Platonic

Author: Paul Syng

  • Positioning is not about what you say.

    It’s far from it. Positioning is about what they think. Who’s they? Your customers. Your market. Your world. You don’t control positioning. You influence it. Think of it as mental real estate. Prime property in your customer’s mind. What’s your plot? Is it front and center? Or lost in the suburbs of irrelevance? You can’t…

  • Most ‘experts’ and businesses get positioning wrong.

    Tragically wrong. This isn’t just theory. It’s battle-tested wisdom. Your clever tagline? Not positioning.Your unique selling proposition? Not positioning.Your elevator pitch? Still, not positioning. And just to drive the point home, these iconic slogans? They’re not positioning either: “Just Do It” – Nike“I’m Lovin’ It” – McDonald’s“Think Different” – Apple“Because You’re Worth It” – L’Oréal“Finger-Lickin’…

  • You’re running an e-commerce empire

    It’s growing fast. Your servers are melting. Your IT team’s on life support. Black Friday’s coming, and you’re sh*tting bricks. What do you do? “Let’s buy more servers!” “We need to hire more IT staff!” “Maybe we should slow down our growth…” Sound familiar? Now imagine you’re Amazon in the early 2000s. This was their…

  • Guinness, Michelin, and Red Bull: When your actions speak louder than ‘marketing.’

    We’ve been sold a lie. The lie: marketing is about ads, slogans, and social media campaigns. But what if the best marketing isn’t marketing at all? Guinness, Michelin, and Red Bull figured this out long ago. A beer company cataloging world records?A tire manufacturer rating restaurants?An energy drink brand racing Formula 1 cars? Madness, right?…

  • Ever pitched an idea and felt like you were talking to a brick wall?

    Yeah, me too. It sucks. But here’s the thing: We’re doing it all wrong. I used to think selling ideas was about being the smoothest talker in the room. Boy, was I wrong. It’s not about talking. It’s about listening. Remember that client who seemed impossible to please? The one who shot down every suggestion?…

  • We love to talk strategy

    Big words. Grand visions. Five-year plans. But what happens when the rubber meets the road? Suddenly, it’s all about this quarter’s numbers. Next month’s targets. Tomorrow’s stock price. We’re strategic thinkers with short-term actions. Visionaries with myopic tendencies. It’s like planting a seed and digging it up every day to check if it’s grown. Why?…

  • Why your ‘customer-first’ BS is fooling nobody

    Ever sat in a meeting where “customer-centric” was thrown around more times than a Frisbee at a beach party? Yeah, me too. It’s easy to say you’re all about the customer. But actually doing it? That’s where things get tricky. Let’s cut through the jargon and get real about customer centricity with some practical steps.…

  • We’re obsessed with numbers.

    Metrics. KPIs. Growth hacking. But what are we really measuring? Often, it’s just noise. Short-term gains that fade like mist in the morning sun. What if we zoomed out? Saw the forest, not just the trees. Brand isn’t fluffy. It’s not a checkbox on a to-do list. It’s the bedrock of everything. Your business is…

  • We often think brands are built by logos and slogans.

    But that’s surface-level thinking. The real brand? It’s built by actions. Coca-Cola knew this when they created Coke Studio. A soft drink company launching a music platform? Fizzy, right? Wrong. It was genius. Because Coca-Cola understood a fundamental truth: Your business is your brand. What does that mean? It means every business decision shapes your…