Drop a strawberry in a bowl of milk. Show a golden retriever on the front lawn playing with small children. Have a soldier hugging his wife and newborn baby at the airport. Or maybe just drive down State Street and randomly toss cabbage out your window along the way.
Predictable. Pedestrian. Pathetic. Getting attention is swell — but unless you instill some degree of pertinence you will fail. Yet there seems to be a growing legion of marketing geniuses that forget to link the method with the message. Look no further than the Super Bowl to illustrate my point. The challenge for us is eliciting meaningful engagement. The good ones are in an insatiable pursuit of different, whilst making sure that no one leaves without a tree.
John Lichtenberg has been in marketing his entire career since graduating from U of M in 1986. John’s experience is mostly client-side however he did try the agency thing, turned gray and quickly returned.
Currently John is enjoying his shift from corporate America to Higher Ed – a huge learning curve, but it’s been really cool to do something different. Prior to Walsh, John was VP of Global Marketing for Kelly Services World HQ for 13 years. Which means he traveled a lot. John loved the job and experienced things he never could have imagined, while making some incredible friends along the way.
In addition to his work at Walsh, He is currently a grad student working towards his Masters in Advertising from MSU. Yes, this is causing huge internal struggles — primarily during football season.