The Deep End

Our Day with Junior Achievement

On Wednesday, April 25, Fathom volunteered with Junior Achievement of Southwest New England. We were nervous, excited and didn’t know what to expect. Our time with JA and the kids of Lincoln Elementary in New Britain, Conn. was, to say the least, amazing, inspiring, exhilarating and exhausting!

To learn more about our day, keep reading for some post-experience thoughts from a few Fathomites . . .

“I loved it! It was so fun to hang out with the kids. The kids were all so respectful and kind. They seemed to genuinely enjoy the [...]

Credibility Rules When Marketing in China

Often, when building a go-to-market strategy in other countries, companies adopt a “do as the Romans do” approach. Through our work with our B2B clients in Asia, specifically China, however, we have discovered that being an import is more powerful than looking homegrown.

For China, the economic, political and social climates revolve around trust, and more specifically – a lack of it. China has mastered the craft of knock-off brands and, because most large-scale organizations are government controlled, citizens are distrustful of Chinese companies and the marketing used to reach them.

On the contrary, [...]

Effective Internal Communications Leads to Collaboration

Do you remember how much you learned from an executive’s latest business update or Town Hall? Did you take time to read about the new initiatives kicking off in the company’s quarterly newsletter? Or maybe you rely on the intranet for its engaging articles?

. . . crickets . . .

That’s what I thought. You probably missed the Town Hall because of some other critical meeting, the newsletter is lost in the abyss of your inbox, and turns out those intranet articles are not all that engaging.

Internal communication has proven unsuccessful many times over and thus, makes new project or [...]

“What’s in it for me?”: Persuasion in Online Marketing

“Why won’t she just do what I tell her to?” I moaned to my wife after finding my 5-year-old covered in tattoo marker. She looked like Mel Gibson from Braveheart for the better part of a week. The fact is I can’t tell my daughter to do anything. I constantly have to persuade her to do what I want and there always needs to be something in it for her.

Working with your customers and potential customers is a lot like the relationships you have with your kids. You can’t make them do anything. You need to persuade them why they [...]

Friday Lunch: Dave Murphy and His Dream Boat

This Friday Lunch, Fathom was visited by Dave Murphy and his fellow Oil Drum Art board members, Jack Lardis and Donna Donovan. Dave has been working on an amazing local, and soon-to-be global, community project that he hopes (and we do too) Fathom can participate in.

A master woodworker and former MadMen-like advertising exec, Dave has built a catamaran for off-shore fishing that communities in developing countries can construct themselves from oil drums and easily accessible materials. The project began as a way to help raise funds for [...]