Tag Archives: Messages

There’s a traditional Japanese proverb that says “The nail that stands out is quickly hammered down.” For generations, conformity has been a societal standard in Japan.

The funny thing is, it’s not that different in American business. More companies, large and small, are comfortable looking like all the others and doing things the way they’ve always been done. Breaking away from tradition is something one dare not do for risk of offending someone, or making the folks in the back offices uncomfortable.

To that, I say, Poppycock, balderdash, bull-pucky!

Every once in a great while, I’ll see some marketing effort that is truly exceptional, even edgy – and I’ll contact the marketer and ask about the results. Almost all tell me that the effort was successful and helped them stand out in their marketplace.

Do they get complaints? Yes, some…but mostly they get new business, so it’s worth the risk. And this has also been our experience. When an advertiser Dares to be Different, they get noticed, and sales commonly start to follow. Which is why our own motto, Dare to be Different, has been on our lips since we began in the 1990s.

And the funny thing is, it doesn’t take much to be different and get noticed.

Take our Red Shoes, which we always wear to conventions. You might say it’s our walking trademark, but really, it’s just our putting our own philosophy where our feet are.

People we’ve never met, never spoken with, stop us as we walk down the aisles wanting to know about our red shoes. When we walk along the booths, we’re always noticing how people’s eyes suddenly dart downward to our shoes and they smile. Friends will see us all the way across the hall because our red shoes stand out, even in a crowd. We even had one guy tell us, “I’ve now seen you walking down this aisle four times – but I never noticed anyone else!”

All this from just wearing a pair of red shoes. What does that tell you?

Different is visible. Different is memorable. Different is interesting.

So, the question is… will you Dare to be Different to capture attention and get new business? Or is your own comfort zone holding you back? As I always like to say, if you don’t know the answer to this, your audience certainly does.

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Dan Katz is president, creative director of LA ads. To discuss your thoughts with Dan on this blog or any marketing matters, email via this link, or visit www.LAadsMarketing.com.  You can also connect with Dan on LinkedIn. See agency work via this link.

Whether you love Donald Trump or you hate him, there’s one thing you’ll have to agree on:  He broke every rule of presidential politics…and won!  The guy has said things, the guy has done things that every pundit said would lose him the election.  And he won!!!

So what’s going on here?  What’s the message that a company like yours must take away from the last year and a half?

It’s that all the traditional rules and all the conventional thinking about marketing no longer matter – in fact they might actually work against you.  The climate in the country is CHANGE.

IN with bold.  IN with audacious.  IN with clean sweeps.  And OUT with the Status Quo!

We’ve all heard the phrase, maybe within your organization or department, “That’s not the way we do it here.”  In the case of now-President Trump, he certainly didn’t buy into that line. This phrase is used to defend against change. It’s the easy way of avoiding having to change or embrace better alternatives. But the problem with defending “the way we’ve always done it” is it keeps us from doing something new. It keeps us from having to change.

Change forces us to take a position. Taking positions expose us to potential criticism and critique and that makes us uncomfortable. So, to keep from being criticized and being uncomfortable we do the “same old stuff.”  But Trump has changed all that.  The new rules in this post-election world are: Dare to go on the offensive.  Dare to do things differently.  Dare to look forward.  Dare to be audacious.  Dare to risk failure.

In fact, Donald Trump stole a line right out of our hymn book: “Dare to be Different,” and now he’s sitting in the oval office.  The Status Quo is over, whether you like it or not.  And if you’re not ready to change, well, ask Hilary Clinton how it feels to be on the outside of the White House looking in.

The rules are being re-written even as we speak.  So I’m breaking one of my own and putting our agency pitch video right here at the end – because it’s all about change.

I’m Rolf Gutknecht and I approve this message!

Rolf Gutknecht is vice president, director of account services for LA ads. To discuss your thoughts with Rolf on this blog or any marketing matters, email via this link, or visit www.LAadsMarketing.com.  You can also connect with Rolf on LinkedIn.

I can remember it like it was yesterday: I and some others from my agency team along with the client’s CMO were sitting in the office of the CEO for a Fortune 100 company presenting the advertising campaign for the year.  The CEO looked at us and pointedly said, “Strategy is results!”  What he meant was that the strategy doesn’t matter as long as you are producing results.  This CEO saw: strategy = analysis and execution = getting things done, and he attributed more value to doing than to analyzing. Strategy statements like “Being the brand of choice in the vertical markets we serve” and similar statements were not for him. And frankly, I’m not a fan of them either.

But, any seasoned marketer knows that a marketing strategy is about the series of choices you make on where to play and how to win to maximize long-term value. Execution is producing results in the context of those choices. Therefore, you can’t have good implementation without having good strategy. Most everyone would agree that you just can’t achieve good results without having good execution; similarly, most would agree that having a good strategy alone is no guarantee for success. But, too many jump to the wrong conclusion that this makes execution or implementation more important than strategy. OK, so let’s look at that for a moment.

It’s pretty obvious to all that creating “The Strategy” is cool…it’s sexy. And who wouldn’t want to be part of the team that developed “The Strategy,” right?  But actually creating it right requires thought, knowledge, and understanding of the audience and marketplace, and creativity.  Look at any university setting and you’ll see that MBA courses stress strategy.  We worry about social media strategies, mobile marketing strategies, strategies for enhancing customer engagement or customer experience, advertising strategies, SEO strategies, lead generation marketing strategies, sales strategies, and on and on.

You’ll get no argument for me when saying that a well-thought-out and written strategy is critically important to business success.  But here’s something that a lot of marketing people don’t always consider to the extent they should: the soft underbelly of strategy is implementation. Without implementation, even the most brilliant strategy is just words, a hope, an untested premise. We all know this intellectually, of course, but we don’t necessarily follow through on that knowledge and make it the priority it should be.  Implementation is generally left to some coordinator or least experienced member of the team.  Or even to an automated program.

Okay, we all know that the implementation and all the hard work that goes along with putting a strategy into the marketplace has to be done by someone.  Initiatives don’t get completed by stating them on paper; they require action, management and follow up. And from my experience working with organizations of various sizes, I’d say that no VP of Marketing or CMO can – or should – try to do everything.  But in the same breath, we can’t just assume that everyone who is diligently working on the tactics is actually supporting the overall marketing and business strategy that was created.  Implementing different pieces of the program is not the same as true implementation to achieve the organization’s business objectives.  Poor tactics, poor coordination, and poor implementation of even a great strategy have led to as many flops as a poorly created strategy.

Here’s a quick real life example: An athletic shoe manufacturer sent me email after email telling me to stop by their upcoming trade show booth, and by turning in a printed copy of the email, I would receive a certificate for significant savings off their athletic shoes. Guess what happened when I showed up at the booth? No one, and I mean NO ONE at the booth knew anything about the offer. “Don’t know what this is all about,” or “No one told us about this,” were all anyone there could say.

So, at the risk of being overly obvious, the heart of the implementation of a marketing plan is the execution, the actual doing of the planned marketing activities. Successful marketing implementation requires:

• Attention to detail
• Staying on top of “who’s doing what”
• Accountability of those involved…no passing the buck
• No waiting till tomorrow. No procrastination!

Mere implementation is not always that difficult. The hard part is implementing things in an organized way. And, it’s the cohesiveness of the strategy’s implementation tactics where the revenues (the results that the Fortune 100 company CEO talked about) will be generated.

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Rolf Gutknecht is vice president, director of account services for LA ads. To discuss your thoughts with Rolf on this blog or any marketing matters, email via this link, or visit www.LAadsMarketing.com.  You can also connect with Rolf on LinkedIn.

“Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards.”  – Soren Kierkegaard

The last quarter of 2016 is almost history and as we stand poised to welcome 2017 in less than 2 weeks, we hope for a future that is successful, rewarding and where your dreams will be realized. Having seen the start of more than a few “new business years” during my career, I’ve learned that you can do one of two things in preparation for the coming year. You can yet again try to create a brand new marketing strategy for the coming year or you can pause, look back and do some serious reflecting, resolving to change, or improve some aspect about how you will initiate your future marketing campaigns. For some people, looking back over the past year may be something better left in the rearview mirror; on the other hand, burying your head in the sand can be seen as the primary ingredient in a recipe for another disappointing year…and you know how much the CEO/President/Owner/Founder loves that kind of thinking. So, before one celebrates the dawn of a new year…take time to ask yourself what are you going to do to change? What does success in 2017 look like to you and your executive management team?

Speaking for myself and our firm, the end of each year is met with a healthy dose of optimism for the coming year. We see 2017 through a lens of hopefulness, that things will continue to get better. Is that just us or will you and your organization also view the coming year with a level of anticipation that you haven’t had for a few years? Hey, it’s been tough for most everyone out there but let’s remember that at least a few organizations — perhaps some of your own competitors — have fared better than most despite these trying times. So what have they done to plot a course for a more optimistic and profitable path for success in 2017?

Depending on marketplace factors coupled with how well you were able to strategically position and market your company, the past year was either seen as a success or another year of same-old, or even a disappointment.  The question that begs to be asked here is, how much of last year’s growth or lack thereof was because of something you had no control over, such as good or bad luck, and how much was because of something you specifically chose to do or not do?  I’ve found through personal experience this is the time to be totally honest with yourself.  As Sigmund Freud said, “Being entirely honest with oneself is a good exercise.”

Hey, I’m all for a bit of luck but you probably don’t want to continue betting future success on lucky things happening in the coming year.  With this in mind, here are a few questions to ask yourself as thought starters as you begin the process of looking in the rearview mirror at this past year and through your windshield to the next:

• What marketing activities worked for you and which ones didn’t in 2016?
• What 2 or 3 trends did you notice have taken place in your industry and outside of it that you need to incorporate into 2017 activities?
• What 5 pieces of really good customer feedback did you receive this past year that you need to take deliberate action on?
• Is there one part of your marketing activities that if it got more attention could yield better results?
• What are the 2 mission-critical initiatives that absolutely need to be accomplished by June 30th 2017?
• What are the top 3-5 problem areas that could impact your bottom line or stunt the growth of your brand if you don’t tackle them now?
• What are the 3-5 opportunities that could grow your bottom line, brand visibility and preference?
• How did your marketing (from strategy to execution) match up with your competitors? Was it “beige”- boring or was it “full of color”- impactful?
• What do you produce, offer or do that excites your audience and makes them think “Wow!”

As marketers, one thing we know for sure is that change will not stop in 2017. The marketplace will continue to shift on us, and so will the economy. But by reflecting back on 2016, taking control of your marketing activities rather than being tossed around by the waves in the market, along with thinking optimistically about what 2017 can hold, this New Year might actually be a year worth celebrating.  It will be for us and hopefully will be for you as well.

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Rolf Gutknecht is vice president, director of account services for LA ads. To discuss your thoughts with Rolf on this blog or any marketing matters, email via this link, or visit www.LAadsMarketing.com.  You can also connect with Rolf on LinkedIn.

Just the other day my daughter told me that Facebook let her know that 6 years ago we brought home our German and Australian Shepherd mix whom we named Sadie. While I wasn’t sure we needed another dog at the time, I’m sure glad we decided to do so as Sadie’s been a wonderful dog. I mean, wonderful!  So, where’s all this going? Stay with me.

In the beginning, we were called by a dog rescue association we had connected with.  They said they were getting a few dogs within a couple of days and, based on our interest in the Australian Shepherd breed, we might be very interested. So on that day we went, and while we were playing with the dogs, it became clear that this little one was an “A-personality” pup, full of energy and a little headstrong. When I told my family that she was the one I wanted, they asked why.  I told them that I wanted a dog that was going to give me a bit of a run for my money and based on what I saw of her, my thinking was that she’d be the smartest, healthiest and probably the most rascally of the bunch.  In this case, I was right and I’m glad I went with Sadie versus some of the other dogs who were more on the passive “follow you all around the house” side. With all that as the backdrop, there’s a lesson here about developing effective, sales-producing marketing campaigns.  I told you we were going to get there.

• As we look at the full assortment of marketing techniques and media from which to choose (we only have so much time, money and resources so we can’t do everything), should we automatically select the tactics “everyone” is choosing? I mean, not all social media platforms work for all businesses.  Running ads in trade pubs isn’t the right thing for a number of companies… especially in today’s economy. And so on. Going along with the crowd or doing what your competitor is doing is no way to create enough difference in the mind of the consumer to make them say “Hey, I like what they’re doing. I like the way they think.”
• Is the seemingly smoothest short-term path necessarily the best longer-term strategy? I think we all understand that generating sales now, as well as priming the pump for future sales, is what our focus should be. That said, instituting one tactic after another, in lieu of an overall strategy is, well, short-sighted. Even the most apparently brilliant tactic can have an upsetting effect on a business strategy.  Have you thought through the “down-the-road” potential consequences of the path you’ve chosen? For example, about 15 years ago, during the Christmas shopping season, Jos. A. Banks, a men’s clothing store, started running promotions like “Buy 1 shirt, get 2 Free.” Or “Buy 1 suit at regular price and we’ll give you 2 suit jackets, 2 ties, and 1 sweater for Free.” Crazy!  As a result, people packed the stores, and sales soared. But because they’ve become known for these over-the-top sales promotions, their stores are pretty much empty during non-sale periods. The successful short term tactic of driving sales with unbelievable promotions has gotten them a reputation of the store to visit only during their big sales events – but not at other times.
• Regardless of the tactic or path we take in business or in marketing, there’s always going to be a commitment of time and resources to get the project funded and finished. So, knowing that, are we better off putting more time and work at the front-end – where serious discussion, planning and thought take place – or speed ahead following the templates and guides that the “marketing experts” advise you do?

So with all that in mind, let’s go back to my experience in picking Sadie:

When you design your business and marketing strategy, will you go with the easy way – following what others are doing – picking the dog most others would – or do you challenge yourself to go beyond the accepted norms, to think for yourself, to dare to be different, to self-define the limits of what is possible?  History has shown the most successful companies have chosen the puppy who doesn’t act like the others.

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Rolf Gutknecht is vice president, director of account services for LA ads. To discuss your thoughts with Rolf on this blog or any marketing matters, email via this link, or visit www.LAadsMarketing.com.  You can also connect with Rolf on LinkedIn.

Oh, the world of numbers. To those involved in Marketing, it goes with the territory. We look at the marketplace and how many prospective customers there might be. We slice and dice demographic information and analyze demographic trends. We do quantitative market research. We fixate on how many likes, follows, shares, retweets, etc. have occurred. And we’re not finished yet as new and more “effective” metrics are constantly being developed. While tracking marketing numbers isn’t like keeping up with the stats of, say, baseball, for many marketers, numbers are almost everything. And for some, they are everything.

Now, I’m pretty good at math. So, numbers don’t give me cold sweats, but truth be told, when it comes to marketing, I’m not a Big Data guy at all. I’m not one to get all caught up in the numbers game. The reason being that while I’m an “account guy,” I understand what really good creative, execution and integration will do toward driving sales compared to run-of-the-mill stuff. On more than one occasion, our agency has spoken with prospective clients who tell us how their marketing metrics are sucking wind. Our first response is: “Let’s look at the creative you’re running and what it’s saying.” When it’s shown to us, there’s little doubt what is creating the angst.

For my liking, there are far too many marketers that rely heavily on numbers to drive the marketing decisions. Everything has to have a value and must be measured. A former boss of mine who came from a LARGE national company once said to me after meeting with a “numbers marketer” that marketing is not a paint-by-numbers game where if you follow the color assignments and stay within the lines, the end result would be a beautiful painting. Viola! Instant success…without expending much thought, energy or creativity. And, that’s what I fear is what is happening to marketing.

From where I sit, you can see when this takes place. Look at a TV commercial, or radio spot, or tradeshow booth, or go online. There seems to be more and more marketers who are buying into templates, guides and models. It’s as if the marketplace is just a large paint canvas fractured into tiny parts, which, if you paint each activity with the right color and stay within the lines, you’ll have a winning marketing program. Not so! What I believe happens more times than not is that you don’t end up with a masterpiece but rather a painting of dogs sitting around the table playing poker…you know the one.

For a marketing program to be as clever, contemporary, and inviting enough to gain your audience’s attention, it requires meaningful thought, understanding, listening and… creativity. Uniqueness. Unfortunately, creativity and emotion are often scrubbed clean (and out of the picture) much to the happiness of many marketers who rely merely on data.

Yet some brands manage to break-away from the status quo and attain results.  These brands — and those people who oversee them — combine experience and talent with a commitment to being fearless.

And then other brands try to find equal results by copying them. Remember “Got Milk”? Soon after, we saw “Got Plumber” and “Got Rice” and “Got …whatever” In the case of our agency, we developed a marketing program for a client that used a weeping angel statue (like you find in cemeteries) to demonstrate how one would feel using the wrong type of business software. Hardly a few months after, a direct competitor used strikingly similar imagery and messaging. Really?!? I guess imitating was their template to seeing better results rather than trying to come up with something original themselves. They (the competitor) were trying to paint-by-numbers into a template not of their own making.

So what are the takeaways from all of this:
• Having metrics drive all your marketing decisions, void of smart, clever, on-point messaging that resonates with your audience, is a road with a dead-end. Which is probably not what you really want.
• Templates and “how to” guides do not lend themselves to creativity.
• If you are responsible for marketing, it is your job to think differently. Painting by the numbers and staying within the lines won’t yield profits.
• BONUS: “The truth isn’t the truth until people believe you, and they can’t believe you if they don’t know what you’re saying, and they can’t know what you’re saying if they don’t listen to you, and they won’t listen to you if you’re not interesting, and you won’t be interesting until you say and do things imaginatively, originally, freshly.” – Bill Bernbach

In the end, while numbers and data help marketers define the market and opportunities that present themselves, as well as quantifying the buyer’s journey, remember that lasting relationships and brand loyalty are the result of original thinking.

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Rolf Gutknecht is vice president, director of account services for LA ads. To discuss your thoughts with Rolf on this blog or any marketing matters, email via this link, or visit www.LAadsMarketing.com.  You can also connect with Rolf on LinkedIn.

Some people say “Opportunity comes knocking once or twice in a lifetime.” Well, that’s not actually true in my experience.  So many times we’re in these situations when an opportunity comes across our desk or we’ll have a chance to connect with someone… or something will literally be staring us in the face. So many times we question the opportunity. So many times we have to think about it. And so many times we miss it. This is what I’ve learned about opportunity: it does comes knocking.  And it actually comes knocking more times than most people would like to admit.. What I’ve experienced is that opportunity is literally in front of your face on a regular daily basis…over and over and over again. Opportunity comes in all shapes and sizes.  There’s no telling how many opportunities we’ve missed that could have dramatically changed the course of our lives and company fortunes.

Often it comes in the most camouflaged ways and you miss it because you’re looking for the big mountain instead of the small molehill that will turn into a mountain. Every tree started with a seed that was planted in the ground. And sometimes the opportunity is not big and bright and shiny. Sometimes it’s camouflaged but with some thinking and effort it shows itself off.  Sometimes it’s camouflaged as a person within your industry, like a media rep or someone whose name you came across in a trade journal. But rather than reach out to them, you say “it’s more important to do this” or “what would this person think?”  So my message is to pay attention to opportunity that’s in front of you all the time. Opportunity is abundant when you keep your eyes open and some of the biggest opportunities come disguised so being mindful and aware is critical in order not to miss out.

There are stories after stories of people who in their daily lives have seen or experienced something that made them think in ways they hadn’t before. Whether it’s how the first ATM machine was developed when a gentleman short on cash walked by a vending machine for chocolate bars and thought “why couldn’t machines like this dispense cash?”  Or the case of a man and his dog returning home from a walk through the woods covered in cockleburs…you know, those little tiny burs that attach themselves to clothes and pet fur. After some thought and experimentation, he received the patent for his invention: Velcro®.  Or when you or your marketing team capitalized on a customer’s need or desire and created a new marketing programs that allowed customers to see how your product helped solve that need for them.  And they did it before your competitors even knew what hit em’.  To be successful we need to understand as much as possible and constantly be adapting to a changing world.

Can you look back and say you’ve seized every opportunity that you’ve seen?  Is it that you missed the opportunities altogether or that you knew they were there, but couldn’t take advantage of them at the moment?  We all are in the same boat in that regard but either way, the result is the same…that ship sailed.

So, why do some people and companies see opportunities to market their products and services when so many others don’t?  Here are a few reasons to consider as they apply to your business:

• Some organizations encourage people to be open to possibilities. They want people to “live in the moment.” It’s about having an open mind and being curious. Thinking about how successful marketing programs in other industries could be adapted for your business. Every industry has them, and they’re out there for the picking.
• Opportunities are sometimes born out of setbacks. Unfortunately, rather than see the setback as a learning experience and an opportunity to create something new and improved, the sting of disappointment lingers and higher-ups only point fingers rather than open new doors.
• Management procrastinates and hesitates until the window of opportunity closes. They don’t grab hold before the opportunity’s gone. It could be a wonderful co-branded marketing program or a sponsorship at a trade event or an opportunity to provide content to a media outlet where many prospects and customers will be able to read your thoughts. But overthinking or not being ready to pull the trigger happens and “poof”… gone! Only to find out that a competitor has jumped on that very same opportunity your company passed on.
• Not all opportunities are created equal. As the quote goes: “…it’s sometimes dressed up as work.” Which for some businesses means that’s more than they want to invest in.  Last I looked, a great opportunity hasn’t dropped in too many laps where no effort was required. It’s about hunting the opportunity down. And about being willing to build up a sweat to work it.
• Follow through. Not being distracted with fleeting doubts and other surprises that pop up. It’s about doing the work that’s needed…till the end. How many times have you seen a marketing program put together that looks good and performs like it should…but ends too soon or not all the tasks are completed? Leads not passed on; sales people not given all they need to tie up the business; etc.? The follow-through and follow-up process lays an egg and internal people – and more importantly customers and prospects – are left with a sour taste.

So, when opportunities come knocking, and they do every day, help yourself and your company by having the right mindset to open the door and welcome them in.

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Rolf Gutknecht is vice president, director of account services for LA ads. To discuss your thoughts with Rolf on this blog or any marketing matters, email via this link, or visit www.LAadsMarketing.com.  You can also connect with Rolf on LinkedIn.

First, a cork-popping congratulations to the Broncos, and condolences to all the Panthers fans. Now comes the Monday-morning quarterbacking and all the after-game analyses, almost as much fun as following this year’s election season!

But personally, I think the big winner in the game was Kia Motors, whose “Walken Closet” commercial was one of the truly great moments in Super Bowl advertising.  Feel free to click here to watch the spot and then come right back for the play-by-play.

Welcome back!

For a commercial – or any advertising, for that matter – to be effective, it has to accomplish several critical feats:  It has to break through and attract attention, it has to be clear in its fundamental selling message, the message has to be compelling, and it has to be memorable when you walk away from it.

I’ve argued for years that most Super Bowl commercials only accomplish the first and last requirements. You watch and enjoy them, you may laugh at their gags and you talk about them after the game.  But on the selling-side, most hardly make it past the scrimmage line.  They don’t leave you wanting to know more about the product or even “get” the product’s unique selling proposition (USP), the thing that makes the product unique among its competitors.  That surely can’t be said of the Kia spot.

First off, who can’t be drawn into Christopher Walken’s creepily intense performance no matter what he does? And the gag about the “Walken closet” is hilarious. But when Walken metaphorically compares most mid-sized sedans to uninspired beige socks and the Optima to the “world’s most exciting pair of socks,” in a way only he can deliver, he absolutely nails the Optima’s unique selling proposition: a car with “pizzazzzzz” in a world of otherwise boring mid-sized competitors.  If you’re thinking about buying a mid-size after watching this commercial, you’re compelled to at least check out the Optima. (After all, who wants to be boring and beige?)

Our lives are way too busy for us to be attracted to “beige” things.  Yet, too many marketers don’t project that same line of thinking toward attracting customers. Decisions are made daily to keep producing and running the same run-of-the-mill, uninspiring stuff…week after week, year after year.

Keep in mind that when you as a consumer see anything from a company, either your opinion of that company is enhanced or it’s not. There’s no middle ground. You either like them a bit more or you go in the other direction.  So why do so many marketers turn that compelling, money-making value proposition into a beige and uninteresting “me-too” message that each and every one of their competitors could say.

I don’t know about you, but I’ve never been bored into buying anything. And I’m even going to say that 99% of your customers are with me on this. The marketing you do for your company should be an extension of you. You’re the person who’s responsible for communicating the passion of your company. When you talk about your business with others, hopefully your eyes twinkle, your heart begins to race, your voice becomes more dynamic and people are instantly attracted to you. When that show of enthusiasm and excitement happens, no one would confuse you with being boring, right? Of course not. So look at your marketing and see if it reflects that same level of specialness.  (Or you could always ask friends, colleagues or suppliers who will be candid with you, “Does this marketing make you want to pick up the phone or know more about us?”  If the answer is not an enthusiastic “yes,” then it’s time to start over.)

In a world of “beige” mid-size sedans, there’s the Kia Optima. In your competitive world where there’s so much beigeness, where do you stand?  C’mon, punch it!

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Rolf Gutknecht is vice president, director of account services for LA ads. To discuss your thoughts with Rolf on this blog or any marketing matters, email via this link, or visit www.LAadsMarketing.com.  You can also connect with Rolf on LinkedIn.