Career Advice

Financial Advice for Graduates

1 Jun 2017  

In less than two weeks, more than 500 students will graduate from Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management. While I teach marketing strategy and branding, each year I provide some financial advice to the graduates. If you follow my blog this will be familiar. Some things change over the years, but the core concepts remain. Save […]

Career Advice

Notes from the Kellogg Healthcare Case Competition

24 Jan 2017  

This weekend Kellogg hosted the 14th annual Kellogg Biotech and Healthcare Case Competition. I help run the event. A total of sixty teams applied, and we selected eleven to compete. Representing ten different business schools, the list included Wharton, Chicago Booth, Tuck (Dartmouth), MIT Sloan, HEC Paris, Judge (Cambridge), Fuqua (Duke), Olin (Washington University), Berkeley […]

Career Advice

Being Great is Not Enough

16 Dec 2016  

Last week I helped pick teams to participate in the Kellogg Biotech and Healthcare Case Competition. This is an annual event held at Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management in which eleven teams of business students from around the world gather to present their assessment of a business case and compete for a $5,000 cash […]

Career Advice

Branding Advice for Graduates

17 Jun 2016  

Today more than one thousand students will graduate from Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management. I’ve taught almost half of them. They will soon start at new jobs, branch out in different industries, and begin careers in cities around the world. It is an exciting moment, transitioning from one thing to the next. It is […]

Career Advice

Always Help a Friend’s Cause

9 Mar 2016  

This week my daughter Claire and I have been asking local businesses to donate items for an upcoming silent auction event. In June, Claire will head to Panama on a service project with Amigos de Las Americas, a non-profit group that brings volunteer opportunities to high school and college students. To support the trip, the […]

Career Advice

A Marketer Looks at Capitalism

13 Jul 2015  

Phil Kotler is well-known as one of the world’s top marketing thinkers. He did more than anyone to establish Kellogg’s reputation as a great marketing school. He is a prolific author on marketing topics. I suspect most people don’t know that Kotler trained as an economist, studying at the University of Chicago and MIT. In his […]

Career Advice

Financial Advice for Graduates

17 Jun 2015  

This week, almost one thousand people will graduate from Kellogg with their MBA degrees. They will then embark on careers that will span decades. Last year I posted some financial advice for the graduates, and some people found that useful, so this year I’m sticking with the theme. Those who read last year’s post will […]

Career Advice

The Marketer’s December Task: Look Back

18 Dec 2014  

We are close to the end of the year. This is an important time for marketers to take a look at the business and reflect on how things have gone. Business leaders don’t devote much time to looking back. There is constant pressure to update the plan and execute, so people tend to work on the […]

Career Advice

Irrational Optimism and CMOs

18 Aug 2014  

The Chief Marketing Officer Council is out today with the results of its annual survey of marketing leaders. I was struck by two figures: – 81% of marketing leaders believe that share growth is likely and attainable this year. – 10% of CMOs are worried about their jobs. These figures suggest that marketing executives are an […]

Career Advice

Financial Advice for Graduates

20 Jun 2014  

Today is Kellogg’s commencement ceremony. Hundreds of students will shortly walk across the stage and receive their degrees. I’m here at Ryan Field in Evanston getting ready to march in with the faculty. The graduates will then celebrate. And in the coming weeks they will begin their careers as business leaders. It is a time […]

Brands in the News, Career Advice

What HomeMade Pizza Can Teach Us About Success

4 Jun 2014  

This week HomeMade Pizza abruptly shut down. The Chicago-based company sold fresh pizzas through retail outlets. People stopped by the store, picked up a fresh pizza and then baked it at home. My wife loved the product so we had it a lot. The pizza was delicious; the cheese bubbled in a highly satisfying manner […]

Career Advice

Brands, Baseball and Missing the Call

2 Apr 2014  

Brayden King, one of my colleagues at Kellogg, is in the news this week with a new study about baseball. It is a fascinating bit of research and highlights why brands matter so much. King worked with Jerry Kim from Columbia Business School on the study. They looked at umpire accuracy, comparing the umpire’s call […]