Marketing Magic to a Thumping Beat.

On April 1st 1978, to the driving beat of Deep Purple’s “Highway Star”, radio in Winnipeg changed forever as a young upstart rock FM station called CITI FM tried to blow the collective minds of a cities youth. CITI FM was the first hard-rock station on the FM band in the “Peg” and they were determined to make their mark. But no one could have predicted the impact it would have on a cold, isolated, prairie town full of teens itching for something new, fresh and relevant to their generation. Winnipeg had a reputation as a hard rockin’ town and new bands like Streetheart, Mood Ja Ja, Harlequin, and the Pumps had begun to pack clubs in River City building on a previous generation of trail blazers like the Squires, Guess Who, Sugar and Spice, Mongrels, the Fifth and Brother that had come before. Hotel bars like The Norlander, the St. Vital, and the Zoo shook with the Winnipeg sound. Line-ups around the block in 40 below weather where common and at times out drew the touring acts foolish...

There are rare discs that you know you’re going to love seconds into the first track and Brotherhood is just such a disc. These guys have been playing forever at the Bamboo Club on Queen Street in Toronto and the confidence and smoothness of their delivery can’t be underestimated. Brotherhood is less funk and more blues but it still smolders and burns with wicked B3 organ work and silky vocals by Duane Blackwood. Brothers Cody (drums) and Brooke (guitar) and childhood buddy Mark Ayee (bass) complete the lineup. Fever, The Thrill is Gone and Movin’ are all stand out tracks. Gimme more!

Lush harmonies, deceptively simple melodies and subtle arrangements make this debut from Nic Thornburn (Unicorns and Islands) and Jim Guthrie a keeper. Looking like 60’s troubadours in buckskin, plaid and denim with Sir Lancelot and early Ringo Star haircuts the boys open with a compressed and flattened electric guitar strumming and a muffled 70’s drum kit on “The Sound”. Their harmonies are perfect as they dip and weave around a tale of searching for the ever-elusive “sound”. Their harmony soaked, laid back style hints at early Simon and Garfunkel, Peter and Gordon, or Everly Brothers. The whole project has a sepia tone varnish of melancholy sweetness that gets more tart with each lick. There are no duds here each song contributes to the overall concept. It feels simply constructed, as all good art does, but that belies both the depth and detail that awaits repeated listens.

Being strategic, creating a strategic plan, working on the corporate strategy we’ve all heard it, many of us have participated in strategic planning sessions and been tasked with creating a winning strategy. We seen the process get side tracked,mired in the mud, abandoned and wrecked.Does it have to be this way?  But what does being strategic really mean?  Well that depends on who you talk to. Ask the CEO of a company and he will talk about strategy as the road map that leads to greater sales and profits, increased share prices and shareholder dividends. The Sales and Marketing Managers will think strategy is the tack the company will take to out maneuver the competition. The Accounting Department may perceive strategy as a document outlining revenues and expenses and ROI. Human Resources will think strategy is the application of the human resources to business problems. While each maybe correct, it certainly points to the fact that strategy is different to different peop...

In my business, I talk with big and small clients all the time about their marketing and advertising efforts and specifically their websites. I am often surprised that a minority of these otherwise perfectly capable business people have trusted their website to the kid down the street, a brother-in-law or the cheapest developer they could find. The results have ranged from frustration to unmitigated disaster. I have heard of major corporations being held captive as the rights to their URL’s are owned by their web development company, that the software used to create their site was proprietary and can’t be moved, updated or repaired, that the servers hosting their site mysteriously vanished taking their site down with them or that the Brother-in-law, who has taken over two years to produce three pages, has found a new job and can’t finish their site. Would you trust your inventory control system or POS to anyone other than a professional, what about your accounting or sales managem...