Too bad marketers don’t have growing noses like Pinnochio! (source of image)
In the world of marketing, there are three schools of thought.
The first is the school of facts. Proponents of this idea hinge much of their marketing on bread and butter issues, focusing on very tangible aspects of their products or services such as cost, value, features, utility, convenience and savings.
Disneyland provides lots of photo opportunities for kids!
Thanks to Bob Rogers, I recently learnt about the 10 rules of theme park design which were created by Disney legend Marty Sklar, Vice Chairman and Principal Creative Executive of Walt Disney Imagineering. These rules are designed to help anybody developing or designing a theme park to create memorable experiences for their guests.
So what are these precepts modelled after the “happiest place on Earth”?
The Melbourne Museum provides a great immersive experience
In the world of information-rich visitor attractions like heritage buildings, museums and corporate attractions, spinning a great tale is imperative to success.
Having an exciting story which connects and resonates with your visitors makes all the difference. What should one do to create those magical moments?
If so, nominate yourself for the 5th annual Singapore Blog Awards!
Organised by Omy.sg, SPH’s leading bilingual news and entertainment portal, the Singapore Blog Awards recognises “new-age wordsmiths” with the passion, determination, and energy to “create and maintain informative and innovative blogs”.
Continuing along the theme of “Zagging” as a business strategy (ie radical but customer valued differentiation), I thought it would be interesting to highlight examples of businesses which apply such “Blue Ocean” strategies in their core value propositions. By offering something radical and unique yet deeply appreciated by their customers and other stakeholders, they are able to stand out in an increasingly hyper-competitive marketplace. This would mean offering a new innovation that isn’t seen in the existing marketplace and competing on different terms from incumbents.
As expected, many of these examples are in the mouth watering F&B industry, but there are also a few cases of consumer oriented innovation in other domains both digital and non-digital.
1) Gourmet craft beers in a hawker centre: Good Beer Company in Chinatown Hawker Centre. Fine hand-crafted beers in the comfort of your slipper and shorts anybody?
I am great fan of motivational guru Anthony Robbins and have invested some time lately to listen to his recordings based on his bestselling book “Unlimited Power”. Although this has been around for quite some time, its lessons are everlasting and relevant for all time.
Today, I’d like to highlight Robbins’ 7 Disciplines of Success. These tenets are based on the approach of Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP) and model themselves after a successful person’s beliefs, syntax (language), and physiology.
Courtesy of Ranker
What do you do when things which you have planned and worked so painstakingly hard for takes an ugly turn?
Do you…
Thanks to Resorts World Sentosa, I was recently given a pair of tickets to their ongoing “rock circus” performance Voyage de la Vie as part of their Date Night, as well as a complimentary bottle of sparkling wine. As my wife has seen the show previously, I decided to bring my boy Ethan along.
Helmed by former MediaCorp Executive Producer Andrea Teo, who is now the Vice-President of Entertainment at Resorts Wrold Sentosa, Voyage de la Vie features the talents of creative producer Mark Fisher (chief designer of 2008 Beijing Olympics’ opening and closing ceremonies), Michael LaFleur – a previous imagineer with the Walt Disney Company, Philip Wm McKinley of “Ringling Bros and Barun and Bailey’s The Greatest Show on Earth” fame, set designer Ray Winkler (who worked on tours for U2, Generis and the Rolling Stones), and composer and former Singapore Idol runner-up Jonathan Lim.
Small businesses need to learn to be like David when fighting against Goliath (source of image)
What can Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) and independent free lancers do to build their reputations, enhance their businesses, and strengthen their reach? With limited resources and finances, how can these entities carve a space for themselves in an increasingly crowded market with competitors possessing deeper pockets, greater resources and fuller teams?
To stand a chance of winning the hearts and minds of consumers, small businesses need to take advantage of their nimbleness, flexibility and agility to outwit and outmaneuver the bigger boys. Competing along the same dimensions will only result in a sorry ending.
Source of Image
What can small businesses, start-ups, free-lancers and other budding entrepreneurs do to build their reach? How can they compete against bigger companies with deeper pockets, greater resources and fuller teams?
In general, the clue is to look at what big conglomerates are doing, and then try to do the opposite – in a customer pleasing fashion of course. Clueless where to start? Well, here are five ideas to begin with.
