Note to CMO: WOMMA, Authenticity and Personal Branding

Dear CMO: Stop me if you’ve heard this one before. Branding is something that goes beyond ad copy – you must be your brand, live your brand, deliver on your brand, and not forget any of the previous three things at the peril of your professional life. Look at our friends at Sony – flogging […]


Note to CMO: On Advice

Dear CMO: Can I give you a piece of advice? Stop taking so much advice. Really, you don’t need to know that a captain of industry attributes his success to his dogged determination. That he truly believes that, “you need to be true to yourself.” Of course, he doesn’t know much about you, your problem, […]


Note to CMO: Whacked Upside Your Strategic Head

Dear CMO: I always knew cows were the enemy. This, from a soon to be published report from the UN, as reported in the UK‘s Independent: A United Nations report has identified the world’s rapidly growing herds of cattle as the greatest threat to the climate, forests and wildlife… livestock are responsible for 18 per […]


Note to CMO: All the Good Things About Piracy

Dear CMO: Lots and lots of talk flying around the blogosphere about word of mouth, about user generated content, all swirling around the concept of “letting go of your brand.” Sure, it’s all scary stuff, but I think we’ve covered this ground already. So let’s take it one step further. Suppose your product is digital. […]


Note to CMO: CGM and the Defense of Amateur Hour

Dear CMO: Like blogging for business, “Consumer Generated Media”, or CGM for fans of the TLA (three letter acronym), has become the haute buzzword of the day. CGM will kill the agency model as we know it today. Agency senior management publicly decries the spread of CGM, calling it all varieties of nasty words. Pundits […]