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You Look Different.

Most people have never seen themselves as they really are. Your reflection in the mirror shows you the opposite of how you appear. Hair parted on the right, reflects as hair parted on the left. You see a spot on the right side of our face in reality it’s actually on the left.

I’ll take this one step further.

The other day someone shared a photo of me from a side profile.

“What! That cannot be me,” was my initial reaction.

Today the diet begins. (Leave me a comment and I’ll let you know how it goes.)

The same is true with business.

How executives sees their business is rarely the same way as customers do. Yet they continue to micro manage and dictate the marketing they feel is best for their company.

I will never profess to know more about your business than you, but what I do learn and know is from the viewpoint of your customer.

In a recent client presentation we presented a plan to get a smaller hotel/casino noticed. It included the introduction of a character spokesperson whowould cut through the clutter and establish himself as local pop culture. The client smiled, laughed and promptly nixed the entire campaign. “Just give me something digital, and keep it cheap.” he replied.

The digital campaign was client dictated and safe. Beige walls with oatmeal carpet safe. It’s the kind of ads that bombard you throughout the day and you strive to ignore. When it was over, the analytics showed that the ads were “successful” although the client didn’t see anything different.

Truly effective advertising has to be of interest to the consumer, and it has to be produced through their eyes. If you’re a business owner, stop producing ads you think we should see. Like family vacation videos, they’re just not that interesting.