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.
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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.
BlackBerry — A Strategic History Memo, 1999–2024
The complete v5.0 evidence base for BlackBerry's 25-year strategic evolution. Five archetype phases from 1999 to 2024 captured with Vital 8 scoring, Mechanism Maps, Operating Baseline reconstruction at three anchor moments, and falsifiable Step 4 anatomy. Q-tier sourcing throughout. For practitioners and auditors.
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.
Apple Is Facing Two Different Problems. Almost Everyone Thinks It's One.
Apple just had the best year of its life. Four hundred and sixteen billion dollars in revenue. A hundred and twelve billion in profit. Every analyst on Wall Street is reading the same statement and reaching the same verdict — Apple is winning.They are reading the wrong number. The number that matters sits buried in the product section. In the most important holiday quarter of 2025, Apple Vision Pro shipped roughly forty-five thousand units. The consensus story is execution. The consensus story is wrong.
Purchase vs Participation: Two Modes of Sustainable Marketing (6/7)
Purchase-mode and participation-mode sustainability demand different strategies, scoring criteria, and evidence standards. Here is the MCM framework for both.
Sustainability in Your Marketing Strategy (1/7)
Most companies have a sustainability story. Fewer can prove it. This series gives you a two-axis diagnostic to see the gap — and close it.
M5: How to Size Your Market and Know If Your Goal Is Realistic
A market sizing exercise that produces a number too large to use is not strategic analysis — it's optimism dressed as data. Here's how M5 works in the Marketing Canvas Method.
Value Harvester (A6): How to Extract Maximum Value From a Declining Asset
You have an asset that is declining. The question is not whether to fight the decline. The question is what to do with the cash it still generates — and how long the window stays open. Most companies get this wrong in the same direction.
Niche Expert (A8): Marketing Strategy for the Specialist Who Goes Deeper, Not Wider
Your market is narrow. Deliberately so. The Niche Expert is the most defensible position in any market — provided the depth is real and the moat is continuously deepened. Two dimensions determine whether it holds.
Efficiency Machine (A2): Marketing Strategy for Cost Leaders
Your customers don't love you. They don't need to. The Efficiency Machine is the most defensible position in a commodity market — provided you have done the structural work that makes your cost advantage impossible to replicate, not just difficult to match.
Scale-Up Guardian (A7): How to Protect What You Built While Everything Is Accelerating
You are growing fast. From the outside it looks like success. From the inside, things are starting to crack. The Scale-Up Guardian archetype is the operating system for exactly this moment — before the brand damage catches up with the reality.
Pivot Pioneer (A5): Marketing Strategy When Your Category Is Dying
Your market is shrinking. The customers who leave don't come back. You know you need to change direction — but the window is closing. The Pivot Pioneer archetype is the operating system for exactly this moment, and two dimensions determine whether you make it through.
Category Creator (A9) — How to Build a Market That Doesn't Exist Yet
You're not losing to competitors. The market hasn't decided yet that your problem is worth solving. The Category Creator archetype gives you the operating system for exactly that situation — including the two dimensions that will collapse your strategy if you ignore them.
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.
What Europe's Top CMOs Prioritise in 2026 — and How to Contribute Earlier
McKinsey surveyed 500 European CMOs and found 3 urgent priorities: brand trust, ROI proof, and AI adoption. Here's how the Marketing Canvas Method operationalizes each one.
M6–M9: How to Map Your Competitive Position and Read the Perceptual Map
Four parameters. One output: a Perceptual Map that shows whether your price is justified by your benefits — and whether your competitors' prices are. Here's how to build it.
Your Revenue Goal Is Too Vague. Here Is How to Turn It Into Something Your Team Can Actually Act On
"Grow revenue by 15%" is a financial objective, not a strategic instruction. It does not tell your team which variable to move or whether your market even supports the lever you are about to choose. One equation changes that — and makes the conversation in your next planning meeting a lot more useful.