Brand Differentiation Roundup: 4 Must Read Lessons

Tune in every week for a roundup of hand-picked brand lessons, tips and advice that can be applied to your brand.

Is Your Business At Risk Of Being Commoditized? Time For A Branded Differentiator

The more mature a company is, the harder it becomes to differentiate sufficiently in the marketplace. Complacency can set in, it can be tough to change course in time or to recognize when competitors are actually chipping away at the foundations until its too late. Read More >

When We Stop Lying To Ourselves, What Are We Really Trying To Accomplish?

Here’s what we should be doing every day in marketing:

Learning everything we can about our products, services, customers and competitors in order to develop the most effective, efficient and measurable strategies in line with our unified vision in order to create demand and preference for our brand at a profit. Read More >

5 Reasons Airbnb Is Here to Stay

With more than 1,000,000 listings in 34,000 cities across 190 countries, Airbnb has enjoyed explosive growth since their humble beginnings in 2008. Valued today (pre-IPO) at more than $25 billion, this nascent company dwarfs the market valuations of Hyatt, Marriott and Starwood, and is valued at “just” $2 billion short of Hilton Hotels, a company founded almost 100 years ago. Airbnb has 800 employees, Hilton has 152,000. Read More >

The Reason My Business Almost Failed

While most businesses fail because they ultimately run out of cash, we should be most concerned with why they run out of cash. When I ran Barkeeper in Ireland in the mid-2000s, there was a point where we didn’t know if we could afford to continue. Our burn rate was unsustainable, mostly because we had maxed out all our credit cards, and until we received an investment, it looked like we were going to run out of cash and fade into oblivion. Read More >