The Politics of Messaging. Lessons From Election Branding.

If the recent Canadian election has proven anything, is that messaging is CENTRAL to the success of any marketing initiative and the lack of a cohesive one can spell doom for any campaign.

The big story behind this year’s Canadian election has to be the meteoric rise of the NDP and the historic collapse of the Liberal Party.  And I am convinced that this is absolutely because of the NDP out messaged and out marketed the Liberal’s at every turn.

Entering the election, the Liberals were the hands down favorite to form the opposition or even to win the election outright.  So what happened?

The Liberal Party did what many businesses do: pretend that messaging and marketing ideas don’t matter, and that simply by comparing themselves to the alternative, consumers (or voters) will choose “the better product”.

The NDP however, did a masterful job in terms of marketing.  So good, in fact, that they leap frogged the Liberal Party and ended up in second place: a monumental feat for a party that only had 3 weeks to run a campaign and wasn’t expected to accomplish much.

So what did the NDP do what can you learn from it?

Firstly, the NDP realized that their greatest strength was their leader Jack Layton.  In political terms, the party leader is the party brand.  Mr. Layton is an affable, down to earth, friendly guy and they featured him everywhere.  And, understanding that his direct competitor (Michael Ignatieff) was thought of to be a bit of a stiff, stuffy and elitist (sorry Mike), they did a great job in terms of showcasing Mr. Layton as a foil: full of energy and spunk and passion.

The Liberals, however, had Michael Ignatieff in hiding it seems.  They never showed him in their ads.  Not showcasing him is like having a company without a logo.  How can we recognize him if we can’t see him.
How do we remember him if he’s never there?

The Lesson: Your key strengths should be front and centre, and should contrast your competitor’s key weaknesses.  Your messaging should reflect this.

Secondly, the NDP  a superb job of breaking down their platform into bite sized chunks for people to quickly digest.  Just take a look at their ad from the Metro daily a few days before the election.  It wonderfully breaks down their key election promises, and –once again- features Mr. Layton front and centre.   Their television ads also did a great job of highlighting their desire to end corporate tax cuts and to contrast that with their vision for a strong middle class.  The messaging was just perfect.

The Liberals, on the other hand, never broke down their platform in any way.  I’ve talked to many people who voted Liberal this election season and only a handful could tell me what the party was running on as a platform.  Not having a list of differentials is messaging suicide.

The Lesson: break down your message into bite-sized chunks that can easily be absorbed by people and remembered.

Thirdly, the NDP didn’t skimp where it counted: advertising spend.  It’s one thing to have a great ad and message but if people don’t see it what’s the point?

Now I’m a television junkie. I always have it playing in the background as I work or when I’m home.  I lost count of the number of times I saw NDP ads playing.  They did a great job reaching different channels and demographics.

Contrast that to the Liberals who barely had any ads on TV at all.  I counted seeing just three ads in total during the entire 4 week campaign

The Lesson: don’t nickel and dime your marketing campaign.  You need to push your message out to as many people as possible within your ideal demographics.

It may seem trivial, but the Liberal Party so horribly conducted their election marketing that it was a major –and I would argue central- reason for their total collapse in the election.  They failed to explain to people who they were, what they stood for, what they wanted to do, and how they could change lives.

In this sense, many businesses suffer from the same marketing failures.

Take a look at your messaging and ask yourself these key questions:

“What can we do to stand out?”
“Do we have a meaningful reason to be chosen over more popular competitors?”
“How can we incorporate our unique attributes into our messaging?”
“How can we show potential clients how we might be able to change their lives?”

Great messaging is central to great marketing.  The difference can be whether you go down in history as a winner or slink off the stage as the loser.





Yusuf Gad
President a5MEDIA inc
http://www.a5media.ca

New Clients: Spanish Centre and Quasar Music!

Wow!  It’s been a great and busy August!

I’m really happy to announce a5MEDIA’s newest clients: the Spanish Centre of Toronto and Quasar Music Academy.

The Spanish Centre has chosen a5MEDIA to redo their website and Quasar Music Academy and selected a5MEDIA to create their new visual identity and website in time for them to open their doors for the fall.

Both these projects will see us developing content management systems as well as a back-end where these clients can manage their courses online.

We are super excited to have these two great companies as part of the a5MEDIA family.

Welcome aboard!




Yusuf Gad
President, a5MEDIA inc.
http://www.a5media.ca

5 Excuses to Conquer For Better Marketing Results

There are many reasons why a marketing campaign can go bad.  Timing, strategy, execution, bad luck.  They can all play a part.

Many marketing initiatives, however, are sabotaged before they even start.

Many business owners and entrepreneurs are actually their own worst enemy when it comes to marketing.   Many will find every excuse in the book not to deal with it, not to make hard choices or not to have to address critical issues.

Today, I want to highlight the 5 excuses that every manager, business owner, and entrepreneur has to overcome to guarantee better marketing results.

The 5 Excuses:

1.    Our business is different or special.  It doesn’t require marketing.

I’ve heard this one so often, the next time I hear it my ears will probably bleed.  99.999% of all businesses are all based on the Customer, Company, and Competitor triangle.

The triangle is simple:  the Customer does business with the Company, while the Company tries and keep the Competitor away from the Customer. The same dynamics that a small bakery has in this triangle are the same dynamics an international conglomerate has with this triangle:  the Company needs to communicate effectively its brand and value to the Client, to avoid them churning to the Competitor.

So unless you own a monopoly on a vital service where people HAVE to buy from you and unless you have ZERO competitors (now or in the future), your business needs marketing.  Period.



2.    It’s all too complicated.  I don’t want to have to learn all this marketing mumbo jumbo.

Marketing is no more or less complicated than accounting, legal, human resources, inventory control, supply chain management, customer service, safety standards, government regulations or the 1000 other things your business deals with on a daily basis.

 Like all of those things, once you put systems in place to help you manage and execute them, marketing can easily find its way into your daily routine.  And once it becomes part of your routine, you pick up on it easily,  because the fundamentals of marketing are dead simple to understand.

And unlike most of those tasks already mentioned, marketing will actually help you MAKE money –not simply spend money.



3.    What we’ve done has always worked in the past.  There is no need to change it.

In the last 10 years marketing has changed so much, that if you are still doing the “same old , same old” you are walking down the path to closing your doors to new business –permanently.  I still come across businesses that insist on only advertising on the radio, or in the same magazine that they did a decade ago because it netted them past success.  They tell me they do this because “that’s where their clients are”.

The problem is that that isn’t true.  That’s where the clients WERE.  Today, clients are online, on phones, and are younger.  Not adapting your brand and marketing strategies will only mean that you are actually LOSING clients to your competitors.

If you only do what you did before, you’ll never expand to get new clients from different demographics.  Diversifying your marketing is important because it helps you grow your business into different segments, protecting you from client churn and making it harder for your competitors to keep up.



4.    I’ll deal with my marketing after I return from vacation.

No you won’t.

When you return back from your vacation you’ll need a vacation from your vacation. And then you’ll have to deal with your inbox.  And then you’ll have to deal with office issues.  And then you’ll have to catch up on paperwork.  Before you know it, 6 months have passed and you haven’t touched your marketing.

Deal with marketing NOW.  Deal with it BEFORE you go on vacation so when you return you know you’ll have it at the top of your “to do” list.  Trust me.  You’ll be amazed at how much more efficient you’ll be.



5.    We can’t afford marketing because business is slow.  We’ll revisit it when things get better.

If this excuse was expressed as a function of the space-time continuum, the resulting paradox would destroy all reality as we know it.

Business will never pick up without marketing.  And business is slow because when business was busy, you probably didn’t market.   Marketing is something you need to do ALL THE TIME!  Sometimes you can only afford to do a little, sometimes you are able to invest a lot.  But you should always be doing something.

Remember: anything is better than nothing when it comes to marketing.



Conquer these 5 excuses and you will see a guaranteed improvement in your marketing and sales.

Marketing isn’t one giant leap.  It’s a step by step journey.  So don’t let there be any excuse for you to take that first stride!



Yusuf Gad
President, a5MEDIA inc
http://www.a5media.ca

Meet the newest team member at a5MEDIA: RED!

This week I'd like to introduce you to RED.  Our new company mascot (the old RED passed away a while ago).

Welcome aboard RED!

PR: wait...  I: wait...  L: wait...  LD: wait...  I: wait... wait...  Rank: wait...  Traffic: wait...  Price: wait...  C: wait...

It's not you. It's me.

In this week's blog posting, I've been asked to talk about why some companies have bad relationships with their creative agencies.

In the years that I’ve done marketing I've began to notice patterns with clients.  Many companies come to us –like a jilted lover- having had a very bad experience with their previous marketing firm.

Working with businesses like these is like dating someone on the rebound.  They are hurt, they feel betrayed, and they are looking for someone to blame.

But just like any relationships, some businesses find themselves constantly in bad ones.  They never see their own patterns.  As a result, they repeat the same mistakes and end up in the same painful relationships again and again.

One of the patterns is some businesses blame their previous creative firm totally for the collapse of a project.

Now, while I know there are a lot of incompetent creative firms out there, it’s also true that it takes two to tango.  Just like when dating, there are rarely any innocent victims.  One of the pair is usually passive aggressive, an enabler, a bad fit, or has unrealistic expectations.

But regardless of the couple, the story I hear from these jilted businesses is almost always the same:

• Business hired creative firm.
• Business assigned a project to the creative firm.
• Deadline were promised.
• Payments were made.
• Work was produced.
• Work was not liked by business.
• Work was redone many times.
• Work was still not liked by business.
• Deadlines were missed.
• Tempers flared.
• Projects where canceled.
• Relationships ended.
• Blame was assigned.
• Heartbreak ensued.

In all these cases, the companies professed to be the innocent victims of a shady and predatory creative agency.

But is that really a likely scenario?

For starters, marketing projects are expensive.  I find it highly unlikely that a company simply handed over money to a marketing firm without seeing a portfolio first and checking out come clients.

Somewhere during these discussions a proposal was put in place that outlined the deliverables and the time lines.  So there should be no surprises.

So does it seem likely that this creative agency went through the bother of forging websites and references, contracts and portfolios just so they can engage in a failed project to “rip you off”?

And, even if the business moved forward on a project based solely on the agency's portfolio, surely they must have enjoyed what they saw or else they wouldn’t have hired them in the first place.

Does it seem likely that a creative agency -whose work the company admired- suddenly started sucking and forgot how to do logos and websites?  Do you think that at the moment of starting the project, the agency somehow became terrible copywriters or branders?


When we have taken on companies who have had bad experiences with their previous agencies, we do notice something that may explain why so many of their past projects have failed.

In many cases, these companies have the same personality and engage projects with the same attitude.

Tell me if you see yourself in any of this (or if you are a fellow creative agency: if you see any of your clients):

Businesses with previously bad experiences with creative agencies have usually:

• Insisted on micromanaged projects.
• Insisted that they know more about design than the graphic designers.
• Insisted that they know more about copywriting than the copywriters.
• Insisted that they know more about branding than the brand expert.
• Insisted they know more about advertising than the advertising agency.
• Insisted that they could do their marketing themselves if they “only knew how to use the software”.

Without fail, companies who have had bad experiences with past agencies have had these kinds of personalities.  And you can now see why their past projects have failed.

A good creative agency only knows how to do one thing: good work.  They don’t know how to do bad designs or bad marketing.

So when faced with a client that is pushing to have things “their way” it becomes understandable that any credible agency will push back and try to convince the client to go in a more successful direction.  It is, after all, our responsibility to do so.  This is usually the source for most of this friction and the ultimate reason why many projects fail.

So if you have had a bad experience with a marketing firm, odds are you may have played a small role in the situation.  Don't feel bad.  You're in good company.

But If you feel that’s the case, call up your ex and tell them: "It’s not you. It’s me."


Yusuf Gad
President, a5MEDIA inc
http://www.a5media.ca

a5MEDIA YouTube Post: Copywriting: What, Why and How

Copywriting. Every business needs it. Few know how to do it well.

In this video we talk about the importance of copywriting, some tips to have better copywriting, and we even make some suggestions as to some books you can read to help you be better copywriters.

Those books are:

Words That Sell: http://www.amazon.ca/Words-that-Sell-Revised-Expanded/dp/...

The Copywriter's Handbook: http://www.amazon.com/Copywriters-Handbook-Step-Step-Writ...

The Elements of Style: http://www.amazon.com/Elements-Style-50th-Anniversary/dp/...

BP and the Epic Brand Fail of the Year

Last year I wrote about how green washing was going to be the big issue for the future. And BP is doing a great job of proving this.

As you probably already know, BP is responsible for the biggest environmental disaster in North American history. Their off shore oil rig sprung a leak and now the Gulf of Mexico is nothing more than an 1000 mile wide oil stain. The entire region will be devastated for a generation, and scientists are already saying that entire species may not survive.

But this isn't an environmental blog. If you'd like to learn more about that aspect of this story, you can find some great information here.

The survival story -or extinction story- I'm more interested in is that of BP.

When the Exxon Valdez spill happened in 1989, Exxon didn't collapse. The spill was horrific, it killed thousands of animals and ruined many lives, but the company is still here today and trading pretty well on Wall Street.

No one seriously thought that Exxon would collapse because of their oil spill, yet today, many people suspect that BP may not survive their spill.

The failure of BP has more to do with how it positioned itself in the market place then how it is handling the oil spill.

Let's get something straight: all oil companies are "big and evil". They know they make a product that is environmentally hazardous. They know that it is the source of much economic, political, and military instability across the world. And they know that they are getting countries addicted to a finite resource that will eventually dry out leaving us scrambling for options.

Exxon is a great example of a "big and evil" oil company. They make no bones about it: they are in the oil business to make money. Period.

BP, however, tried a different approach.

Until 2000, BP was known as British Petroleum, when someone decided it would be a brilliant move to rebrand themselves to look more earth friendly, and less imperial.

They undertook a revolutionary rebrand that transformed them from BP: British Petroleum to BP: Beyond Petroleum. It was genius. They had positioned themselves as the anti-oil company: an oil company that hated being an oil company, and was desperately seeking alternatives to their dirty main product. An oil company that wanted to place the planet ahead of the profits.

So when their oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico sprung a leak, it took many ordinary consumers by surprise that the anti-oil company was suddenly acting like their big, evil cousins.

From day one, BP has tried covering up the true volume of the oil being leaked into the waters, and even tried to force the oil rig workers to sign a release form absolving BP of any responsibility.

Never mind the fact that their oh so corporate penny pinching resulted in BP not investing in the very technology needed to have prevented the spill in the first place and to prevent the deaths of the 11 oil rig workers that died in the explosion that started this whole debacle.

BP may fail because -for years- it has been sending out a message and a brand promise that they are now undermining on a minute-by-minute basis. It's a hypocrisy that, in the digital age and the age of YouTube, is being pointed out and hammered home in the bluntest way possible.

BP is a classic example of an epic brand failure. If you break your promise you are doomed to collapse. As it stands, we may be witnessing something that hasn't happened in a generation: the collapse of an oil titan.

So what can you learn from BP? Simple: keep your brand promises and you will keep your business -not matter what the disaster.

Yusuf Gad

President, a5MEDIA inc

http://www.a5media.ca

a5MEDIA heads to YouTube!

Hi everyone!

a5MEDIA is now on YouTube.

Feel free to subscribe to our channel at http://www.youtube.com/a5media

We'll be talking about marketing, its importance, and providing you with tips and tricks as to how to do it better.

Check out our first video, and let us know what you think:

We're Number 1!!

a5MEDIA has been chosen as the number one consultancy firm by the readers of Metro and the members of Gig Park! Check it out!

Thank you to all that voted!

Yusuf Gad
President, a5MEDIA
http://www.a5media.ca

From Viral to Vital - Social Media Marketing Comes of Age

A funny thing happened last year. A few car companies went bankrupt. You might have heard about it.

But what you probably didn’t hear, was that Ford Motor Company didn’t. Go bankrupt I mean. They did just fine. In fact, Ford is going through, what can only be called, a modern day automotive renaissance lately.

In fact, Ford stocks have recovered all of their losses that they took leading up to 2008.

Now, there are as many reasons as to why this has happened as there are people to ask. I know what I think:

Ford, unlike most other American automakers, woke up and smelled the coffee a few years ago in a big way. Someone, looked out their office window and saw the vista of North America looking back and them and said: “You know what? All our clients are dying.”

For years, the North American auto industry has focused on middle aged white males. The problem is that, eventually, that demographic will buy its last car and drive its last mile. And for years, automakers have –for the most part- buried their heads in the sand about this problem.

They ignored the rise of female drivers, the new youth buying power, and the increased demand of more fuel efficient cars.

By doing so, they handed over the North American market place to the Japanese and Europeans.

But Ford has taken great strides to reverse this trend and to learn from past mistakes.

Part of their new strategy is tapping into the HUGE next generation of buyers. Within the next few years millions of youth will turn the legal age to drive and many more will be getting their first post graduate jobs.

That’s a big market to tap into. And unlike other car companies, Ford is going straight to them to establish their brand.

Part of their new marketing push is teaming up with online content pioneers such as YouTube, and their 20 something channel partners in what they are calling the Ford Fiesta Project.

And now, these young –in many cases accidental- social media celebrities are the new faces of Ford’s online advertising for their Ford Fiesta, and part of a bold experiment for Ford to grow its brand where the kids are: online.

YouTube’s audience is the exact market Ford wants to tap into: hip enough to experience brands online, and young enough to tap into before they make their first major automotive purchase. It’s the perfect chance for Ford to get customers for life.

Ford recently gave a select group of YouTube stars a Fiesta for six months to drive around for free. All they had to do was do one YouTube video a month for them to leverage their online celebrity with their budding consumer audience.

For a company that for a generation has been fanatical about controlling its brand, this is a huge risk. But it’s a risk that has great rewards if it pays off.

Ford’s bold new direction has lead it to become one of the greenest car companies around, and now this direction might cement it as the brand of choice for a new generation of car drivers.

Ford sees the writing on the wall. Do you?

See their videos here: http://www.youtube.com/user/fordfiesta

I’ve selected my favorite one to showcase:

Avoid Business Hibernation!

Winter is usually the season where we all slow down. Bears sleep through the cold, bees hide out in their hives, Canadians gather in large stadiums to watch men chase pucks with sticks, and businesses tend to put things off till after the New Year.

Don’t do it.

Many businesses traditionally follow the following cycle: slow during winter, busy during spring, slow during summer, busy during fall. Sure there are exceptions to this, but you’ll be surprised how accurate this cycle is.

As a result, businesses put off starting a marketing initiative during the holiday season, preferring to deal with it in the New Year. Bad move.

Winter and the holiday season is actually the best time to begin new marketing projects.

The slowest period for any marketing initiative is usually the first couple of months. This is when your marketing partner is coming up with design mock ups, first drafts of copywriting, or branding ideas for your consideration.

Doing these things over the holiday season and early winter is the best way to ensure that you’ll have your marketing program ready to go for the spring time business rush.

If you wait until the New Year to start doing these, odds are you won’t have things ready to go when the snow melts and your customers come out of their caves looking to make major purchases.

Don’t hibernate this winter. Start working on your marketing, and you’ll be ahead of your competition come spring.


Yusuf Gad
President, a5MEDIA inc
http://www.a5media.ca

Is Your Brand Going Extinct?

Brands are like dinosaurs. They either evolve into birds and fly, or they stay on the ground and die.

For the last generation, marketing has been focused on helping businesses build brands by customer loyalty: focus on your core client group in any exercise of growth and sustainability.

And it worked. Very well. That marketing advice gave rise to some of the biggest brands in history: Ford, IBM, Xerox, Nortel, Coke. All of them built brands by making sure they understood their target, immediate demographics. And all these brands are in trouble.

These brands are collapsing. Many might not even be here a decade from now. Heck, some of them are already the walking dead.

And like the extinction of the dinosaurs, they never saw it coming.

If you’ve run a successful company for the last decade or so, don’t rest on your laurels. Your brand might be next.

Success in brand development for these companies came at a price: lack of investment in brand outgrowth. By focusing on their immediate client base, and current demographics, these brands failed to invest in the future. As a result, new brands captured the interest of new buyers, and many old brands are dying a slow –and inevitable death.

Just look at the car industry.

Lost in the arguments of fuel efficiency, union labour costs, and foreign competition was the stark reality that American auto companies and brand legends Ford, GM, and Chrysler failed to notice the ground shifting beneath their tires. While they were developing and maintaining brand protocols for their current demographic base (guys like our fathers), the failed to notice that a new generation (younger, savvier, and even FEMALE) was looking at cars in a different way. They were discovering brands in a different way. They were seeing products in a different way.

And this is happening everywhere: telecom, manufacturing, computers, food, drinks, toys, tools, pet supplies, cosmetics, electronics, television, and even politics. Everything is undergoing a seismic shift in brand awareness. Just like that asteroid that hit the dinosaurs.

Today, the very path that lead to great success for many companies –perhaps even your own company- might lead to certain future failure at a frighteningly fast pace. Companies need to enact new brand legislation, and new brand initiatives to connect with future brand champions and buyers.

Every single purchaser out there, from the CFO of a Fortune 500 company to the parent buying baby food for her new born, is going to be completely different in terms of brand awareness, brand evaluation methodology, and brand discovery processes than they were 5 years ago. Failing to recognize this can mean that very successful companies and brands today might be featured in the “Where Are They Now?” section of marketing textbooks in just 5 years.

It’s time to evolve.

Get your company exposed to the next generation of buyers BEFORE they become buyers. Let them become aware of your brand, so that when they are the ones making the decisions to purchase you have ALREADY won the brand war.

Ask yourself TODAY:

1) Are you positioning your brand for growth with future decision makers or just your current client base?

2) Do you know what demands are going to be made of your brand and your product or service line up in the next 5 years? The next 10?

3) What steps have you taken to grow your brand awareness to those under the age of 30?

4) Do you have a brand succession plan in place?


Brand extinction is real. It’s happening today. It ‘s happening to big companies and it’s happening to small ones.

Like the dinosaurs it is either adapt and fly, or die and go in a museum.


Yusuf Gad
President, a5MEDIA inc
http://www.a5media.ca

Don’t be a Business Killer

I’m going to tell you a real life true-crime story. In this story, the victim is a business, killed by the very entrepreneur that was entrusted to protect it.

Now, like all good true-crime stories, the names have been changed to protect the innocent. But the sad thing is that, in this story, there are no innocents. Only victims. So we’re changing their names to protect against a lawsuit. (As good a reason as any, I suppose.)

I first met –oh, let’s call him Mr. X- in a networking function two years ago. He was, and still is, a nice, great guy, with a broad smile and an enthusiasm for business that is infectious.

We first started talking about his business a few days later, and I was really intrigued by his idea. He was the owner and operator of a great new fitness concept that we will call Fitness Inc.

Fitness Inc is so unique that I can’t even describe it in this blog without identifying the company. Needless to say, it was a great new idea for how to get a workout. And –as I felt at the time- if marketed and positioned properly, could turn the fitness industry upside down.

While Mr. X enjoyed discussing marketing with me, I found him to be resilient towards any outside help. His excuses were ones I’ve heard many times over the years. See if you recognize these as any that you would say:

• There’s no budget for it at this time
• We’ll do it in house
• We don’t think we need it
• We feel our idea is so great, it will market itself

So we parted ways, but I always kept in touch with Mr. X. After all, I had no hard feelings, and I really liked his business idea. A few months later, I followed up with Mr. X again to see how things are going, and I was shocked to learn that Fitness Inc was going out of business. Shocked but not surprised. But what really blew me away was Mr. X’s rational as to why his business went under. Again, see if this sounds familiar to you:

“Times are not conductive to build out our Fitness Inc concept right now.”

As soon as I heard that, I realized I was dealing with business murder. Because this was a business that was allowed to die, not one that deserved to die. I’ve been doing marketing for a number of years now, and in that time, I’ve seen businesses succeed and fail. And in almost every case of business failure I’ve noticed two things: 1) The failures were predictable, and 2) The failures were avoidable. Fitness Inc didn’t have to die. It could be, right now, one of the most talked about new gyms in Canada with franchises in development all over. Even from my initial discussions with Mr. X, it was clear to me that there was a lack of understanding of his market, his marketing strategy and how to connect to potential customers. Not because Mr. X was ignorant, but because he was allowing his love for his own idea get in the way of him seeing the opportunities and threats that lay before him. His business “crimes” included:

• Failure to understand the marketplace
• Failure to know who his idea customer was
• Failure to work to get the message out there
• Investing in locations, equipment, and manpower, before investing in his brand
• Assuming that a great idea was enough

I keep going back to his excuse as to why his business failed: “Times are not conductive to build out our Fitness Inc concept right now.” In that excuse lays the entire classic rational that entrepreneurs use when they screw up. Let’s make one thing clear: rarely, if ever, does a business depend upon the economic, social, or political Zeitgeist of the moment for success or failure. The following is almost always true for 98% of businesses:

• NOW is the right time for you to start a business
• NOW is the right time to connect with your ideal customer
• NOW is the right time for success

Entrepreneurs kill their own businesses by strangling them to death. The do it by restricting outside ideas, opinions, and advice. They do it by assuming they know everything, and that everything can be done “in house”. And worse yet, when their business dies, they take no responsibility in the matter, get a new incorporation number and proceed to kill all over again. I call this serial entrepreneurial murder.

Even the best business people in the world don’t know everything. Don’t assume you do. Listen, learn, ask questions, and hire an expert. There’s no shame in that, and –believe me- there is always a budget for it. You just have to be willing to find it.

Don’t be a business killer. Reach out and ask an expert: a marketer, a lawyer, an accountant –everyone. If not, the next blog post might be about you.



Yusuf Gad
President, a5MEDIA inc
http://www.a5media.ca

a5MEDIA Featured in MENSCHLife PodCast

Hey everyone!

Been a long time since our last post, but we're back and better than ever.

Recently, I had the huge honor of being interviewed by David Grossman for his awesome podcast MENSCHLife (http://menschlife.blogspot.com/) (http://www.thatchannel.com/)

You can see the entire show below. I'm featured in the last 15 minutes. Just let the video load totally if you want to skip to the end.





More to come!


Yusuf Gad
President, a5MEDIA inc
http://www.a5media.ca

4 Networking Groups You HAVE to Join

Are you interested in networking but not sure what groups or events to go to?

I’ve been getting a lot of questions lately about networking events, and what are the best groups to join.  As you may recall, I mentioned networking in my blog about the 5 Ways to Recession-Proof Your Business.

Networking is a great, cheap way to meet potential clients and make important business contacts.  But what networking events or groups are worth your time?

Every business is different, and each industry has their key groups that you should join.  But assuming you’ve already done that, networking outside of your industry will allow you to expand your reach and meet new people.

Here are my “one size fits all” recommendations for networking in the Toronto area.  These networking groups are good for almost anyone, and can act as a means to help you get comfortable with the idea of getting out there and pressing the flesh.

1.    Vaughn Chamber of Commerce:   The City of Vaughn is growing fast, and some of the most exciting new businesses are coming out of there right now.  They are a great chamber to join, offer great incentives and benefits to become a member, and throw great networking events.  To learn more about becoming a member, click here.

2.    BNI Canada: One of the classic networking groups in the world, BNI has a Canadian division that is broken up into local chapters.  Their unique networking sessions focus on referral marketing and encourage members to refer business to each other, and no chapter can have two people marketing the same business.

3.    JCI Canada: The Junior Chamber International has a Canadian division that is just great.  The JCI specializes in young entrepreneurs and is an amazing place to meet young professionals.  I recently attended an event and was absolutely blown away by the energy and ideas that the group had.  If you are between 18-40, you should definitely be checking this chamber out.  Click here to learn more.

4.    The Italian Chamber of Commerce Toronto (ICCT): Quite frankly, the ICCT is the best chamber in Toronto for my money (and I’m not just saying that because they are a client of ours!).  They have a tremendously supportive staff, throw amazing networking events, have a wide variety of members, and offer great advertising opportunities.  Best of all, they coordinate their efforts with every other Italian chamber in the world, so if you need help expanding a business internationally they are ideally suited to help you.  Click here to learn more about joining.

Visit and attend some functions of all of these chambers before you decide to join any.  All great networking places allow you to audit a few events before you become a member.

Membership fees are very affordable, and they offer you a chance to interact with other members and receive great member benefits that often result in savings of thousands of dollars for many businesses.


Yusuf Gad
President, a5MEDIA inc
http://www.a5media.ca

a5MEDIA Stimulus Plan for Small Business

Small business represents 85% of the market place.  And it’s vulnerable to the economic uncertainty ahead.

Now, more than ever, small businesses need help to secure their sales and grow their business.

While governments on both sides of the border are doing their best to stimulate the economy, none have really put forward a plan of action for small business that goes beyond token tax cuts.

Well, a5MEDIA has other ideas.  And we’d like to share them with you.

Introducing a5MEDIA’s Stimulus Plan.  A balanced, demand based strategy to help businesses attract clients, minimize government intervention, and help usher in a renaissance of entrepreneurship.

As any good entrepreneur will tell you, 90% of sales is convincing people to spend money.  And this is done through developing a strong brand and a strong marketing campaign.  For small businesses, this is now VITAL to do, but with a shrinking economy, most are unable to afford it.

a5MEDIA is proposing that governments offer a series of tax credits for the next 12 months for all businesses who invest in developing a stronger brand, understanding their market better, and marketing and attracting new clients and customers.

Doing so will not only result in a more robust small business segment in the long run, but will help some businesses grow at a faster rate that they wouldn’t have before.


The Details of the Plan:

a5MEDIA recommends that governments on all levels join forces to help businesses invest in themselves.

Tax credits for the following:  (For every one dollar spent on the following, the government will count it towards your next tax year.)

1.    Market Research – 100% tax credit: any exercise that helps businesses understand their clients and market better will result in stronger businesses with better products and services.  Encouraging businesses to do this will help them create a strong and focused plan of action and will help reduce the chance of costly mistakes that lead to failure.
2.    Branding – 100% tax credit: businesses need to be able to stand out to survive.  Having a unique brand and a unique offering is central to this.  Investing in a branding exercise results in stronger companies, more disciplined management, and happier customers.
3.    New Website -100% tax credit: too many businesses don’t have a website.  Having one is CRUCIAL to our national competitiveness on the net, and is desperately needed to help businesses to attract new clients.  Empowering businesses to get a new website will do more to jump start an economy that any tax cut that government can come up with.
4.    Upgrade of an Existing Website- 50% tax credit: many businesses have a website but need to upgrade it to feature new products and services, or integrate new technologies.  A tax credit will allow these businesses to post more relevant information, feature new events, and attract new clients.
5.    Ecommerce – 100% tax credit: a disturbing number of businesses don’t have an ecommerce system set up.  This is preventing entire revenue streams from entering their business, hampering growth, and preventing government from collecting tax revenue from a major source of spending.  Making it easier for companies to do online business is a win-win for government and business.
6.    Advertising – 100% tax credit: perhaps the easiest way to attract customers is through advertising.  Offering a tax credit on advertising is not just good for small business, but good for the entire system as well.  Newspapers, radio stations, networks are all being hammered because of a drop in advertising revenue.  By encouraging businesses to advertise by way of a tax credit, we will not just be helping small business, but also the media networks from collapsing.
7.    Direct Mail – 90% price cut, 100% tax credit.  One of the main reasons why so many businesses can’t take advantage of the most successful marketing tool available is cost.  By asking the post office to slash direct mail prices by 90%, more businesses will be able to reach out to more customers.  As an added bonus: most non profits live and die based on their direct mail campaigns.  By making it more affordable for them during this economic downturn, we are increasing the chances of them attracting new and desperately needed donors.

The benefits from such a stimulus plan would be significant:

1.    We will be empowering small business owners to grow their own businesses
2.    We will be creating a  stronger small business sector
3.    Will be encouraging grass roots, local purchases and trade
4.    We will be investing in 85% of our market place and ensuring the economic diversity of the nation
5.    We will be protecting the jobs of a far greater amount of people than the auto industry
6.    Tax credits can be phased out after 12 months, so there are no long term costs for tax payers to absorb

a5MEDIA knows how important it is for businesses to be proactive in their own survival.  This plan will not only protect tax payers, but will lay down the foundation for future business growth, and help create a stronger small business economy for years to come.

Yusuf Gad
President, a5MEDIA inc.
http://www.a5media.ca

a5MEDIA's Small Business Stimulus Plan

If you're like me, you are probably sick to death of hearing of big banks and big companies getting billions of tax payer dollars, while small businesses get relatively nothing.

Small business represents 85% of the market place, and as such, I think we deserve a piece of the pie too.

With all of the emphasis on the big guys, no one seems to be looking out for the little guy.

Well a5MEDIA is going to change that.

Next week, we are going to announce our free marketing consultation service for small business. If you're a small business and you don't know how to grow, we'll help We'll sit down with you for an hour, go over your strategies, your materials, and then provide you with a plan of action report to help you understand the steps you need to take to grow.

If you want our help beyond that, we are here to serve. If not, you will have a solid road map that you can use to focus on over coming your business's weaknesses, playing up it's strengths, and getting the most out of your marketing bucks.

Stay tuned for more!


Yusuf Gad
President, a5MEDIA inc
http://www.a5media.ca

The Importance of Domain Emails To Marketing

I'm not going to lie.

I cannot believe that -9 years into the 21st century- I have to write this blog post. But it seems that many businesses just are not getting the message.

Domain email addresses are VITAL to your marketing success. Not all email addresses are the same.

There are two kinds. For the sake of this blog, we are going to call them Domain Email Addresses and Residential or Free Email Addresses.

Domain email addresses would be something like yourname@yourcompany.com.

A residential email address is -for the sake of this blog- everything else. Hotmail, GMail, Yahoo, Rogers, Sympatico, Interlog, AOL, of any free email service or any email service that comes from your Internet service provider.

Having a domain email address is not just important because it is the professional business thing to do. There are several KEY reasons why you need to start using a domain email address:

1) It is central to maintaining your brand when conducting any kind of online communications. When you use a residential email account, you are not pushing forward your brand (yourcompany.com), you are pushing your free email account's brand (Hotmail, Yahoo, etc).

2) At every turn, your clients must be reminded of who you are and what you do. This is no more easily done that having your company name as part of your email. And before you ask: NO. It doesn't count if you place your company name with a Hotmail account for example. (yourcompany@hotmail.com).

3) They tend to be more reliable in service than free email accounts.

4) They integrate easily with Blackberry and iPhone systems.

5) Many domain email accounts come with back up options to ensure that your correspondence is always preserved in case your computer crashes

6) Almost all domain email accounts allow you to either download your emails to your local computer via a mail reader like Outlook, or they allow you to access your mail via a web portal. This means that you can access to your emails from anywhere.

7) Almost all web hosting providers offer email services. So if you have a website, odds are you can have a domain email as well. Setting one up is easy, and your hosting provider will be more than happy to assist you.


Many people choose to use a residential or free email service because it comes as part of their home Internet package or because they think it is easier to use.

The problem is that using it makes you look cheap, and unsophisticated -something you don't want to be seen as in the business world.

But other than the pure optics of the situation, there are really important NOT to use a residential or free email services:

1) They don't come with any kind of guarantee of "up time". This means if your email server crashes, your free email provider has no obligation to get it back up and running within any window of time. You can be out for hours or even WEEKS. Heck, Hotmail can shut down tomorrow with no warning and there is nothing you can do about it.

2) They tend to have very paranoid SPAM and virus settings that might toss important messages or messages with important attachments into your JUNK folder where you may not see it. In some cases, attachments will be deleted all together because of virus fears.

3) Many professional companies flag emails received from residential or free email accounts, so YOUR emails might be sent to the JUNK folders of your clients or potential clients.

4) With the rise of online scams, many businesses are no longer taking seriously correspondence coming from free email accounts.

5) Some clients might take issue with important and potentially confidential business correspondence taking place over a 'freebie' email account, as they are subject to constant hacker attempts. In fact, you might be subject to legal action as a result.

Domain email accounts are so important to your online business image. Getting one is easy, affordable, and fast. Believe me, you are going to lose more business by NOT getting one, than you will spend using one.


Yusuf Gad
President, a5MEDIA inc
http://www.a5media.ca

2009. The Year Marketing Changes Forever

I rarely look into my crystal ball, and even more rarely go public about my thoughts and predictions for the future. But in this case, I feel that I have to as no one is really talking about this in the media.

It goes without saying –and I mentioned it in our first post- that 2009 is going to be a bloodbath for business. I like to fancy myself as an arm chair economist, and –this time- I can see the writing on the walls: The stock market is only going to sink more, more American banks are going to tank, and more layoffs are going to happen.

We’ve all heard of the troubles of City Bank, Ford, Chrysler, GM, AIG, Freddie Mac, Fannie May. And those are just the really, really big ones. There are a host of other big companies that are on the ropes, waiting for the knockout punch.

In 2009, three streets are going to fail, and forever change: Wall Street, Main Street, and Madison Avenue.

We’re all familiar with the issues on Wall Street, and we all know how this is affecting things on Main Street. (You know. Where regular people live, losing their jobs, and are getting evicted from their homes.)

But if these two streets are seeing bloodshed, wait till you see the massacre on Madison Avenue.

Madison Avenue is where most of the big advertising companies reside. It’s also a euphemism for the entire marketing/advertising/PR industry.

If you know anything about this industry, you know that for all the hype surrounding the big firms, they are all basically the same. Almost all of them focus almost only on Fortune 500 companies, almost all of them have HUGE office buildings and carry a massive overhead, almost all of them get 80% of their wealth from 1 or 2 big customers, and almost all of them are on life support right now.

Right now, the marketing industry is seeing layoffs at a rate that hasn’t been seen in decades, and it hasn’t even got really bad yet. Many will collapse before the end of 2009. And the ones that survive will never be the same.

Why? Because the entire industry has fixated itself on the really big guys, when the really big guys go broke, the industry starves. Big corporations cannot pay their rent any longer, let alone an advertising and interactive marketing campaign.

However, there is an important silver lining to these dark clouds and –for once- it’s the little guy that will benefit.

Firstly is that there is going to be a FLOOD of talented designers, writers, PR people, and advertising specialists hitting the markets as they continue to be laid off. If you require an in house specialist for a short period of time, now is the time to look. There is some great talent out there looking for work.

Secondly, advertising rates are expected to drop this year sharply. Now is the time to go out there and push your business. Newspapers, television stations, and radio stations are desperate for ad revenue. If you are a good negotiator you will get yourself a great deal. Don’t believe me? Here’s a list of news papers that have gone or are almost bankrupt in 2009 alone!

Thirdly, with larger firms not advertising as much, mid-sized firms have a chance to increase mind share by being more aggressive in their marketing. While the confidence in large companies wanes, smaller firms can position themselves as a stable more reliable alternative.

Fourthly, if you are a fellow marketing firm of modest size, this is the year to get noticed. A lot of the larger firms will be no longer able to service their clients at reasonable rates. A small firm can clean up this year with a great strategy to get those clients.

From the very beginning, a5MEDIA structured itself to be the anti-agency. We deliberately focused on smaller businesses, and had a business model that demanded a variety of clients of all sizes. As of 2008, a5MEDIA has set itself up to not require a physical office to work from (lowering our overhead and reducing our costs to our clients), but also instituted an online collaboration system to allow us to work more effectively with clients no matter where they are in the world.

I’m not saying this (just) to toot our own horn. (Toot!) I’m mentioning this because this ‘market correction’ in the advertising world is going to affect the way a lot of businesses do their marketing.

Ultimately, Madison Avenue will come roaring back. But it won’t be this year or even next. But these two years will forever change the industry in my opinion. Firms are going to get more humble; they will rely more and more on out sourcing and freelancers, and will ultimately take on more medium sized clients to diversify their client base. (Sound familiar?)

In the meantime, it’s a golden opportunity for small business and small marketing firms. Don’t let this year pass you by without taking advantage of it!


Yusuf Gad
President, a5MEDIA
http://www.a5media.ca

Restaurant Marketing Tips – Part 2

Last time, we talked about the fundamentals of restaurant marketing. Today, I want to talk about the digital age has affected restaurant marketing, and what steps a restaurant or diner can take to help see their sales grow.

The Internet has revolutionized restaurant marketing like it has revolutionized everything else. But it is still concerning to see how many restaurants have not taken advantage of what the Internet has to offer in terms of great marketing solutions.

Too many restaurants still rely on word of mouth or pedestrian traffic for their sales. While this will always be the mainstay of their business, it is becoming increasingly more and more competitive to ensure consistent sales growth for individual eateries.

2009, with all of the financial issues we are facing, is going to be tough for most businesses. It will be ESPECIALLY difficult for restaurants. Now, more than ever, restaurants need to focus on long term strategies for consistent growth.

The Internet provides a perfect vehicle to do just that. So let's see what can be done on line to get more patrons at your eatery.

Get a Website: Why is it that more restaurants don't have a custom website is mind boggling. No matter what the upfront cost is, by not spending it you are jeopardizing much more in potentially lost sales. So get one. NOW! A good website will be custom done -from scratch- to convey to the visitor your restaurant's experience. It will be search engine friendly, have lots of pictures of your establishment, lots of pictures of your dishes (people eat with their eyes), your menus (both food and drink), prices, hours of operation, map of your location, and contact info (both phone and email). Don't forget to make sure that your location is listed on every page. This is a great way to ensure that you are found. Nowadays, people want to learn as much about a business before they drop their cash. A website is a great way of doing that.

Start Email Marketing: On your website, allow people the chance to sign up to your mailing list so you can easily send them email updates about specials, events, and promotions. And send these emails out regularly. At least once at week but no more that 3 times a week. When you give your customers their bill, give them a card they can fill out and provide their email information and let them know you want to stay in touch. Some great and affordable email marketing tools include 12ALL and PHPList. Email marketing is completely under utilized by restaurants, so make sure you take full advantage of it and be creative in your use. (More on this next).

REALLY Start Email Marketing: Now that you have a database of customers, and great email marketing software, keep in touch with your subscribers. And keep in touch creatively. Don't just let them know about this weeks specials, use email marketing to help you with your downtime. Use it as a means to kick up sales on a bad day. For example, anyone who owns a restaurant knows how a rainy day can kill sales. So instead of spending the day alone at your eatery, send out an email and offer a 'rainy day special'. Try and make an offer that will entice people to brave the weather and join you for a meal!

Be Wary of Restaurant Directories: In Toronto, restaurants are tempted to join MenuPalace or Dine.TO. While I have nothing against these businesses per se, they all merely glorified restaurant directories. Ultimately, they offer you little in ways of a tactical advantage. Most people will still use Google or Yahoo and do a search for the kind of restaurant they are hungry for. Many of these kinds of sites will offer to develop a website for you for cheap. I recommend against it. Many times, they use template based solutions, that make all of their websites look exactly the same. You're has to stand out. Worse yet, much of the time they do websites in Flash, that aren't search engine friendly. It is much better for you in the long run to invest in a well designed website that is search engine friendly.

Get on Facebook: Facebook groups are a great way to extend your brand. They allow you to reintroduce it to your friends, and allow your advertising to grow organically. Social networking is going to be the dominant marketing tool for the next 5 years, so get used to it. Get on Facebook, start a group, add lots of photos, and start inviting people. It's free, it's easy, it works, and -did I mention?- it's free.

Get on Twitter: Along with Email Marketing, Facebook, and a Website, Twitter is a great way to send out quick messages to your fans. Twitter is basically an on line paging system. Type a message, hit enter, and anyone that is following you on Twitter will get your message. This is a GREAT tool to use in conjunction with an email marketing initiative and ties in very well with Facebook.

Take Professional Photos: I've mentioned this already before, but it bares repeating. People eat with their eyes. The more delicious your food looks the more people will want to eat it. Make sure your photos are professionally done, so they look their most yummy. Once you have them, post them everywhere: your website, Facebook, Twitter, everywhere!

The Internet provides all the tools you need to get a great marketing campaign off the ground for your business quickly, and affordably. And you HAVE to start using it. Effective use of on line marketing techniques can be a Godsend for your restaurant.

Get to it!


Yusuf Gad
President, a5MEDIA inc.
http://www.a5media.ca