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Dear CMO: When was the last time you had to make a complex choice? When did you last go through a competitive bid on a CRM application? Maybe hire an important direct report? Or do an agency review? What about just buying a car, let alone getting one fixed? “This is the easiest process in […]

Dear CMO: Sure, we talked this over at length last week but apparently we were ahead of the wave. I see that Ad Age sagely declared the failure of Project (RED) by virtue of its “meager” $18 million in contributions to combat AIDS and malaria in Africa. “Meager” when viewed next to the estimated $100 […]

Dear CMO: Why is it that we always need to see things for ourselves? Why do we never trust other people? Are we all so distrustful of others that we can’t take anyone’s word for it anymore? Maybe this is a by-product of our hyper-connected, e-enabled world. We have too much information so we trust […]

Dear CMO: Let’s talk about competitive “blinders”. The ones you put on when you talk about “the competition” — the ones that say, “we know who our competitors are,” and fail to take into consideration the trivial, the comic, and the beneath-your-contempt minor players who don’t even qualify to hit your radar screen. Chimps with […]

Dear CMO: There are times in a career when things hum along smoothly. The machine is well-oiled, the team works together like a veteran kitchen staff, customers are happy (enough), and management is looking towards the future and not the back end of the current quarter. I’m not here to talk about times like these. […]