Paul Sage – Marketing

Marketing Observations with some Sage Advice

Category: Brand Strategy

  • Today is College Colors Day.   http://www.collegecolorsday.com/   It looks like an event cooked up to sell more NCAA-licensed merchandise.  An incremental lift in t-shirt sales on this first weekend of college football.  Group shots of people wearing the names of their schools in the workplace are scattered across social media.  Lots of “my school can beat up…

  • Stock photography in marketing communications: It’s pointless.  It’s awful.  It’s pointawfuless. There’s an old saying in advertising agencies and other purveyors of promotion production:  “Good. Fast. Cheap. Pick any two.” Stock photography is cheap and fast.  But it’s not always good. I bought this package of Kroger potato chips because they were half the price…

  • Yesterday on Slate.com, writer Matthew J.X. Malady went into great detail to tell us how uncomfortable the word “moist” makes many people feel. http://www.slate.com/articles/life/the_good_word/2013/04/word_aversion_hate_moist_slacks_crevice_why_do_people_hate_words.single.html In “Why Do We Hate Certain Words? The curious phenomenon of word aversion,” Malady defines word aversion as “seemingly pedestrian, inoffensive words driving some people up the wall.” He explains that…

  • “Zelig” is a treasure of a movie.  Woody Allen directed and starred in this 1983 masterpiece mockumentary that told the story of Leonard Zelig, a man whose body, voice and personality would change in the presence of the people surrounding him.  Leonard Zelig was a chameleon, a total conformist – everything to everybody with no…

  • My favorite brand turns 19 today. My favorite brand is not a car, or a beer, or a coffee or a computer company. My favorite brand is a radio station. Not some fancy subscription satellite or heuristically customizable internet station, but just a regular terrestrial radio station. I’m talking about The Ticket. KTCK. Sportsradio 1310, Dallas. And…

  • Maybe you’ve heard the story.  Maybe you’ve seen the photos. In case you haven’t, here’s the recap: Forty-two years ago today, early in the morning of December 21, 1970, Elvis Presley showed up, unannounced, at the gates of the White House to deliver a letter he had written to President Richard Nixon. Transcript of letter…