Virgil Winston:Marketing Guru My wife caught me looking at dirty pictures on my computer yesterday. Literally. Since I get most of my news, weather and sports from the Internet, a dusty monitor can cause quite a problem. Mine had developed such a thick coat of dust, I was sure California was suffering a massive snowstorm […]
Virgil Winston:Marketing Guru I’m not a huge sports fan, unless you count the World Series of Scrabble or the Boggle Cup. Don’t get me wrong, I catch the big events but, as you can probably guess, I am more interested in the marketing opportunities than the actual games. What can I say; I’m a promotional […]
Virgil Winston:Marketing Guru My grandfather’s best friend and business partner is a little person. He doesn’t suffer from dwarfism; he’s just remarkably short and very slight. Even with the lifts and cowboy boots he always wears, Marty is 4’11” and doesn’t weigh more than a buck. He’s 94 years old now and although he’s retired […]
Virgil Winston:Marketing Guru It’s January and you know what that means, it’s “Awards Show” season. You can hardly channel surf without landing smack dab in the middle of an acceptance speech. First up are the Golden Globes, where somebody is likely to get sloshed before their acceptance speech; then the Screen Actor’s Guild Awards where […]
Virgil Winston:Marketing Guru As I nervously prepared for career day at my youngest son’s school, knotting my tie at least a dozen times, I suddenly remembered what my father used to tell himself before an important speech, “Never let em see you sweat.” He’d look in the mirror and repeat those words, over and over […]
Virgil Winston:Marketing Guru My grandmother had a saying, “Poetry in advertising is as dead as a cockroach at a square dance.” She certainly had a way with words, not a fluid or flowery way, but she got her point across. What she meant was, symbolism and metaphors are not the best way to convey your […]
Virgil Winston:Marketing Guru Earlier this year, my brother Phil moved to Namibia to capitalize on that country’s new found fascination with American celebrities. He’s working on a line of his and hers Brangelina bobble heads and, if it’s the success he hopes it will be, he’s going to follow up with Baby Shiloh shoehorns to […]
Virgil Winston:Marketing Guru 2006 was a banner year for branding and I am proud to have had a hand in helping plaster the names of thousands of companies on some of the most unique promotional items to hit trade shows, gift bags and celebrity golf tournament/fashion show/charity dinners this side of the Mississippi. Come to […]
Virgil Winston:Marketing Guru Yesterday was a dark day in the Winston household. It was a day I had long feared but never dared speak of, lest saying the words may make the imagined horror a reality. That’s right, my cable went out…for an entire day! I was half asleep when I pressed the remote to […]
Virgil Winston:Marketing Guru Not long ago, I spent an afternoon flipping through the Winston Family Album, all forty-three volumes. Looking at old photos really brought a smile to my face; my parents wedding day, the day Uncle Lou was released from prison for “accounting errors,” and of course the day I created my very first […]
Virgil Winston:Marketing Guru A brilliant marketing mind told me that the average person cannot tolerate being told he is wrong. Change the pronoun and you have my wife in a nutshell. Not only is my wife always right, she has bionic hearing too, which is why I have decided to dedicate today’s column to womankind. […]
Virgil Winston:Marketing Guru It is a widely accepted marketing principal that in the minds of consumers, “perception is reality,” and the reality is, it’s a cold, cold world. Literally. Show your customers that you ‘get it’ by gifting them with a hot item they can really use. As the temperature drops, the need to transport […]
