Marketing strategy that works
in the real world.
Framework deep-dives, archetype guides, and research analysis built on the 24 dimensions of the Marketing Canvas Method.
Don't know your archetype yet?
12 minutes. 24 dimensions scored on a forced-choice scale. You get your Strategic Archetype, your Vital 8 against target, and your Fatal Brakes flagged — before you read anything else.
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6 printable A4 scoring grids for running the MCM assessment with your team — no screen required.
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Anthropic vs. the Three Competitive Axes
Most AI market commentary frames competition as a three-way race between Anthropic, OpenAI, and Google. The Marketing Canvas Method reveals a different picture: six players across four economic-value positions, running four different strategic archetypes, pressuring Anthropic along three axes simultaneously. The most consequential competitor is not who you think.
BlackBerry — A Brutal Clarity Memo on QNX
BlackBerry's QNX operating system runs in 195 million cars and is licensed by 24 of the top 25 automotive OEMs. Tesla and BYD chose to build their own. Three of the top ten OEMs are deciding right now whether to follow them. A two-page board memo on the $100M capital-allocation decision that cannot wait.
Nokia and the iPhone: The Memo Never Written, July 2007
What Nokia's CEO should have read on 30 July 2007 — one month after the iPhone launch. A Brutal Clarity Memo written using only data publicly available at the time. No hindsight permitted.
Marketing Strategy in an Agentic World
AI agents are now completing transactions on behalf of consumers — without visiting your website, reading your reviews, or seeing your ads. Your brand is being represented, recommended, or overlooked by systems you don't control. Most marketing frameworks weren't built for that. The Marketing Canvas Method was.
The Real Reason CMOs Don't Last
A recent HBR piece argues CMOs don't last because they can't speak the CFO's language. The prescription is sharp — and conditionally true. The same KPIs that save a McDonald's-style business break a Hermès-style one. Here's why archetype is the conversation that has to happen first.
Marketing Strategy Tools: Why a Toolbox Is Not a Strategy
You don't have a marketing strategy problem. You have a missing operating system. SWOT, BCG, Porter's and the other standard frameworks each illuminate something — but together they don't add up to a strategy, and in the AI era that gap is no longer survivable. Here's what does.
McKinsey Just Mapped How 1-in-7 Companies Win. Here's What the Structured Analysis Actually Shows.
McKinsey found 61 outperformers in 5,000 companies. MCM shows the mechanism: all 8 Vital 8 above target simultaneously. Five bottom-up parameter assessments.
Your Marketing Budget Is Wasting 10% to 30% of Itself. Here's How to Stop It.
BCG shows a typical marketing organisation wastes 10%–30% of its budget. One company unlocked $48M in savings and generated $70M in impact. Here's the structured system that makes this repeatable.
Your Customers Don't Buy Your Product. They Buy Who They're Becoming.
B. Joseph Pine II's new HBR article maps four customer aspiration types. The Marketing Canvas Method was built on this logic. Here's how to use it to score your strategy.
Why Your Competitive Position Determines Which Revenue Lever to Pull
Your M8/M9 perceptual map position is not just context — it is a hard constraint on what your revenue strategy can actually do. Choosing the wrong lever from the wrong position destroys value instead of creating it.
M3 × M4: How Two Data Points Determine Your Entire Marketing Strategy
Two data points — M3 (Growth Curve) and M4 (Economic Value) — determine which of 9 strategic archetypes fits your situation. Here is how to score them and what to do with the result.
Everyone in Your Marketing Meeting Thinks Their Project Is a Must-Have. Here's How to Prove What Actually Is.
You have been in that meeting. Twelve initiatives, all marked "priority," and no agreement on what to actually do first. The MoSCoW method gives you better language for the conversation. The Marketing Canvas Method gives you the evidence to end it.