time to give up control of your marketing organization, too.

I don’t mean to give up responsibility, but control.  There’s a big difference between being in control and being in charge.

The highly-structured, siloed marketing organization developed in the pre-internet “spray and pray” era of mass, one-way communication doesn’t deliver results in today’s fast, open, relationship-oriented environment. It’s too slow. It’s too inauthentic. Its goals are misguided. But most CMOs are still trying to teach that old organizational dog marketing’s new tricks.  As a result, they’re seeing their teams working harder than ever, customers not “obeying,” and executives still whining.

“That is a great idea.” 

Its one of the highest compliments we can receive in marketing. It signifies from our colleagues, clients, industry and the marketplace that we’ve achieved something impressive.

Yet, the term idea gets thrown around too easily. And, oftentimes, it is even misused.

Definitions of an idea can vary, but one thing is certain: It’s big. We envy it when we see it. It impacts and changes human behavior. It impacts business. 

I heard one client define it as: “An idea is truly great when it can pay for itself.”  Maybe, but I think it goes well beyond funding. That, to me, is more of a good product or service.

For marketers, I believe an idea solves business objectives, answers a strategy and breeds an endless supply of tactics to promote it. It makes us think and view the world differently. It stands the test of time.

For consumers, an idea can become a movement. Something they want to follow. It’s much more than the brand they buy —it’s the T-shirt or bracelet they want to wear.