From Kocina Branding & Marketing Companies – "The Non-Advertising, Advertising Agency"

About: Paul Zimmerman

Paul’s experience is in business development and marketing having worked for 20+ years as a Product Manager, Market Development Manager and Global Brand Manager at 3M.      He has worked with 4 of 3M’s largest brands including Scotchgard™ Protection, Post-it® Products, Thinsulate™ Insulation and Scotchlite™ Reflective Material.   Paul has a BA in German from the University of Illinois and an MBA from the Thunderbird School of Global Management.  Got marketing questions?  Paul can be reached at 612-798-7217.

The Break Up: A great video on how marketing must change

The following video, produced by Microsoft and available on YouTube, first appeared in 2008. It was revolutionary then and it is still a great illustration of how marketing must change to remain relevant. One-way dialogue and shouting your messages just don’t work anymore. Modern marketing is about creating a relationship with consumers, and providing educational, informative content. At Kocina Branding & Marketing Companies we help our clients develop helpful content, and then communicate with their customers through multiple channels including traditional and new media.

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Using the Voice of Customer Research to Build Your Brand

As a marketer, I am a big fan of presentations about best practices. They are a great shortcut for learning and people are usually pretty honest about their experiences both good and bad. I went to a presentation recently about market research. The presenter, a marketer from a large company, talked about her process for understanding customer needs. She described how they went into homes, interviewed people, and how they drew conclusions from a mountain of data. They gained valuable information for product development. It was a very good presentation.

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