I have an admission to make: I have more podcasts than I can reasonably keep up with. And, that was compounded a couple months ago when an editor turned me on to Wiretap, the Jonathan Goldstein podcast from the CBC. I’ve known Goldstein’s work from “This American Life”, and really enjoyed it. So, it’s no surprise that I’m a regular listener, although a delayed one.
Having just listened to the episode called “Envy” (a re-run, apparently), I was struck by the podcast’s revisit of the Cain and Abel story from Genesis. But I take a bit of issue with settling on envy as the core issue in the story. To me, it's never been a story about envy, but about attitude.
Check it. Here it is, as told in “The Message” translation from Chapter 4 of Genesis:
Adam slept with Eve his wife. She conceived and had Cain. She said, “I’ve gotten a man, with GOD’s help!”
2 Then she had another baby, Abel. Abel was a herdsman and Cain a farmer.
3-5 Time passed. Cain brought an offering to GOD from the produce of his farm. Abel also brought an offering, but from the firstborn animals of his herd, choice cuts of meat. GOD liked Abel and his offering, but Cain and his offering didn’t get his approval. Cain lost his temper and went into a sulk.
6-7 GOD spoke to Cain: “Why this tantrum? Why the sulking? If you do well, won’t you be accepted? And if you don’t do well, sin is lying in wait for you, ready to pounce; it’s out to get you, you’ve got to master it.”
8 Cain had words with his brother. They were out in the field; Cain came at Abel his brother and killed him.
9 GOD said to Cain, “Where is Abel your brother?”
He said, “How should I know? Am I his babysitter?”
The rest of the interchange is God telling Cain to hit the sticks, as punishment.
Notice, God takes immediate issue with Cain over his attitude, which he warns him to get in check before it balloons into something worse. Cain commits after he’s been warned.
So, let’s get this straight. The first 2 lessons for humanity in the Bible can be summed up as:
1. Follow the rules, or else (Adam & Eve)
2. Watch your attitude, or else (Cain & Abel)
Couldn't these rules also apply to every office / work situation you’ve ever encountered?
When you join an organization, you get a decent amount of education into the office’s rules / code of conduct / cultural norms. But, attitude is the one thing you bring with you, and one of the first things you’ll get judged on – fairly or otherwise.
I say “fairly or otherwise” because humans are human… Sometimes we read other people correctly, but often, we don’t. And I think it’s right for all of us to remember that the next time we’re prepared to rush to judgment. I mean, after all, if God can give Cain a chance to straighten up, surely you can cut the people around you a bit of slack, too.
I'll go one step further for managers...
I think it's a good idea to ask yourself if you might be fueling a team member's attitude problem without realizing it. Chances are you've seen managers cop bad attitudes of their own, and, subsequently, poison the attitudes of their teams. (Remember: If attitudes are infectious, then a manager's attitude can quickly become an epidemic.) Employees have a choice to govern their own attitude, sure. But we all know that people reflect the behavior of the people they answer to. Xenophon wrote, "As the leaders are, so shall the men be." I'm butchering the proper wording of the quote, sure, but you get the idea.
Or, there's another possibility you may not want to face: Could you be antagonizing someone into the wrong attitude? After all, attitudes are two-way streets. Managers can forget that good opinions and trust and mutual respect need to flow both ways in an office environment. You can't be effective without them, and neither can your team. If you come off as not showing any of those attributes to your team, or individual contributors, then attitude troubles shouldn't surprise you when they surface. Is there someone on your team you don't trust? Are you threatened by a direct report? Do you have unresolved issues with an employee? If you answer yes to these questions, and they're exhibiting a bad attitude, maybe you BOTH need a talking to.
Whatever the case, remember: Follow the rules and be conscious of how your attitude is perceived.
Now, if you want to understand envy better - and enjoy a fun, closing twist - I think Todd Snider’s “In the Beginning” is a pretty solid vehicle…
Wednesday, March 27, 2013
Monday, May 25, 2009
Is it that time of year again?
AdAge has an interesting open letter from Brian Steinberg (found here) to advertisers and media buyers, warning of the dangers of waiting for the scatter market later this year. And, I gotta say, is it Upfront season again, already?
While I agree with most of Steinberg's points, it seems like we go through this back and forth every year. You know, the inevitable posturing from both sides of the negotiating table that always bleeds into the trades. Like Canadian geese heading north, it's the sure sign that warmer weather is near.
My sarcasm aside, I invite you to read Steinberg's letter. At least for those of us in local TV, it can be nice to hear some reminder that TV isn't dead. It's just going through a transition. (In fact, the best metaphor I've heard yet was on IFC's Media Project last night. Tom Bettag compared the current "crisis" to a forest fire, which ultimately leaves the forest richer, and clears the way for new growth. I like that image.)
While I agree with most of Steinberg's points, it seems like we go through this back and forth every year. You know, the inevitable posturing from both sides of the negotiating table that always bleeds into the trades. Like Canadian geese heading north, it's the sure sign that warmer weather is near.
My sarcasm aside, I invite you to read Steinberg's letter. At least for those of us in local TV, it can be nice to hear some reminder that TV isn't dead. It's just going through a transition. (In fact, the best metaphor I've heard yet was on IFC's Media Project last night. Tom Bettag compared the current "crisis" to a forest fire, which ultimately leaves the forest richer, and clears the way for new growth. I like that image.)
Sunday, March 15, 2009
It's About Value Creation
Umair Haque of the HBR has interesting take on the re-jiggering going on in the economy today. I invite you to read it, because, at its heart, Haque's point is about a simple, economic fundamental: value creation. And I think his point applies to what's happening in broadcast TV today and how we got where we are.
Value creation, in broadcast TV, has suffered in the past decade or so. Consumers wanted programming, but started finding ways not to "pay" with time spent watching commercials. The networks, in response, cut costs, by slashing budgets and production.
Then, at some point, the cost-cutting mentality started taking "The Clear" and went on a 'roid-fueled rampage.
But what if, instead of focusing on costs, the broadcast nets focused on value creation again? When you get right down to it, don't audiences make it clear that they still attach value to good programming? People still watch dramas and comedies. People still want local and national news. People still choose to engage with talk shows.
In short, people enjoy television. More specifically, people enjoy GOOD television.
This is not new. It's the foundation of our business model. But it seems the cable networks are holding fast to that fundamental truth better than the broadcast nets are. And I think that's put the broadcast nets in the bed they lie in now.
It's fine to understand the cost-pressures. It'd be silly to ignore the hit from new technologies. But the cornerstone of the business model - the value created through good TV - hasn't changed. All that's needed is a re-commitment to that fundamental (or ideal, as Haque puts it).
Value creation, in broadcast TV, has suffered in the past decade or so. Consumers wanted programming, but started finding ways not to "pay" with time spent watching commercials. The networks, in response, cut costs, by slashing budgets and production.
Then, at some point, the cost-cutting mentality started taking "The Clear" and went on a 'roid-fueled rampage.
But what if, instead of focusing on costs, the broadcast nets focused on value creation again? When you get right down to it, don't audiences make it clear that they still attach value to good programming? People still watch dramas and comedies. People still want local and national news. People still choose to engage with talk shows.
In short, people enjoy television. More specifically, people enjoy GOOD television.
This is not new. It's the foundation of our business model. But it seems the cable networks are holding fast to that fundamental truth better than the broadcast nets are. And I think that's put the broadcast nets in the bed they lie in now.
It's fine to understand the cost-pressures. It'd be silly to ignore the hit from new technologies. But the cornerstone of the business model - the value created through good TV - hasn't changed. All that's needed is a re-commitment to that fundamental (or ideal, as Haque puts it).
Saturday, March 14, 2009
Damned if you do...
Damned if you don't.
Variety reports on the self-imposed squeeze from TV programming offered via the web.
Variety reports on the self-imposed squeeze from TV programming offered via the web.
Friday, January 2, 2009
A Personal Year in Review - 2008
A change of the calendar always indicates a good time to take stock of things. So, I'm taking stock here of the work I've done over the year, as a Producer, as a Writer, and as a Brand Manager. Most of this is stuff that I can claim some success with; others have tales of regret attached to them. In either case, here goes...
The year started with an easy call. Our local sports guy, former Philadelphia Eagle Vai Sikahema, had signed on to do a charity boxing event, rekindling an old athletic pursuit of his. (Later in the year, he would go on to fight Jose Canseco and knock him out in just minutes.) To play up the PR from the charity event, one of our gifted cameramen, Matt Maiorano got some beautiful footage of Vai's training. How could we not cut a spot from it?
Next, I moved on to a new sell for our Weather Guy, Glenn "Hurricane" Schwartz. The market was about to see a comeback from a previously popular weatherman at one of our competitors. We wanted to lay out why Glenn was the man to go to, and we decided that the best way to do it was to play up the obvious difference between Glenn and the "comeback guy". The most obvious difference was their respective looks; Glenn is a geek, while the "comeback guy" is Mr. Slick. We decided to keep the spots simple, cheap and unabashedly to the point. (These were inspired by the 42 Below vodka online ads. Careful, not SFW.)
In 2007, we had begun a new branding tack for Glenn, inspired by the idea of the Target Bullseye. As you may have noticed in the previous videos, Glenn always wears a bowtie. It's his signature wardrobe feature. So, we wondered if there wasn't a way to just brand him with the bowtie. You know, just a symbol that could represent him, our weather, and our station. It was just a hunch, but we have been surprised by how well it's broken through. Glenn came to us with a nickname, but we're making that nickname nearly obsolete with these spots. He now gets emails to "The Bowtie". He shows up for appearances at schools, and the kids are all wearing bowties. Now we just keep feeding the beast. Here's some of this year's installments.
This last one requires a little explanation. I talk with Glenn quite a bit. I find that it helps me write scripts for him, as I get his "voice" in my head. It helps, also, in discovering sells for our weather product I wouldn't have found otherwise. Once, I just asked him to tell me how he got into weather. Most times, that story would end with the following bullet points: Journalism school, reporting of some other type, moving around a lot, falling into weather. With Glenn, however, it's been a straight shot. This is what he intended. So, there was a spot just waiting there. The fact that he grew up in our market only helped; note the references to his high school (one of the area's largest), Herb Clarke (the market's first weather superstar), and his studying at Penn State. (The look of this spot was inspired by a spot I'd seen at Promax in 2007; an animated spot for "Pulp Fiction" using the screenplay's text to make the shape of a gun. This look has also been used for ads for the L.A. Times. We liked the idea of his life's story creating the icon of the bowtie.) A big thanks to Derek Robinson for animating this.
I saw a great spot from WPTV for some kind of plastic surgery once that I filed away in my head. It was so simple, and yet so entertaining, that I thought I might shamelessly recreate it someday, given the right story. That story came during one of our sweeps months, when the delicate topic of vaginal reconstruction was going to be addressed by our health franchise. Obviously, we can't name the topic in the promos - too fraught with peril. So, many thanks to WPTV for letting us emulate them on this one with their blessing.
In the late spring, our news department got the capability of doing a morning traffic ticker. It was a no-brainer to roll with it, as the dominant station in the market had adopted a "time sell" for it's traffic reports -you know, "every 5 minutes", or "traffic on the 2's". To boot, they had developed a catchy jingle for their "time sell" - a little song about it being "just 6 minutes" between traffic checks. So, we figured it was a smart move to position our sell as "no waiting involved" (although it's not completely the case), and poking a little fun at the 6 WHOLE MINUTES of our competitors. Again, we went for shamelessly in-your-face...
After making the point clear, we went for a little fun with our morning team. Here we paid homage to the Law & Order: CI on USA spot.
One more attempt at laughs while selling the same feature of our morning newscast. I wondered, what if we considered other things you could do to save time in the morning, but the options were distasteful compared to just watching our show? I have one regret on this spot: I wish I had written the copy "Better ways to save time than waiting around for a traffic report.." It would've worked better, but that's hindsight....
The summer brought the Olympic games and my biggest miss of the year. For the Olympics, we wanted a new set of image spots that would re-address the philosophy behind our slogan, "Turn to 10". A couple years back, I had written a series of monologues for our talent that outlined the philosophy, and they were received well. I've been fortunate enough to have viewers recite the monologues back to me because they found the message so clear and positive.
I set out to catch lightning in a bottle again, but through different means. This time around, rather than write more scripts, I wanted the talent to enumerate the brand philosophy in their own way. Now that's usually a mistake because what you tend to get is platitudes when you do that, and I'm violently opposed to feel good mush that doesn't mean anything. So, instead, I asked two members of our news team - Tracy and Glenn - to interview each other on their work, and how they pursue the brand philosophy in their work. We forbade them to speak to each other about the interview beforehand. I wanted unadulterated answers, reactions, and all the rest. And when we rolled tape, they delivered better than I could have hoped. The thing I'm proudest of on this project is how well Tracy and Glenn spoke to the brand.
The shortcomings here are entirely my own. Viewers started emailing us about hating the spots, and they had to be pulled. (Let me tell you... You haven't lived until emails flood the station calling for the termination of "whichever idiot came up with those spots.") After asking some creative friends to perform an autopsy, I see where I went wrong. I should've picked a less contrived location than our news set. I should've let the edits breathe more; I cut it so tight, that viewers thought this was a scripted conversation (again, a testament to how well Tracy and Glenn delivered for me). B-roll would've helped; some viewers just found looking at Tracy and Glenn the whole time awkward. Lastly, these premiered during the games, when a giant segment of the audience watching our air was not our usual viewer... I have to believe they reacted negatively because they were pre-disposed to.
In any case, we loved the spots in-house when we were done with them. And, I'm still convinced there's something here. For better or worse, here's one of them.
In an effort to tie-in with NBC's new "Chime In" campaign, we produced a series of ID's where we just had our talent play the NBC chimes, and tried to get their personalities to come through. My favorite is our morning weather guy, Bill Henley - his smart alek persona shows. Culley McGuire pulled these off for us.
Election 2008 gave us a nice chance to look civically minded. We rounded the news team together for a shoot in our department's newly finished studio. I can claim responsibility for little more than the script here; the rest of the credit for this spot goes to Joe DiGerolamo and Culley McGuire. I really like that this has a fresh, different look for a news team / community spot.
As you can probably tell by now, we focus promotion on our weather brand. Our station has a history as the market's weather player, although the competition has come after us over the years. Therefore, we've had to put considerable effort into making our weather sells as "sticky" as possible.
One of the annual opportunities we get is with Glenn's Long-Range Winter Forecast, where he predicts what kind of a winter it will be. He goes so far as to include snow totals, and other specifics.
In years past, we've turned the topical promo for this one special forecast into an event. Two years ago, we built a promo for this forecast wherein Glenn had superpowers. Last year, we turned Glenn into a mentalist with a gift of future sight in a spoof of the promos for the NBC show "Phenomenon". This year, we decided that it might be best to poke fun at those previous portraits we painted by engaging in some simple topical humor.
As the year came to a close, we finally went HD. As luck would have it, we simultaneously premiered a new and improved weather system on our air. A little advance panning made it possible for us to premiere these spots same day as the switch-over. There's not much to explain here, except to point out the "Heroes" shot. Inspired by a "Heroes" poster hanging in our offices, Joe DiGerolamo came through again here. Each of the talent is shot on a green screen, separately, with a fan to match the blowing winds in the spot. Special mention to Mat Mezer for the camera and lighting work. Here is one spot from the campaign.
It's not often you get look back at the work you've done recently and measure its worth, consider its shortcomings, and make choices about what to continue. All in all, it's been a decent year of work.
I hope 2009 brings you good work to enjoy.
The year started with an easy call. Our local sports guy, former Philadelphia Eagle Vai Sikahema, had signed on to do a charity boxing event, rekindling an old athletic pursuit of his. (Later in the year, he would go on to fight Jose Canseco and knock him out in just minutes.) To play up the PR from the charity event, one of our gifted cameramen, Matt Maiorano got some beautiful footage of Vai's training. How could we not cut a spot from it?
Next, I moved on to a new sell for our Weather Guy, Glenn "Hurricane" Schwartz. The market was about to see a comeback from a previously popular weatherman at one of our competitors. We wanted to lay out why Glenn was the man to go to, and we decided that the best way to do it was to play up the obvious difference between Glenn and the "comeback guy". The most obvious difference was their respective looks; Glenn is a geek, while the "comeback guy" is Mr. Slick. We decided to keep the spots simple, cheap and unabashedly to the point. (These were inspired by the 42 Below vodka online ads. Careful, not SFW.)
In 2007, we had begun a new branding tack for Glenn, inspired by the idea of the Target Bullseye. As you may have noticed in the previous videos, Glenn always wears a bowtie. It's his signature wardrobe feature. So, we wondered if there wasn't a way to just brand him with the bowtie. You know, just a symbol that could represent him, our weather, and our station. It was just a hunch, but we have been surprised by how well it's broken through. Glenn came to us with a nickname, but we're making that nickname nearly obsolete with these spots. He now gets emails to "The Bowtie". He shows up for appearances at schools, and the kids are all wearing bowties. Now we just keep feeding the beast. Here's some of this year's installments.
This last one requires a little explanation. I talk with Glenn quite a bit. I find that it helps me write scripts for him, as I get his "voice" in my head. It helps, also, in discovering sells for our weather product I wouldn't have found otherwise. Once, I just asked him to tell me how he got into weather. Most times, that story would end with the following bullet points: Journalism school, reporting of some other type, moving around a lot, falling into weather. With Glenn, however, it's been a straight shot. This is what he intended. So, there was a spot just waiting there. The fact that he grew up in our market only helped; note the references to his high school (one of the area's largest), Herb Clarke (the market's first weather superstar), and his studying at Penn State. (The look of this spot was inspired by a spot I'd seen at Promax in 2007; an animated spot for "Pulp Fiction" using the screenplay's text to make the shape of a gun. This look has also been used for ads for the L.A. Times. We liked the idea of his life's story creating the icon of the bowtie.) A big thanks to Derek Robinson for animating this.
I saw a great spot from WPTV for some kind of plastic surgery once that I filed away in my head. It was so simple, and yet so entertaining, that I thought I might shamelessly recreate it someday, given the right story. That story came during one of our sweeps months, when the delicate topic of vaginal reconstruction was going to be addressed by our health franchise. Obviously, we can't name the topic in the promos - too fraught with peril. So, many thanks to WPTV for letting us emulate them on this one with their blessing.
In the late spring, our news department got the capability of doing a morning traffic ticker. It was a no-brainer to roll with it, as the dominant station in the market had adopted a "time sell" for it's traffic reports -you know, "every 5 minutes", or "traffic on the 2's". To boot, they had developed a catchy jingle for their "time sell" - a little song about it being "just 6 minutes" between traffic checks. So, we figured it was a smart move to position our sell as "no waiting involved" (although it's not completely the case), and poking a little fun at the 6 WHOLE MINUTES of our competitors. Again, we went for shamelessly in-your-face...
After making the point clear, we went for a little fun with our morning team. Here we paid homage to the Law & Order: CI on USA spot.
One more attempt at laughs while selling the same feature of our morning newscast. I wondered, what if we considered other things you could do to save time in the morning, but the options were distasteful compared to just watching our show? I have one regret on this spot: I wish I had written the copy "Better ways to save time than waiting around for a traffic report.." It would've worked better, but that's hindsight....
The summer brought the Olympic games and my biggest miss of the year. For the Olympics, we wanted a new set of image spots that would re-address the philosophy behind our slogan, "Turn to 10". A couple years back, I had written a series of monologues for our talent that outlined the philosophy, and they were received well. I've been fortunate enough to have viewers recite the monologues back to me because they found the message so clear and positive.
I set out to catch lightning in a bottle again, but through different means. This time around, rather than write more scripts, I wanted the talent to enumerate the brand philosophy in their own way. Now that's usually a mistake because what you tend to get is platitudes when you do that, and I'm violently opposed to feel good mush that doesn't mean anything. So, instead, I asked two members of our news team - Tracy and Glenn - to interview each other on their work, and how they pursue the brand philosophy in their work. We forbade them to speak to each other about the interview beforehand. I wanted unadulterated answers, reactions, and all the rest. And when we rolled tape, they delivered better than I could have hoped. The thing I'm proudest of on this project is how well Tracy and Glenn spoke to the brand.
The shortcomings here are entirely my own. Viewers started emailing us about hating the spots, and they had to be pulled. (Let me tell you... You haven't lived until emails flood the station calling for the termination of "whichever idiot came up with those spots.") After asking some creative friends to perform an autopsy, I see where I went wrong. I should've picked a less contrived location than our news set. I should've let the edits breathe more; I cut it so tight, that viewers thought this was a scripted conversation (again, a testament to how well Tracy and Glenn delivered for me). B-roll would've helped; some viewers just found looking at Tracy and Glenn the whole time awkward. Lastly, these premiered during the games, when a giant segment of the audience watching our air was not our usual viewer... I have to believe they reacted negatively because they were pre-disposed to.
In any case, we loved the spots in-house when we were done with them. And, I'm still convinced there's something here. For better or worse, here's one of them.
In an effort to tie-in with NBC's new "Chime In" campaign, we produced a series of ID's where we just had our talent play the NBC chimes, and tried to get their personalities to come through. My favorite is our morning weather guy, Bill Henley - his smart alek persona shows. Culley McGuire pulled these off for us.
Election 2008 gave us a nice chance to look civically minded. We rounded the news team together for a shoot in our department's newly finished studio. I can claim responsibility for little more than the script here; the rest of the credit for this spot goes to Joe DiGerolamo and Culley McGuire. I really like that this has a fresh, different look for a news team / community spot.
As you can probably tell by now, we focus promotion on our weather brand. Our station has a history as the market's weather player, although the competition has come after us over the years. Therefore, we've had to put considerable effort into making our weather sells as "sticky" as possible.
One of the annual opportunities we get is with Glenn's Long-Range Winter Forecast, where he predicts what kind of a winter it will be. He goes so far as to include snow totals, and other specifics.
In years past, we've turned the topical promo for this one special forecast into an event. Two years ago, we built a promo for this forecast wherein Glenn had superpowers. Last year, we turned Glenn into a mentalist with a gift of future sight in a spoof of the promos for the NBC show "Phenomenon". This year, we decided that it might be best to poke fun at those previous portraits we painted by engaging in some simple topical humor.
As the year came to a close, we finally went HD. As luck would have it, we simultaneously premiered a new and improved weather system on our air. A little advance panning made it possible for us to premiere these spots same day as the switch-over. There's not much to explain here, except to point out the "Heroes" shot. Inspired by a "Heroes" poster hanging in our offices, Joe DiGerolamo came through again here. Each of the talent is shot on a green screen, separately, with a fan to match the blowing winds in the spot. Special mention to Mat Mezer for the camera and lighting work. Here is one spot from the campaign.
It's not often you get look back at the work you've done recently and measure its worth, consider its shortcomings, and make choices about what to continue. All in all, it's been a decent year of work.
I hope 2009 brings you good work to enjoy.
Sunday, December 28, 2008
Check Out ChangeThis
Stumbled across ChangeThis while Googling something I wanted to share with a co-worker.
ChangeThis is a "way station" for authors and publishers looking to share the main themes of their business books. They condense their main themes down to an easily digestible PDF - almost like you're getting the Powerpoint, lecture version of the book.
And, no, it's not just some unknown writers on here. I was surprised to find works from the likes of Seth Godin, John Kotter and David Maister.
So, if you're short on time, you're sharing some ideas with co-workers, or want to sample a book before you run out and by the full text, check out ChangeThis. Nice resource.
ChangeThis is a "way station" for authors and publishers looking to share the main themes of their business books. They condense their main themes down to an easily digestible PDF - almost like you're getting the Powerpoint, lecture version of the book.
And, no, it's not just some unknown writers on here. I was surprised to find works from the likes of Seth Godin, John Kotter and David Maister.
So, if you're short on time, you're sharing some ideas with co-workers, or want to sample a book before you run out and by the full text, check out ChangeThis. Nice resource.
Be On the Lookout for an Epidemic
I was trolling my Google Reader feed this morning when I came across a year-end wrap-up of books at John Moore's Brand Autopsy blog. One of his Top 10 Must Reads is a book by Lucas Conley, "Obsessive Branding Disorder".
And, after reading John's breakdown of the book, I fear we're about to experience a wave of OBD sweep through our industry.
Conley's tough on the concept of branding; too tough, I think. But the salient take away, in my mind, is that branding can be corrupted, turned into a cure-all, a religion of sorts.
If a product is defective or deficient, some people can start to believe that it can be fixed by branding. And that never works, not in the long term.
My fear stems from the rapid changes going through the TV industry right now. Everyone is so concerned with cutting costs, and making it through some tough quarters ahead, that we can very easily lose sight of the product.
TV is a capital intensive business; it's why new players don't just pop into the game. When capital dries up, however, what can you really afford to live without? And how much can your brand make up for, or afford to give up? These questions need to be kept front of mind as we make tough choices about our businesses.
Also, we need to be prepared as the brand managers for our respective organizations to deal with the unrealistic expectations (both our own, and of other managers) of what branding can do. Audiences are smarter than we might give them credit for. They can tell when a product is compromised.
We have to be ready to maintain our products' health - but that means that we have to fight for the product as much as we fight for the promotion. One cannot thrive without the other. They are inseparable. If not one else in our organizations remembers that, we brand managers must.
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