Kait’s First 90 Days Kait just started as the first marketing leader at a mid-sized SaaS company. The team has never focused on marketing metrics before, and there’s no structure to measure impact. Kait’s excited but knows the road ahead involves setting up processes, getting buy-in, and translating marketing’s value into business outcomes. Here’s Kait’s…

Ever feel like ‘marketing’ (yes, quotes for suspicion) advice these days is just one big game of telephone? Someone tweets an idea, others retweet it, and suddenly it’s “the next big thing.” But when you dig deeper, it’s often the same recycled frameworks—louder but not clearer. Positioning is no exception. It’s one of the most…

Imagine this: You’re standing in a boardroom, surrounded by executives in tailored suits, their calendars packed, their minds preoccupied with numbers, strategy, and growth. You’re here to advocate for design—not as decoration, but as a driver of meaningful change. You’ve prepared your slides, rehearsed your pitch, and chosen your words carefully. But as you speak,…

The push to ban TikTok in the United States may have been intended to protect national security interests, but it has also sparked an unexpected cultural twist: Americans are flocking to alternative Chinese apps. Rather than bowing to the “China is evil and will steal your data” narrative, TikTok users—many of them representing a considerable…

Imagine you’re on a dating app. Two profiles pop up (pick a camp): Tom: “I’m 6’2″, love hiking, and have a great sense of humour.” Emily: “I’m a yoga enthusiast, foodie, and passionate about sustainability.” If finding a match worked the way some people (won’t name them, but you’ll know) think it does, you’d compare…

Let’s talk about EQ Bank, not from a purely analytical angle, but from the bigger question of what this bank truly means to people and where it might go next. The Canadian banking landscape has long been dominated by a few massive players, leaving most customers with limited choices and outdated systems. Institutions like EQ…

I recently spoke with a marketing leader who said something that stuck with me: “Our marketing team feels like 10 separate departments speaking 10 different languages.” Their performance marketing team focused on CTRs and ROAS. Their product marketers are fixated on features. Meanwhile, their brand team pushed storytelling—but it wasn’t clear how these efforts connected.…

You know what’s fascinating? Watching brilliant founders make the same positioning mistake that’s been happening since… well, since the first entrepreneur tried to sell a wheel as “like legs, but rounder.” (Sorry, ancient wheel inventor. You could’ve owned “effortless movement” instead.) Here’s what usually happens in my conversations with founders: Them: “We’re crushing it! We…

In Part 1, we explored how Calendly’s decision to compete head-to-head with other scheduling platforms risked trapping the company in a commoditized feature war. We introduced Peloton’s $40 billion meltdown as a cautionary tale of what happens when an innovative brand reduces itself to “just a product” instead of owning a bigger (deeper and resonant)…

(Dale’s post got me thinking. I highly recommend reading it and also following him on LinkedIn.) Many companies fall into the “brand awareness” trap, assuming that getting their name in front of customers is the silver bullet for driving sales. It’s a compelling idea: if people know who you are, they’ll buy from you. However,…

“Are you really an expert in positioning?” The question came during a client meeting. Before I could answer, I remembered something fascinating about Microsoft’s transformation. When Satya Nadella took over as CEO, he did something counterintuitive. Instead of flaunting Microsoft’s expertise, he pushed for a complete mindset shift from “know-it-alls” to “learn-it-alls.” The result? Microsoft’s…

Positioning isn’t about your product, features, or even your brand. It’s about something far deeper—a singular, human emotion that connects your audience to what you represent. Think of the world’s most iconic brands: At its core, positioning is the space you own in someone’s mind—the idea that defines you, differentiates you, and makes you unforgettable.…