Author: Karl Treacher
Uber’s latest list of woes has re-ignited the discussion on how culture and values can impact brand health. By Karl Treacher. Some months ago I wrote about the nightmare Uber was heading into based on its unstable and poorly designed and nurtured culture. Now we are starting to see the extent of the problem and […]
Karl Treacher analyses the values and cultural troubles at Uber that led to a toxic work environment and its CEO being forced out. This article originally appeared in The Culture Issue, our August September edition of Marketing magazine I’m rated 4.65 as an Uber customer. A driver once told me. I rated him 3.0 because he kept […]
If the Death Star had an exact opposite, says Karl Treacher, it would be Apple Park. This is one of those articles where I take us all back in time for effect, so pull up your leg- warmers, here we go. It’s 1977, you’re probably not born yet but let’s pretend you are. You’re in […]
Karl Treacher is hearing this question more and more these days. Unfortunately, the answer isn’t as simple as the NPS question itself. The answer is ‘it depends’. Foremost, it depends on your category. If you’re a bank or health insurance brand the good bad/news is that some studies show the majority of negative positions are […]
Value is an elusive notion, writes Karl Treacher, and probably the business world’s most misrepresented concept. In 1991 I borrowed $2000 from my parents for my first computer. It was a secondhand Mac. After removing the screen, that very same Mac now hangs from a tree in my backyard – as a birdhouse. Its value […]
Disruption is like a toddler: just when you think you’ve got a handle on things, a whole new thing happens that turns your world (or sleeping patterns) upside down, writes Karl Treacher. While the toddler analogy may only make sense to new parents, it works on many levels. You see babies, on the whole, are […]
Brand experience is quickly becoming a mainline into improving NPS and a brand’s valuation, writes Karl Treacher. In front of me is an unfortunate mess. A client’s brand strategy document created by their former agency – a very large agency that was shown the door soon after delivering this… ambitious ‘creative’ strategy. Some of the […]
Doctor Karl (Treacher; not a real doctor) is here to diagnose the backwards marketers of Australia with ‘Neon Light Syndrome’ – and hopefully provide the remedy. The editor of this magazine called me at 2.17pm on a Wednesday to inform me of a few interesting changes to the magazine and to share this issue’s theme, […]
By examining the way in which religion works, brands can learn how to acquire followers, retain disciples and build deep, lasting, meaningful bonds, writes Karl Treacher. I grew up in a church. My father, Don, was a Christian minister. Like most ‘families of the cloth’, we basically had no cash, and I spent many […]
Karl Treacher plays interviewer with REA Group’s Natalie Feehan, group manager of marketing strategy on the brand’s journey from functional to relationship via Austria (full disclosure: she’s also his client). REA Group’s Realestate.com.au is a leading brand moving from a functional position to a relationship with its audience. Karl Treacher: Tell us about how the […]
Karl Treacher writes that the successful CEO of today and tomorrow will be less MBA and more NPS. I’ve never really been into bird watching. Mostly because birds don’t interest me as much as other animals. ‘People watching’ on the other hand, and to a lesser extent ‘dog watching,’ has a way of capturing […]
From toppling governments to selfies in space, in this episode of Brand Talk, Karl Treacher brand-talks about three big brands and three quirky brands that have had a profound influence on global culture. Like it or not, the world we live in is shaped by the brands that support us. Never before have so […]
Karl Treacher bucks the trend and presents his three ‘brave’ predictions for brand and marketing trends in 2014 a full six months into the year: content, experience, and public-private sector love. OK, so perhaps I’m a little slow off the mark with my predictions. But I learn from the best and Apple taught us […]
Karl Treacher analyses five brands that create experiences so relevant and meaningful they tear open a whole new category. When I was a boy, every Saturday morning at 8am I would stand in a line with a handful of other children, practising tennis drills at the local courts. It was the late seventies. My […]
