Here at the end of a disrupted and disruptive year, we’re looking back with gratitude at some of the good things of the year. Specifically, in this post and following, we’ll be examining some of our favorite discoveries of the year in each of the sectors we serve, in our second annual series on innovative and disruptive food and… Continue reading <span class="meta-nav">→</span>
Type: Article
Should I Build an In-house Agency?
These days, marketing requires brands to be highly responsive and integrated in their approach, able to generate the perfect social post at the perfect time or to push updates to their software on a daily and hourly basis. This challenge, among other factors, has driven an increasing number of consumer brands to shift to an… Continue reading <span class="meta-nav">→</span>
Brandcrumbs: Why Brand Naming Fails
(This brand naming post is part of an ongoing series of posts we’re calling Brandcrumbs, which are bits and pieces of branding advice left over from our regular conversations about real-world brand positioning challenges.) Brand naming is one of my favorite things to do at MarketPlace. I love the process of moving alphanumeric characters from… Continue reading <span class="meta-nav">→</span>
A Regenerative Supply Chain
At MarketPlace, we love to do our small part in making those connections. Have a healthy ingredient to promote? We can help. Looking to upgrade your supply chain with better connections to healthy ingredients or nutrient-dense foods? We can help there too. Continue reading <span class="meta-nav">→</span>
Environmental Branding: Carpets, Coasters, and Clouds
What does CVS stand for? If you answered “Consumer Value Stores” or “Convenience, Value and Service,” color me impressed. Someone recently asked if I knew what CVS stands for. I said “murky carpet, oppressive red, and rows of overpriced wine.” This is not about CVS. This could be about why the “aha moment” shouldn’t be… Continue reading <span class="meta-nav">→</span>
Marketing Close in a Time of Social Distancing
Here’s something that you don’t need team meetings for: showing empathy to your customers. This is the time to turn off your regularly scheduled posts and to communicate as thoughtfully as possible. To be sure, it’s not insensitive to try to continue business while flattening curves and social distancing, but how can we as marketers… Continue reading <span class="meta-nav">→</span>
Is the Coronavirus Makin’ Bacon Cheaper?
The past decade has been a wild ride for the makers and partakers of bacon. A 2012 grain shortage prompted some forward-thinking citizens to “procure as much bacon as humanly possible and hide it in as many locations as [they] can.” In more recent years, the African swine flu ravaged Chinese hog farms, causing U.S.… Continue reading <span class="meta-nav">→</span>
5 Steps to Feeding 9 Billion
9,000,000,000. Nine billion. If you’re paying attention to news about food and the environment, you’re probably hearing that number, which represents the likely size of the global population by the middle of the century, up two billion from where we are now. The biggest concern about this growth is how the planet will hold up,… Continue reading <span class="meta-nav">→</span>
Color, Food, and the Story of Shrimp
Typically, I’m neither for nor against shrimp. This morning, though, I felt very deeply about them. On my drive to work, I listened to a podcast. The specific episode of this podcast deals with color—its nature, how we experience it, why it matters, etc. As color is a crucial issue for many of our partners… Continue reading <span class="meta-nav">→</span>
Brandcrumbs: the “Authentic” Brand Position Isn’t What it Is (is it?)
(This is the first in a series of ongoing posts we’re calling Brandcrumbs, which are bits and pieces of branding advice left over from our regular conversations about real-world brand positioning challenges.) I do not like “it is what it is.” Because “it is what it is” means nothing. Because it means everything. It means that you… Continue reading <span class="meta-nav">→</span>
Brandcrumbs: Your Marketing Word of the Year Should be “Culture”
(This is part of a series of ongoing posts we’re calling Brandcrumbs, which are bits and pieces of branding advice left over from our regular conversations about real-world brand positioning challenges.) Like many in the branding and marketing world, we use the word “culture” a lot. We say things like “a successful company needs to create a… Continue reading <span class="meta-nav">→</span>
Innovative and Disruptive Brands of 2019 in Food and Beverage
We’re looking back at some of our favorite discoveries of the year 2019 in a series of posts covering each of the sectors we serve. In this first post of the series, we’re looking at innovative and disruptive brands in food and beverage. As always, we avidly watched developments in food and beverage—not only as… Continue reading <span class="meta-nav">→</span>
Innovative and Disruptive Brands of 2019 in Pet
We’re looking back at some of our favorite discoveries of the year 2019 in a series of posts covering each of the sectors we serve. In this, the third of the series, we look at the pet and animal market. As Americans have developed higher expectations for pet product brands and services, innovation in this… Continue reading <span class="meta-nav">→</span>
Innovative and Disruptive Brands of 2019 in Dietary Supplements
We’re looking back at some of our favorite discoveries of 2019 in a series of posts covering each of the sectors we serve. In this post, we look at the health and wellness sector, with a focus on human dietary supplements. This is a constantly changing sector that reflects new health challenges and solutions in… Continue reading <span class="meta-nav">→</span>
Brand Complements for Animal Supplements
Over the last few months, we’ve worked alongside a successful B2B brand with over 45 years of experience in trace mineral animal supplements to launch its first consumer brand: TruCare Trace Mineral Supplements. We’ve thoroughly enjoyed working through the brand development process with them, beginning with brand discovery and market research, which led to positioning and concepting… Continue reading <span class="meta-nav">→</span>