Sage Advice, LLC

Paul Sage's Marketing Work and Observations

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MARKETING COMMUNICATIONS LEADER skilled at planning, creating, implementing and measuring communications in consumer and business markets. Industry experience includes telecom, banking, utilities, business services, building materials and healthcare. Key Capabilities • Fractional Marketing Director • Marketing Communications Project Management • Marketing Research and Communications Measurement • Agency and Vendor Selection, Direction and Evaluation; Vendor Contract Optimization and Cost Reduction • Writing: Brand Definitions, Creative Briefs, Proposals, Online and Offline Content • Coaching and Training

  • What Mike Rhyner says every day around 3:30 on The Ticket (KTCK).

    The Old Grey Wolf says it five days a week, with professional fluidity and consistency, yet most of us P1s can’t recite more than a few words of it. It varies ever so slightly day to day, but here is the general script.

    Three thirty-three is our time. Thirty-three minutes past 3PM Central Standard time according to the tower of the friendly mercantile. The tuner is on America’s favorite radio station, Sportsradio 1310, The Ticket.

    Warmest greetings, Tickheads and Ticketchicks, it is Thursday, the 9th of March.

    Time to heed to, trice up, mill about smartly throughout the premises making certain every radio in sight is set to America’s favorite station for music and news and in doing whatever you must to ensure that this remains the case in perpetuity.

    This is Mike Rhyner, speaking to you today from the nurturing biosphere of the mothership, alongside the The Knox City knocker, the Terlingua comic, Dingu, Ty Walker, the great beast in his natural habitat and the dancing bear at first base getting things ready to roll with that Ticket Ticker this afternoon.

    At the helm, guiding us out to sea, sober with his hands on the wheel, the young gunslinger, David Mino.

    Becca will be along in just a bit with traffico, traffico, and I will be here, but right about now it is time for us to bring in the Cobra.

    For more of my gentle musings on The Ticket, see  https://paulsagemarketing.com/2013/01/24/my-best-brands-birthday/

    Rhyner

    Mike Rhyner, Greatness

  • How Elvis Met Nixon Is How Branding Leads to Sales

    Paul Sage - Marketing's avatarSage Advice, LLC


    Elvis meets Nixon 12 21 1970    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.

    Elvis Letter Page 1

    Transcript of letter from Elvis to President Nixon 12 21 1970

    Elvis wanted to meet with the President and he wanted the title and badge of Federal Agent for the Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs.  Elvis got everything he asked for.  By lunchtime.  That day.

    How did Elvis do it?

    THE BRAND:   By 1970, sixteen years into his show biz career, Elvis Presley had evolved into Elvis.  The bejeweled, cape-wearing, “See See Rider” singing, Vegas-playing Elvis.  Elvis was a brand that everybody recognized and many respected.   When Elvis showed up at the door — even the…

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  • Some Sage Advice

     

    A friend of mine was recently asked, “If you could have any career you wanted, what would you be doing?” My friend said, “After all I’ve done in the last 20 years, I still have no clue what career would make me happy?”

    My sage advice to him, and to anyone trying to answer this question, is to think back to the period in your life when you weren’t responsible for generating an income, say from ages 6 to 22. What did you like to do when nobody was telling you what to do or what you SHOULD do? When did that tuning fork go off in you heart? When did three or four hours pass so quickly you didn’t even look up? When were the times you surprised yourself and your peers that you could do something not everybody could do? For me those activities that resonated all had something to do with communication to an audience — writing, speaking, advertising, “slaying the great dragon of ambiguity” to help define and clarify something. What dragons do you like to slay?

  • Olá. Como vai?

    Screen Shot 2014-12-18 at 12.40.42 PMI’ve been getting a lot of Brazilian visitors to this blog recently. I don’t know why, but the stats don’t lie.

    “Obrigado” and “Feliz Natal” to my friends in Brazil.

    Abraços,

    Paulo

  • A half gallon of oxymoron

    FullSizeRender (1)

    Kroger sells a product they call “Fat Free Half & Half.” Half & Half is supposed to be half cream, half whole milk, with a butterfat content of about 12%. TWELVE PERCENT. What’s the story, Kroger?

    I invite spokespeople from Kroger, all members of the dairy industry, and anyone who has ever tried this product to comment.

  • Boo! I’m alive!

    Happy Halloween!  I didn’t fall off the blogosphere. I’ve just been mighty busy. Many irons in ye olde fyre.  I’ve added TEACHING to my resume in addition to “real world” work. Those who do also teach.

    I hope to share some thrilling Sage observations with you in November.  In the meantime, take a trip down memory lane with my three most popular posts from 2012-2014:

    #1 https://paulsagemarketing.com/2013/01/24/my-best-brands-birthday/

    #2 https://paulsagemarketing.com/2012/12/21/how-elvis-met-nixon-is-how-branding-leads-to-sales/

    #3 https://paulsagemarketing.com/2014/04/15/ozarka-is-made-in-texas-that-aint-natural/

    Have a safe night of bite-sized fun!

  • A unique selling proposition it is

    If you don’t live in Arkansas (and there’s a good chance you don’t) you’re missing the fun of Arkansas advertising.  Today in my fair city of Little Rock I was listening to a local radio station and the spokesman for a Chevrolet dealership pitched the Impala as “the car for the man who’s not trying to impress anybody.”

    I doubt that’s what the folks in Detroit had in mind for copy, but you have to admit it’s unique. Not unique in the way Rosser Reeves intended for a USP.  I’d bet nobody else positions it the way we do in Arkansas.  The 2014 Impala. Shown here in Razorback Red.

    The 2014 Chevy Impala. It's nothing special, and that's what's special about it.
    The 2014 Chevy Impala. It’s nothing special, and that’s what’s special about it.

     

  • It’s Academy Sports, NOT Sports Academy!

    Conroe store ACADEMYIts name is simple, its logo features a capital A, but too many people call it “Sports Academy.” WRONG!!  It’s Academy Sports. OK, officially Academy Sports + Outdoors (with a plus sign).  Maybe people confuse it with Sports Authority, a smaller competitor with little to no retail presence in my neck of the nation.  Drives me nuts. It’s a good store with good stuff.  Get it right.

    Have a nice day, and enjoy the 4th of July weekend, States United of America.

     

     

  • Have you Wordled lately?

    Paul''s Resume Wordle

    This is a Wordle (TM) word cloud of my resume.  Have you tried Wordle?  Play with it at http://www.wordle.net/   It’s a great tool for boiling a strategy document down to essential thoughts. Give it a try. Let me know if you need help. I can Wordle and chew gum at the same time.

  • Up in smoke. There went my Kebab/Philly/Mexican lunch.

    Last September I commented on a restaurant that was all over the menu board:

    https://paulsagemarketing.wordpress.com/2013/09/24/yadda-yadda-yadda-served-here/

    A bad stroke of luck for all you Kebab/Philly/Mexican and More fans.  Aladdin’s has turned to vapor. How ironic.Vapor House