Duty Free Canada is a group of retail stores that sell products to cross-border travellers free of tax and duty. They're located on the Canadian-side of the Canada-US border. The store owners have been striving to educate travellers, particularly Canadian travellers, that they can indeed stop
On February 17th, the American Marketing Association held a round table discussion on creating maximum social media impact for Small to Medium Sized Businesses (SMBs). I attended the lively discussion and took away a lot of insightful advice from the panelists. I’ve outlined some of
We expect too much of Google "Why isn't my site number one on Google?" is a popular question. Occasionally, it's because of poor content or mediocre meta-content, but usually it's because the site doesn't have a traffic building or awareness program behind it. The site is
Last night (Dec. 7th, 2010) the Marketing Planning Group of the American Marketing Association hosted a networking and learning event called Deciding the right mix in a new world of exploding choices. The fundamental question was this: how can marketers balance new and old media
OK. In the left corner we have a greying, slightly overweight fighter - his name is Mr. Impressions. In the right corner there's a cocky newcomer. She's clever – maybe too clever for her own good. Her name is Miss Social. At Beakbane we have been
The American Marketing Association is hosting a networking and learning event in Toronto on Dec. 7th. In the world of old connections determining the right marketing mix was more certain. Marketers had more control, understood the costs and could predict the impact of a campaign. However, social
There are few markets as brutally competitive as automobile retailing. There is excess manufacturing capacity with too many retailers selling identical products and fighting over easily aggravated consumers. This is an ideal testing ground for fresh and more disciplined approaches to marketing communications. The president of
My passion is flying. On weekends I get a thrill hopping into a little Cessna and wandering around the countryside at 4,000 feet. I wanted to share my passion with aspiring pilots, so in the summer I started a blog. From working with our clients I've
Mindcamp is an annual get-together for creative professionals held just North of Toronto. This year I facilitated a collaborative workshop on creative video to encourage participants to learn how to capitalize on this rapidly advancing mode of communication. We created this short video that answers
Google is an unbelievably successful company because of its clean implementation of new technologies. It is also successful because it is a savvy marketer. It does not follow the traditional paths of packaged goods marketers and yet, especially for a technology company, its communications are