
Keeping Attention - Substance Over Style
by Hank Barnes | February 5, 2019
In most marketing organizations, there is a push to be cool. We work with agencies and internal teams to create compelling ads and content that capture attention. We want to...

Caution on the Customer Experience Battlefield
by Hank Barnes | December 30, 2014
My colleague Jake Sorofman recently shared some results from a Gartner survey on the high level of priority marketing groups have given to customer experience (CX) in their 2015 plans,...

Trust Erosion through Bad Messaging
by Hank Barnes | October 28, 2014
By this point, it is fairly well known that trust in the organizations we do business with is not high. The Edelman Trust Barometer tracks this on an annual basis....

Does Simplicity Make a Good Brand Promise?
by Hank Barnes | June 10, 2014
Simplicity was a hot topic last week. SAP emphasized it in their new theme, andwhat is effectively a brand promise, of "Run Simple". For a company with the brand...

Radical Authenticity - Its Time Has Come (But Timing Counts)
by Hank Barnes | June 3, 2014
A few years back, I had the opportunity to work with Nick Morgan on telling Adobe's story for the opportunity we were pursuing around Customer Experience Management. Nick's combination of...

Joe Friday Would Have Been A Terrible Salesman
by Hank Barnes | June 11, 2013
I turn 50 today and am further dating myself with the subject of this post. On the show Dragnet, Jack Webb played a character called Sgt. Friday, whose catchphrase was...

Authenticity in Marketing is Not Optional
by Hank Barnes | March 28, 2013
A few years ago, I was interviewing for a VP of Marketing job with a local software provider. During the interview, the CEO posed this question:
"I want to be...