I almost took the ZENECIST™ brand into the land of off-brand. It’s all been based upon a long-dwelled upon idea for an apparatus that, in fact, has no relation to the Zenecist brand spirit nor those whom I hope to engage.
Good grief. It’s Brand 101. Align the brand across all touch points and elements. Designing a product just because you can doesn’t mean it fits the real goals of a brand and its stakeholders: to create delight and engagement; and to help fans internalize its relevance to their personal and/or professional brands.
To make a brand part of their own.
Frankly, designing a product was about the simple fun of creating something because that’s what I do. Or that’s what I did with my erstwhile marketing and design agency.
My goal here is to sell a product I can pull from inventory, ship, and scale. And, while thinking back at a conversation I had the other day with my best friend Bobby, and how he laughed when he heard I was back at creating something again (“You can’t help yourself can you?”) it struck me: I should stay with what I know. That’s how to create and position a brand. So it’s back into the vest pocket for that idea.
In its stead I’m focusing on creating a minimum viable brand (MVB), as part of the lean startup process. On aligning its tactical approach based upon strategic goals.
So instead of creating products I’m sourcing them. I have 3 samples are coming in for evaluation already. And the product category is ridiculously narrow, so much so that ZENECIST may be the only one in the space. And way out front by the time others discover its value.
My single criteria: that I’d wear or use products myself in the spirit of high-level, laid-back lifestyle. That’s what this is. It’s my current state of being. I tell you, for a man of age, it’s a delightful gift.
Oh, and I’d like products to be Made it in America. For every reason.
Seeing What I See Now
As with all gardens, the key is to grow what you love.
I realize just how lucky I am to have the luxury not to do a full-court press 24/7 to get revenue flowing as I did at age 36 when I started Thomas Marketing Services. And while it might seem to go against semi-retired guy principles, I’m getting a part-time out-of-home job at an amazing garden center these next months.
Fact is I enjoy working; and really enjoy outdoors and gardening. And having drained my IRA to keep us in home and college tuitions back in my health challenge decade, I can use the additional discretionary income (I have Finland in my sights).
Too, I simply must get from behind my standing desk and out of the house to intact with real people, sans the baggage and button-pushing inherent in day-to-day generational living. You see, our 26-and 31-year old sons live here in our open post and beam log home in the deep burb’s of Boston (a third lives in Manhattan and calls almost daily); and I can validate what’s said about the relationship Italian mothers have with their Italian sons. I’m Finnish. You get the picture.
I’ve decided too I enjoy writing, and that my bonehead startup goofs and recoveries may amuse some starting their own ventures. If nothing else, I hope it centers people for a moment, that it quiets their minds so they can see their business from a slightly different perspective. And with quiet focus.
Of course these thoughts are not new. I’m just getting around to putting them into practice. It’s the laid back kind of guy I am today; and frankly, is something new in my charmed life. Though I suspect it comes largely from the peace in inherent in a business not carrying dept.
But high-level? That’s something about the brand only you can decide. But that’s the goal; it’s how I’d like to think of you. Because a brand is a 2-way street. And I hope we’re both be satisfied.
For now, and without paying customers, so far so good. I’d hope you’d tell me otherwise.
With Thanks To All Who’ve Believed in Thomas Marketing Services Corporation For 3 Decades. And In Me.
When I founded Thomas Marketing Services as a freelance writer in 1989, I could not have foreseen the business, and the Corporation, would go on for over 34 years. You see, I had just been fired for the first time in my career, from an ad agency (as we called them then) where I’d helped built a nice client list. My principals, in their great wisdom, were all too happy to take over my accounts when they lost their key clients in a two-week period. It was crazy.
A 38-year old Tom Lanen (me) speaking into one of the first Kurzweil Voice Recognition systems built on an IBM computer–love the handset! Thanks to Jill Albiani, Keith Belton, Bob Joseph, and Ray Kurzweil — it was a privilege to work with you on that then breakthrough tech.
Two of my (now former) clients called me the next day to ask me what happened, and told me I had two months to join another agency or to start my own. I didn’t wait; I chose option B within a week. And so, I began operating out of a small office in Marlborough with charter clients A.L.E. Systems, a manufacturer of pulsed power systems for lasers, and Kurzweil AI, where early-stage voice recognition systems were being developed for Radiology and Emergency Departments.
This office also housed a design studio, Giacobbe Communications, co-owned by artist Margaret (today a globally-known seascape artist, Margaret Gerding) Giacobbe, one of the designers I employed in my first company, and who worked with her husband/co-owner Joe on a bunch of nice accounts.
At age 37, I bought my first computer, a Mac IIC with a whooping 40 mg hard drive, and with the Giacobbe’s desktop designing skill, patience—Joe taught me how to write a letter in Microsoft Word—and their gracious guidance, I was off.
Just 2 of the tri-lingual packs using the VELCRO™ brand Consumer Package Good (CPG) Master Design System
With my then-building luck, just a few months later Velcro USA came to us with a plan to consolidate its Consumer Products Group retail products. It came in via Donna Green, a brilliant marketer and a lovely being with a wonderful sense of humor with whom I had worked well at Kimberly Quality Care in my prior agency.
What an amazing challenge and opportunity! Over the years the Velcro companies had created consumer products across market lines, which required a number of like products to have different package printing. For example, the same simple strap with a Velcro™ brand closure might be marketed into Automotive, Marine and Hardware retailers, thus having 3 different packages and SKU (Store Keeping Units) numbers to price, inventory and handle.
We created lots of toy box designs and learned how to compete in this sector
Our charge: to create a single and greatly simplified Velcro® branded Consumer Products CPG (Consumer Page Goods) master design system for the line that would be marketed in The Americas, and Canada, thus qualifying for printing pricing at scale while reducing handling.
Chief among my challenges was writing copy that would be that would be rendered—and proofread with intense scrutiny—in 3 languages: English, French (Canadian dialect) & Spanish (Central America).
My dear friend & a true man of faith, Karl Hellmann, a Marketing Manager at Velcro USA Consumer Products Division in Tucson, wishing me well on a photo/card he created while sporting a TMSC zen sailboat™ hat & jean jacket we gave clients
We went on to create a packaging design system for these products, which included blister packs, standardized boxes, and clamshells, and reduced the original line of over 300 products and packages to less than half, though we did create some new products in the course of it all, which later inciuded a line of Velcro™ brand toys. Donna, Margaret and Joe were just an incredible team, and with their help I spent many an hour on the road to Manchester, NH—and later flying to Tucson when the Consumer Products Group moved to be closer to their manufacturing. We all burned many a midnight candle on press runs too, sleeping in the waiting room at printers in Rhode Island to Connecticut, as well as at our primary printer, the then Amprint in Holliston, as we awaited press proofs to check all the many details 2-8 color offset printing required.
The Velcro companies do not manufacture & market finished medical products or devices (or at least didn’t when I worked for them), but rather partner with brands to create brilliant solutions, a term I coined as Ingenuity Through Alliance, which had a tried and true innovation process depicted in 3D here.. We also created the Medical Group logo.
It was brutal at times. But mostly it was fun. It was the good old days, and I enjoyed being immersed in our growing knowledge base, especially the opportunities given to us on what at times, was simple good faith, by Dr. Tom Potterfield, Dick Kuhl, Manny Cardinale, Alan Koglemeir, Brian Murphy, Karl Hellmann, Julie (Dupei) Wood, Lorrie Piper, Chris Lerra, Daryl Pfaff, Derrick Slowikoski, Justin Ferdinand, and Tori Berube among many others, not the least of whom was Sari Ann Strasburg, Velcro USA’s house counsel, who used to call me “the keeper of the brand,” a privilege and responsibility I took to heart.
I wrote the Georges de Mestral story about how the Swiss inventor went for a walk in the woods with his dog & upon returning home discovered the natural hook shape of the cocklebur, which became the basis of VELCRO™ brand fasteners. The real challenge came in creating machinery to enable production to scale.
Fact was, I found myself pinching myself at times. With such an iconic brand on our client list we seemed to have made the bigs in just a couple years. Or at least big enough to get noticed by the Velcro company’s other business units, from Industrial to Needle Goods to Medical Products, Personal Hygiene, Automotive and Aerospace.
Our offices in ’93 overlooking Lake Williams in Marlborough.
In 1993, we moved out the the Giacobbe Design building to a lakefront office in Marlborough, and added our first staff. I was making decent money too, which was good given I had my first son in 1992 at age 40, and twins five years later.
My family in the Fall of 1997, a couple months after my twins were born. Being a dad has been easily the best thing I’ve done in my life.
The long and the short of it is this: I have led a charmed career; it has been my privilege to work on some truly wonderful assignments. And with incredible creatives, such as the brilliant John Francois Gallagher, today a fine artist and painter of growing repute, and one of my best best friends; and Paul Cugno, my first Art Director. And then there was Sue Lister a lovely woman with a remarkable “can-do” attitude, a bright and friendly light. And nobody could have kept us together as did my office manager, Sandra Collins, and Sue Ramsbottom in the years before her. Too, we were so often at the studio or on location with Boston photographer, Jim Kelly, that he surely was a valued member of the team. Same with Felice Katz of Graphics-To-Go, another crack resource and friend. And Chuck Goldstone, our video producer for Velcro™ products, also falls into our extended staff category.
We also had some incredible interns, such as Ryan McMorrow and Jen Green who went on to do great things. When Jen graduated from Syracuse, after interning 2 consecutive summers for us, she came looking for a gig with the agency. “Now Jen, you were the captain of your varsity women’s college soccer team; do you really want to come back and work with some 40-year old guys? Isn’t there some new pro soccer club around to talk to?” was my question to her. A month later she came in to announce she was appointed the first PR Director of the then nascent New England Revolution! I milked her success to it’s fullest when I coached U 10-12 soccers teams for my sons; she got us up close. And today Ryan is in the elite-level strata of the tech world.
A wonderfully functional & beautiful website for Quebrada Baking Co (Wellesley & multiple locations) on which I partnered with the amazing team at Newfangled Web Company. The “Fresh, Fresh, Fresh” dynamic and site coloration/palette reflected the direct sensibilities of the brand stakeholder and owner(s), my friend Kay Wiggin, Founder of Quebrada Baking Co.,, and her family. It’s now a second generation family business.
When the World Wide Web came a thing, I had the good fortune to connect with Newfangled Web Company, Eric Holter, now of Holter Strategic, and Mark O’Brien, now CEO of Newfangled, along with Chris Butler, the firm’s creative director, Sarah Dooley, my day-to-day coordinator extraordinaire, and Justin Kerr, who’s now Head Pirate at Justin Kerr Design in Providence. They taught us how to wireframe a website’s User Interface (UI) to create the functionality we wanted before creating the design system or lifting pen to copy. They also created a remarkable proprietary Content Management System (CMS) well before WordPress or SquareSpace were a thing, which allowed us free rein to update our sites on the fly without knowing any code. While it may sound unremarkable today, it was 2002 and it was wondrous.
My brilliant Creator Director, John Francois Gallagher, completely rendered the KeyTek Zapmaster MK4 in early stage 3-D software with only CAD/CAM drawings and samples of cabinet and resin part surfaces. Check out our the 3D video we created (click image)–I wrote script & copy; it took an amazing amount of computing/processing–days I recall.
We also broke new grounds producing a 3-D video that helped launch a new line of semiconductor test equipment for what was then Thermo Electron, now Thermo Fisher Scientific. My Creative Director, John Gallagher, rendered it in a 3-D video software using CAD-CAM drawings and a painted cabinet door alone; there wasn’t even an assembled cabinet much less the workings of a very sophisticated tester (see our 3D image of the ZapMaster MK4 to right from video) to shoot.
Going for the dramatic King Kong emotion to break through to a mature technical market
We worked for over 5 years each with 3 other Thermo business units. I owe my thanks to Kim Baltier, Sharon Halter, Mike Norton, Tricia Harris, and all the engineers who helped me found my specialty to “create understanding across technical and non-technical audiences while maintaining technical context,” as observed by Dave Bennett, a Brit of deep engineering talent and whit.
Good fortune followed when Bill Carew, Brian Driscoll, and their colleague Hanna, approached us to start their first company, Carew Driscoll. As they became more successful and Bill’s brother, John Carew, joined the organization, we built a brand that spawned their next generation business, Ovation Benefits Group, creating a strong brand identity and culture (read Bill Carew’s musing on brand and culture, and how it matters) around it, and whose foundation and principles are found in a number of businesses and brands to this day.
I worked with fellow sailor Peter Caruso on 3 national accounts, including Hummel Teamwear (Denmark, not the figurine makers) during the 1994 World Cup in the USA — w created ads, catalogs and merchandising.
Longtime sailing friend, Peter Caruso, on whose sailboat I crewed to help win the coveted Chapman Bowl (overnight Cape Cod Bay Race) one year, as well as many a PHRF race in Scituate, was also instrumental in the success of Thomas Marketing. I worked on 3 national accounts with Peter, a C-Level captain, including startup AlcoholEDU and Hummel Soccer Team Wear in 1994 the last time the World Cup was in the USA. At the time, Hummel was one of the premier soccer (football) brands in the world, and we created catalogs and advertising of which I’m still proud.
An outdoor full size board directing traffic to a new location. Concept was re-purposed many times in e-mail and website graphics, and rotated seasonally.
I’m also grateful to Ethan Holmes, the former owner of New England Hydroponics, who gave me a chance after my health challenges as an older adult, and from whom I learned the retail biz. I worked as his (contract) Director of Marketing on tactics ranging from database marketing to merchandising, social media, and online store maintenance. He employed a smart team of nice folks, a couple of whom have become my lifetime friends and rock n’ roll partners in crime at the Xfinity Center in Mansfield, where we have season lawn passes.
Then, and most significantly to my career, there has been Dave Manly, who’d engaged my first agency, The Ad Store of Wellesley, to re-stage the Chinet™ Disposable Plate brand. It was my first real CPG (consumer package goods) assignment, which he honcho’d for a name consulting company shortly after he’d been the first Brand Manager for Pringles at Proctor & Gamble.
A prince among men and perhaps the most brilliant CPG marketer I know, Dave Manly mentored me in the P&G school of strategic CPG brand marketing. This was a strategic/concept story board we created to focus group test against the “Stronger” communication platform.
Dave taught me the P&G discipline of strategic brand marketing, which became the true basis of my brand marketing and operating knowledge from retail to B2B and tech. And, he brought me along with him on his storied career with Boston Whaler™ boats, LoJack™ tracking systems, a couple early-stage dot-coms, Bay State Gas and Energy USA, and finally to Keurig Green Mountain, where we did market research leading to the naming of its second product, the Keurig 2.0!
Without Dave and the rest, including my big agency training by the brilliant Bob Corriveau and support by friend Linda Harvey at Ingalls in Boston, Jud Horner and Wayne MacDonald at the then Horner & MacDonald, and early mentor, Al Buyer and son Chuck of Buyer Advertising, and Steve Lanzilla of European Telephone Company, I would simply not be here today. And all to whom I am grateful beyond words.
But it’s onto what next. At fucking 72. Ha!
The Rise of ZENECIST™
On December 31. 2023, the Board of Directors of Thomas Marketing Services Corporation, voted to cease operations of the Corporation.
I can tell you, after almost 35 years, it’s not been easy to assimilate the thought such a big part of my career is over. In fact it’s been a little shocking. Though I’ve been lucky; I’ve worked for myself for 37 of my 50+ years in the advertising and brand marketing agency business. And I was amply warned (by my dad and his business cronies) about how tough a business it was and is today; and we surely took our knocks. But we had our successes too. I’ve fucking loved it.
Turns out all those people who told me early in my career to do something I loved were right. I still subscribe to the notion.
My logo reflects my sensibilities on many levels from the Futura typeface to the purple and gray palette, which reflects the original coloration of the Thomas Marketing Services Brand in 1989. My Zen Sailboat™ (DESIGN) is also inexorably intertwined with my personal brand, and will continue as primary logo element. The brand name is now pending at the USPTO.
So it’s with new enthusiasm and interest I’m launching my new company and persona, ZENECIST™. I’m doing what I want to do, or least looking at what I can do given some of the limitations a reasonably pragmatic person of age must keep in mind.
It’s my endgame. And I’m having fun.
“Why start a business (at my age)?” asks my kids. Simple. I enjoy and prefer the creativity and energy of lean startups–way more than rusting out on the couch watching The Price Is Right or seniors golf. That would fucking kill me.
Plus, it’s the start of a new brand story, and it centers on my current interests. In what I believe and know.
You see, I’ve been a man of faith from the Christian tradition, and a keen observer of the cosmos all my life. I’ve also studied zen buddhism through masters Thich Nhat Hanh, whose book, Living Buddha, Living Christ inspired me, and whose book Anger, is always within arm’s reach. And whose lead meditation raised the foundation of Boston’s Copley Plaza one incredible Sunday morning. I’ve heard the Dali Lama, and experienced Baba Ram Das in person; and have read Alan Watts on the wisdom of insecurity.
Bowie, my zen master & football pal
Though most everything I know about zen, about being here now, I learned from my German Shepherd, Bowie. To enjoy the moment for all it’s worth.
And my logo, my ‘zen sailboat’ is not going away. The “person” who was the Corporation is gone but I’m still here, a Christian-Buddhist, a Buddhist-Christian, or none/all of the above.
Too, I have been influenced by the Christian mystic, Thomas Merton. Like him and his prayer, I often have no idea where I’m going, but have faith in my understanding and guidance of the Divine. I am simply continuing to try. I think that’s our singular mission this short time we have here. To keep trying. And in trying, we can at least hope to find answers. Maybe even some peace.
Through it all, my thought is to keep my dear friend Dr. Tom Potterfield’s “Secret” in our minds and hearts.
“It really is that simple: it all comes down to love – being with people, work, family from a place of love. That’s the secret.” – Tom Potterfield (1954-2010)
Here’s the thing. At the moment the business has one simple strategy: to be here now. We don’t have a firm revenue model, and we’re only beginning to fully crystalize ideas on the lifestyle products we’ll offer.
In fact, I only have a strategic business goal (what I plan to do) : to field value-packed (disruptor) products within a minimum viable (lean/agile) brand. And to test, test, test before committing significant resources.
ZENECIST (my word) started with a how-to book about gardening; I’m an indoor gardening enthusiast and after 10 years I’m starting to get good at it. But, my book became dated so fast I unpublished it, having made all of $8 over 6 months on Kindle. I now give the ePub away to anybody who asks, with hopes to update it soon.
I hitch-hiked the USA for several months in the 70s, and during my adventuring the semi-precious gem, Turquoise, of which their are several colorations, came to have almost a sacred meaning for me as I saw it sold on the streets from Boulder to Berkley. Here’s one version I made last Fall.
Then there was this past fall, when I stated making what I call “understated gentleman rocker jewelry’ after a number of people commented on a simple semi-precious gems necklace I made and wore all last summer while attending Xfinity Center outdoor concerts. While I got a late start for holiday gifting, I sold a couple on Facebook Marketplace, and gave a bunch to family and fellow rockers, and learned a ton.
I will soon offer a limited edition version of my authentic semi-precious gemstone necklaces on ZENECIST.com as part of documenting my trademark application. I may also sell them at music venues this summer, such as “Shakedown Street” the mini-culture at Dead & Co. shows, but as a marketer and not so much as a crafter—I’ll source items made in the USA from the crafter community.
I’m also designing an environmentally-friendly product I’ve been thinking about for years. More on this to come. But there’s nothing else on the market like it, and I’m kind of excited to get a prototype in the works.
For now, ZENECIST.com SEO will be redirected to this next brand chapter as it unfolds. Though as with all brands, customers will define the ZENECIST brand. And so will The Divine as I understand them. I find myself newly-based in my new Unitarian Universalist faith community where I’ve come to believe–or maybe it’s I’m ‘allowed’ to believe–the Divine has pronouns They & Them, and not just he/him.
Thus my first challenge will be to offer a legit reason why anybody should care about any of it. Because what a business does is not enough to gain a loyal following. Why matters.
It’s all in line with my strategic personal goal: to live my best life. Sure, I’d take a good writing assignment if the opportunity presented itself; I really enjoy it. And I never say never about juicy marketing gig—my wife used to call my brand marketing enthusiasm my ‘sickness’—and you know, it still is.
But for the moment, having discovered you can’t be happy without being grateful, I’m simply content to be just that. Grateful. And happy to be here.
To all with whom I’ve worked and known in my role at Thomas Marketing Services, and with all the gratitude in my being, thank you for believing in me, and for your lovely friendships. I appreciate you.
April 2024 | Brand & Database Marketing | Background & Current Services
I am currently offering marketing and writing services including permission e-mail/database marketing and e-commence support in tandem to building out ZENECIST.
Your call/inquiry is welcome. Thanks, Tom Lanen (508) 951-0130 | Email
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OVERVIEW OF QUALIFICATIONS: THOMAS MARKETING SERVICES CORPORATION ERA (1989-2023)
(Edit: April 2024) If you’re a business owner ready to generate more revenue there’s no time better than now to kick-start your marketing to make it happen. It’s also absolutely the right moment to get out front and build revenue, momentum and brand equity–with more projectable results you can see, count and manage. Even if marketing isn’t your thing.
Why hire a fixed-cost marketing staffer or pricey agency, when I can be your go-to, get-it-done resource for a fraction of the cost? The only reason might be if you wait too long to engage my limited bandwidth, only now available after a 5-year contract as Director of Marketing for what became a 5-location retailer plus 4500+ product online store during my watch — and which netted my principal a nice endgame payday.
You see, I work especially well with business owners who don’tlove marketing but get they need it to grow, regardless of the economy. Those who want do-able options to sustain and expand their revenue streams. Well, I’m all about options. Because there is always an answer to the challenge at hand. Always. Even if you sometimes feel reluctant to gain more attention for yourself, and your business. That’s just natural.
“It’s not easy to run a business. Not everyone can do it.”
Ted Lanen (1926-2008) , Sales Engineer (Tufts EE), Owner, Leo C. Pelkus Inc., Wellesley, MA New England Manufacturer’s Rep, Emerson Electric/Wiegand
Just give me, Tom Lanen, a call and let’s have a confidential chat. Right now if you want. It costs you nothing — unlike inaction, which can cost you opportunity. 508 951-0130
If we’re of like mind and it makes sense to you, I can help get revenue-generating programs off your ‘to-do when I have time list’ and into the ‘done and kicking it column’ — fast. Because I’ve never been accused of lacking enthusiasm — and nothing gets me more fired up than working with good people ready to make a difference. And I’ve been told, more than once, my positive intensity is infectious — you know, in a good way.
A disciple of the P&G school of strategic brand marketing, my core strengths are in retail, consumer package goods (CPG), and technology sectors, including medical and healthcare. I also have a strong sense of the entertainment & hospitality categories having worked in customer-facing roles.
Projects have run the gamut of marketing strategies and tactics including branded content & writing, e-mail marketing, merchandising, and advertising & creative services for digital and analog channels.
I am well-versed in creating lead generation websites, and e-Comm shopping sites (Big Commerce, Shopify, Squarespace, WP, etc.) including user interface (UI/UX) strategies, design, imaging & content — even crunch-time posting and website population.
A Brand Is A Story & Its People, Products & Services–And Customers–Are Its Chapters.
A brand is anything but static. But if its core story–your vision–is tied to a strategic communications platform and a defined position, its tactics can be managed, measured, and executed to create revenue, momentum and equity, the sum of its parts greater than the whole.
Tom Lanen, principal, during the summer of 2022 at the Xfinity Center in Mansfield, MA where he fully enjoyed the Season Pass his 20-something sons gave to him for his birthday – 34 shows!
My mission, in partnership with my principals, is to tell the Brand Story through process-driven and compelling content that engages and informs, while addressing the real issues of customers and constituents. And those who would be.
The story, and how it’s presented, create ‘comfort levels’ needed to make a purchase decision be it as small as clicking through to a sale or as large as a capital equipment acquisition. It also helps people believe what they know, which can be a real issue, and affirms and validates their comfort.
And it’s about helping people build the confidence needed to make your brand part of their own personal and professional brands. This creates loyalty, goodwill, and salable equity, a real valuation metric – and a significant element of any brand owner’s endgame.
Tell Me Your Goals & I’ll Give You Options. Affordable, Do-Able Options.
• Permission-Based E-mail – Brand Communication Strategy/Platform, Copy, Email Formatting (via your Email Service Provider – MailChimp, Constant Contact, EMMA, etc.) Recent documented Open Rates averaging over 40% (industry average is 17% according to SpringBot ESP)
• Point-Of Sale – Art & Copy; also Large Format Printing
• Blogs – Research & Write/Post, create imaging and/or video, SEO: WordPress, Medium, etc.
• Website/Commerce Pages/SEO Copy – also populating and imaging via most CMS & Shopping Platforms: Big Commerce, Shopify, Squarespace, etc.
• Thought-Leadership Articles – Writing & editing based upon executive input
• Presentations – Video, Powerpoint, Speeches, etc.
My rate is moderate. Our first discussion is always on me. And I work to budgets – at the speed of retail. And, I take direction well.
If you engage me beyond a single project I can offer significant volume discounts, assuming available bandwidth. The longer we work together, the more efficient it gets. Cash discounts also considered.
Art and/or imaging will be quoted in advance or you can provide your own. I’m happy to work with your existing creative and marketing relationships and resources.
Need it done well and fast? You got it. I provide real value and measurable results. And, I can demonstrate it with metrics and documentation to prove it.
It’s really easy to work with me. I’m here to give you do-able and affordable options that can help make you more successful. Simple.
I’m Tom Lanen, and I welcome your call. Let’s talk a few moments on my nickel.
All credit cards and bank transfer (ACH/EFT) are accepted.
Tom Lanen, here (with the blue Maui Jims) at the Snoop Dog/Whiz Kalifa show at the Xfinity Center outdoor amphitheater in Mansfield, MA (my 20-something sons gave me another season pass this summer–went to 34 shows last season); at this show with my pals from the hydroponics store chain where I was Marketing Director (Contract) for 5 years prior to its acquisition by a multi-state operator/holding company in a cash/stock deal.
You’d think our 34th anniversary on July 3rd, The Feast of St. Thomas, would prompt at least a mention here. But noooo, I’ve just been too busy living my best (semi-retired) life thanks to the fact my sons are killing it with their careers and life paths so I don’t worry about them. And my clear and unabating need to create has found a new focus.
First to the business. I’ve decided my workday is now from 7AM – Noon, give or take, when I will focus on helping small businesses create brand brand equity and momentum–a salable brand story and marketing strategy–with an endgame goal driven by the brand owner’s timing and aspirations.
Of course, if you have a really freaking cool project that demands more time, well, bring it on and let’s see what it will take. You see, I still REALLY love this brand marketing stuff– my wife calls it my ‘sickness.’
And now the fun new creative direction. On one of my ongoing 3-4 day camping trips this spring/summer, I was at a campground, on the southern shore of Massachusetts, and as I looked back at the beach in about an 150′ stretch I found some washed up and surf-rounded bricks, simply beautiful in the orange and red hues. I asked the staff if I could take them and determining them refuse and below the high water mark, they gave me permission to bring them home–just enough to fill my back seat floor.
Now my dad always had a fascination for water fountains, and had bought one he couldn’t fix when the pump blew out. I’d worked at a co-working space that had a lovely zen fountain, so fabricating one from these bricks, with an easily replaceable pump (and bowls/cistern) became my goal.
The first thing I’ve ever created, driven only by my muse. Its pump and Japanese tea bowls are easily replaced, as is the large cistern. And it may not be done yet!
I built and rebuilt my fountain a dozen times, finding working with mortar with my hands as satisfying a medium as any with which I’ve ever worked. And, I found myself almost euphoric with each little victory.
You see, while I’ve written and designed websites, blogs, print, radio, TV & digital ads, permission e-mails for database marketing, brochures, you name it, all that was with a professional objective and a brand-building and revenue-generating strategy.
But I’ve finally created something, driven only by my muse and curiosity. My goal was not symmetry (which one of my brilliant creative mentors calls “the hobgoblin of small minds”); it was balance, which along with connection and timeliness, is an inherent element in the definition of design–versus decoration, which may be pretty but is fleeting.
So that’s the plan. Within days I’ll be starting my next one, this made of stones I’ve collected over the 34 years we’ve owned our log home and land in the deep burbs of Boston. And in the 120+ hours I worked on my first creation I learned a lot.
Too, if it happens you have a collection of rocks and/or refuse from favoritebeach, lake, land or stream, I’d be happy to come and help you design and fabricate it for or with you. We’d have fun.
And if you’d like some help focusing and balancing your brand for better outcomes (and income) well, after 30 years I’m starting to get good at it. Let’s chat on my nickel: (508) 951-0130.
There are many forces that drive business growth and endgame equity. Here’s a guest post from Bill Carew, one of the smartest, hardest working business builders I’ve known, who along with business partner, Brian Driscoll, grew a 3-person business we first branded in 1995 (and rebranded 2 times since) into a major national player that’s been fully acquired. Read Bill’s thoughts, reposted here from an article that appeared in the former TMSC Journal, about how creating a strategic brand foundation and narrative has provided the means to live, strengthen, and grow a satisfying business and professional life. T-
Guest Post by Bill Carew, October 16, 2012; reposted October 26, 2022
I have always been infatuated with the power of strong brands. Since we started this business 10 years ago, we tried to build an organization—and a brand—that reflected who we were as individuals and what we thought our customers valued the most:
– Integrity – Service – Creativity – Commitment – Innovation – Excellence – Positive Energy – Passion – Personality
I learned to appreciate the power of the brand by working with branding guru Tom Lanen of Thomas Marketing Services Corporation (aka: ThomasBoston), who taught me about brand equity and the need to constantly and continuously protect and preserve and strengthen your brand. “Protect it at all costs,” Tom said. “Be true to yourself—and true to the brand. Always.”
At first, we focused on building the brand through traditional marketing. We focused on the tools we use to tell our story, things like our name, logo, tag-line, website, collaterals, etc. And we built a solid foundation.
But Tom also taught me that you build equity every day with every little decision you make along the way, which sounds simple and easy. But if you are growing, how do you continuously protect and preserve and strengthen the brand when more and more people get involved?
That’s where brand becomes culture.
We are in the service business, and our brand is really our people. We have built our brand by building our culture to attract the people who reflect our values and our priorities in the market: integrity, service, creativity, commitment, innovation, excellence, positive energy, and passion.
We have been very lucky to attract the right people. But we’ve been purposeful as well. It doesn’t happen by accident.
It’s been almost 10 years now, and I think we’ve done a pretty good job. When people think of Ovation, they think of these qualities. And that makes me proud of our brand, and proud of our people.
