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Hot Shots - Firey Little Rants On Marketing

Big brands and marketing experts make mistakes constantly. Millions are spent on lousy advertising ideas. Experts tell you branding isn’t for you. Hot Shots is here to have a few laughs at their expense, and reveal profitable marketing secrets in the process.
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Now displaying: 2017
Jun 19, 2017

The Most Interesting Man In The World is an example of an advertising campaign that has been made more successful without being made as interesting--and also serves as a decent study for the small business owner who needs to understand: profit isn't about pleasing a mass of people, but a single-well-defined core customer. 

Jun 12, 2017

Whether you're writing your own copy or someone's writing it for you, it's possible the copy is costing you money--by being incomplete. What are the words? What are they saying? What do they mean? And can you make them better--and more profitable? 

Jun 6, 2017

What works better and is more profitable for your business? No brand, or the wrong brand? Interestingly, there's an example of the different ways this can go out on the interstate highways of the Western United States...

May 28, 2017

A brand always has internal problems. It's how they deal with those problems in relation to the customer that determines success. And if that problem is made the customer's problem, there's a good chance that it will lose a potentially longterm customer. 

May 22, 2017

Advertising existentialism? Really? Isn't that equal parts highbrow and stupid? No. Because if you understand the need for meaning, it prevents you from creating meaningless advertising. Understanding the need for a message helps your advertising matter--and helps you bring customers to your business. 

May 15, 2017

What will happen when Slow Burn marketing appears live and presents a new brand to 45 employees--changing the business's name and giving it a newly defined mission after 38 years? The results might surprise you. 

May 8, 2017

There may be no better category whose branding and advertising better shows us how to NOT brand and advertise than this one. Blather and ad-speak abound. But it's really not that hard for a small business to do it well--and we see an easy-to-understand example of how it can be done easily and simply with little effort. 

May 2, 2017

The Pepsi Cola and Kendall Jenner fiasco has been dramatically upstaged by Heineken's "Worlds Apart" video, where strangers with opposing world views are forced to cooperate and have a conversation. So, what does this big-brand throw-down have to offer the small-business marketer? Quite a lot actually--especially when it comes to cashing in on emotional content. 

Apr 24, 2017

Huge amounts of time, money and hot air are wasted on the notion of being a disruptive brand. Here now, we explain  how that makes no sense. Disruption is really just a repackaging of an old-fashioned, easy-to-understand quality that can make a smart business owner enormously wealthy. 

Apr 17, 2017

What is the deal with a brand that is unapproachable, that subjects the customer to mockery, that causes pain both physical and psychic, bleeding and blisters, and is intensely sought after and highly selective? Here you are: this is the Barkley...

Apr 9, 2017

We continue with the idea of overnight success as a sexy, internationally known cult brand. Is that even possible? Yes it is--if you're prepared to spend several years working your butt off. But this couple is following a dream, making stuff happen--and has climbed to #1 in their niche out of more than 200 similar businesses rated on a major social media site. Big-brand thinking for small-business marketing, indeed. 

Apr 4, 2017

Overnight success as a sexy, internationally known cult brand? is that even possible? Yes it is--if you're prepared to spend several years working your butt off. But this couple is following a dream, making stuff happen--and has climbed to #1 in their niche out of more than 200 similar businesses rated on a major social media site. Big-brand thinking for small-business marketing, indeed. 

Mar 20, 2017

Ask the internet. They'll tell ya, right? Crowd sourcing, focus grouping, asking ANYONE'S opinion without judiciously picking your subjects, and you will find a special kind of hellacious mayhem penetrates your branding and marketing. 

Mar 13, 2017

Accidentally tuning into a Hot AC station left me listening to some whole new advertising--and providing a profitable lesson in branding and advertising for the small-business owner, especially if you're a dentist or oral surgeon. It also provides a valuable lesson in how your branding and subsequent Google ads might not be stacking up against the competition. 

Mar 7, 2017

Is it really possible for a multi-billion-dollar business's multi-million-dollar TV sponsorship to serve as an object lesson for the small-business marketer? Why, yes. Yes it is. And here's how Hollywood helps us see the limelight. 

Feb 27, 2017

Shorter, longer, better, worser, richer...what the heck? Mayhem! An authority is saying it's time to make audio advertisements shorter. We propose something much more radical: make them better. But will that ever happen? Is the market even capable of making that happen? 

Feb 19, 2017

In a vast field of high-priced, one-time, 5-million-dollar stunt spots, the Super Bowl commercials handed to us by one particular, multi-billion-dollar advertiser serve as a shining example of how to create a campaign that is relevant, cost-effective, and scalable for even the smallest small-business owner. 

Feb 13, 2017

The Super Bowl is almost ever a good example of advertising for the small-business owner. But the 2017 Super Bowl gives us a Hall Of Shame example that is so good and so scalable, it could be worth millions to even the smallest business. But why would you use a Hall of Shamer as an example to follow?

Feb 6, 2017

Usually, the week after the Big Super Game With The Trademarked Name is reserved for endless critiques of the advertising mayhem therein. We begin our critique next week. Today, it's worth looking at a lesson from The Super Advertising Hall Of Shame and seeing what we can learn from someone else's $2-million oops. 

Jan 30, 2017

Doors have been replaced by windows, we live in an age of snap judgments, and if you don't know your brand and make it accessible, you could be losing lots of business. 

Jan 23, 2017

It's completely understandable that branding can scare the heck out of people. But here's the deal: Without that fear, you have to ask yourself: is that brand going to be good enough? 

Jan 17, 2017

Last time, a fan from Romania asked how to brand a business--and says that many marketing experts tell small businesses they should not brand at all, but do only direct-response advertising. That makes us CRAZY, and we explain it away with the Football Branding Metaphor. We again recap what brand really is. Then, a quick and shiny example of how we begin branding a small business, and how you can also learn the secret steps to making magic happen.  

Jan 10, 2017

A fan from Romania asks how to brand a business--and says that many people say small businesses should not brand at all, but do only direct marketing--which makes us CRAZY. We review what brand really is and give a case study of a solopreneur whose business exploded by branding. 

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