The argument for increasing your costs.
Increasing your costs to deliver greater value to customers is often a winning strategy, particularly when competitors are reducing costs, and it becomes noticeable.
Trust is broken, and those who had it, broke it.
Trust has been trashed. Governments, institutions, and entire communities have eroded it for decades. The decline started in the late ’60s and has not slowed. We are heading into an election in a few months. Last time, both major parties barely scraped a primary vote...
Choice outcomes are optimised by ‘impersonal dissent.’
When most people hear the word dissent, they think, troublemaker. And sure, dissent can ruffle feathers. It challenges the status quo, pokes at comfort zones, and often triggers defensiveness or knee-jerk loyalty to "the way we've always done it." But...
A marketer’s explanation of the ‘Rule of 72’.
The Rule of 72 is a 'rule of thumb' calculation used to quickly estimate how long it will take for an investment to double in value, given a fixed annual rate of return. It was first introduced by Italian mathematician Luca Pacioli in 1494, a...
Will you embrace the new competitive sledgehammer?
Sledgehammers in skilled hands can be both a significant tool of productivity, and a destructive force. AI is the newest sledgehammer on the commercial and personal block. It gives everyone the opportunity to write a blog, book, opera, make a movie,...
DeepSeek: the pin that burst the AI bubble or an existential threat?
The tech news of the decade blew up on Monday January 27, 2025. Nvidia, the darling stock of the AI revolution dropped six hundred billion (17%) in market capitalisation in one day. This is the biggest one day loss in stock market history. It sparked a selloff...
Australia Day 2025: A tipping point?
John Maynard Keynes once said, “The difficulty lies not so much in developing new ideas as in escaping from old ones.” On this Australia Day, it feels particularly apt as we continue to grapple ineffectively with deeply embedded issues that requires systemic...
Sonic branding suddenly made easy.
Close your eyes. Now think of the sound that happens when you open Netflix or HBO, the cello riff at the opening of Game of Thrones, the McDonalds 'ba dada boop ba' that ends every ad. You can 'hear' them in your mind, they are an unambiguous reminder...
The three perspectives of Strategic thinking you’re probably Ignoring
'Strategic thinking' is that thing most managers claim to do. Often their effort amounts to little more than scheduling next year's budget with a 5% increase across the board. It's like preparing for a cross-country road trip by only checking your rearview...
If you want to drive profit, you need to master price.
Small improvements in average price drive large improvements in profitability. Do the numbers. The normal expectation in consumer markets is that volumes will increase when you promote. Usually they do, but that period is usually followed by a period of...