Double Vision: Looking Back At A Commercial Icon

While many iconic images have been created as part of successful advertising campaigns, some icons have histories as exciting as the products they endorse.

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Double Vision: Looking Back At A Commercial Icon

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While many iconic images have been created as part of successful advertising campaigns, some icons have histories as exciting as the products they endorse. For example, did you know that the Doublemint Twins first appeared as only illustrations? They debuted in print advertising for the famous gum in 1939 to communicate its double benefits: a "double wrapped" wax-coated paper seal and a "double peppermint" distillation process used to produce a sweeter, smoother taste. These illustrated twins became the brand's signature and were drawn in ever-changing matching hats for car card and poster advertisements.

It wasn't until 1960 that the first live twins appeared in television commercials. They sang a catchy theme song that encouraged gum chewers to "double their pleasure" and "double their fun." New sets of twins were cast for commercials throughout the 1970s to 1990s and most recently reintroduced in 2005, as Wrigley continued to offer fun variations on the double theme.

Now there's another kind of twins associated with the 90-plus-year-old trademark minty taste: Doublemint Twins mints. Like the namesake gum, these mints offer "double good, double fun" but with a blend of two flavors in a single mint.

New television commercials build upon the brand's heritage of the campaign and the unique jingle but with an unexpected twist as viewers are introduced to a new set of twins-two very different people that are dressed alike as twins.

Business Strategy: Clarify Your Purpose And Vision

Planning for how to make this year your best year ever? Take some time to really clarify your Purpose and Vision for your business. These are two of the most necessary elements for pulling your business towards future success.

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marketing plan, marketing strategy, small business marketing, marketing tip, marketing ideas

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Whether it's the beginning of a new year or we're half way through, you want it to be your best year ever. You are no doubt doing some planning for how to make that happen. You are doing some planning aren't you?

I'd like to recommend you take some time to really clarify your Purpose and Vision.

Clear purpose and vision are the keys to giving you a focus and direction. Unfortunately, that's something that is all too often lacking from small businesses. What you need to do is quite simple, but may challenge you if you've never taken the step before.

Here are a few ideas to help you make this your best year ever.

A clear purpose describes what you are out to cause with your business. Have you lost track of your purpose? Do you remember what led you to start or get into your business in the first place?

* Three questions to ponder as you seek to re-ignite the purpose in your business:

What do you really want out of life?

What do you really not want in your life?

What would you be willing to give up in order to live the life you want?

Answer these questions honestly and build your business around the life you want to live. Talk about a purpose that would set you on fire.

* Here's an idea for creating your vision. Think of the absolute greatest outcome that you can possible imagine that your best clients would really want from your service. Build your vision around being "the resource" that works to deliver that.

* Examine your values and principles and then determine what you want your business to be in the future. Find your favorite way to relax quietly and let your mind open to dwell in what's possible.

* Imagine yourself in a private movie theater watching a movie of your future self in 10 years. As the movie ends you notice you've been joined by the star of the show. Ask them any question you want about how they got to that place of great success in the movie. What was your future self's purpose and vision.

This may seem silly to you at first, but if you open your mind up to accept that the visioning process will work, you'll be amazed at the answers that will emerge.

Can You Market Effectively Without Purpose and Vision?

Clarifying your purpose and vision for your business can help you achieve a massive marketing breakthrough.

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small business marketing, marketing tips, marketing ideas, marketing strategy

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I went to lunch with a friend the other day to ask him about his company's marketing journey.

You see, I knew that he and his partner had hired a marketing coach a couple of years back. I wanted to find out what their experience was like and where they had challenges and successes along the way.

This particular company is very typical of the small, service-based businesses that I focus on in my own marketing practice. They would tell you that they're a couple of accountants who are really good at what they do and enjoy the clients they work with. They would also tell you that they weren't marketing people who knew how to attract a steady stream of new business.

I asked my friend if there was a particular point in time or event that finally triggered their marketing breakthrough. I wanted to understand what they learned through their own trial and error. I wanted to see if there was something specific that helped them finally crack the code on marketing.

At first he thought the answer was when they finally narrowed down their target market. They finally defined a niche that was a very good fit for them, made sense to them, and helped them stay laser beam focused. We agreed that this was a huge breakthrough. It's often easy to say, but usually very hard for small businesses to narrow their target market. This was a step that was clearly paying dividends for my friend's small business.

But, it wasn't really the answer for what helped them make their marketing breakthrough. After a little further discussion we discovered that the practice never made any marketing headway until they defined and clarified their Purpose and Vision.

Without a clearly defined Purpose and Vision, the business owners could never really articulate what they were and what they were trying to get done. A little more discussion with his partner confirmed it for us. Without clarifying their purpose and vision, the business was very reactive.

None of the marketing strategies or tactics that their marketing coach was helping them implement proved to be productive. The reality was they were reactively taking whatever business they could get through the door.

Clarifying their Purpose and Vision created the marketing breakthrough. Purpose and vision tell you and everyone else what it is you're out to cause and where you want to go and what impact you want to make with the business. Doing this gave my friend and his partner focus and direction that didn't exist before. It made narrowing their target market and all these other marketing strategies and tactics make sense.

I started to think about all of my own client relationships. Some time back I had decided to build articulating purpose and vision into my ABCD Growth Marketing Model. It was a piece that seemed to be missing from successful marketing relationships and now my lunch discussion appears to have confirmed it for me.

What do you think? Can you effectively market your business without Purpose and Vision?