At the Macworld expo in 1999, Steve Jobs gave a great example of using advertising to solve problems.

He said:

Well, I gotta tell you – we don’t do it because it goes down well or not. We have a problem, and our problem was that people had forgotten what Apple stands for. As a matter of fact, a lot of our employees have forgotten what Apple stands for. And so we needed a way to communicate what the heck Apple’s all about. And we thought, how do you tell somebody what you are, who you are, what you care about? And the best way we could think of was, you know, if you know who somebody’s heroes are, that tells you a lot about them. So we thought we are going to tell people who our heroes are, and that’s what the “Think Different” campaign is all about. It’s about telling people who we admire, who we think are the heroes of this century. And – some people will like us, and some people won’t like us.

What problems are you facing in business right now?

Could advertising solve those problems?

 

To other news, interest rate hikes are working out pretty well for the banks…

According to news.com.au:

On Wednesday, the nation’s largest bank announced its largest ever cash profit of $10.2 billion in 2022-23, with the 6 per cent increase driven by expanding profit margins after soaring interest rates pushed the bank to hike variable mortgage repayments 10 times in that period.

I’m sure they’re just keeping pace with inflation.

And making sure they can offer better banking services for all Australians in the future.

Right?

Actually, I don’t think the banks care about their customers.

Only profits.

Which is fine. They’re not a charity.

What saddens me is that the top-level execs are probably laughing about it behind closed doors.

Oh well, at least the CBA did something good with all that extra cash…

They paid CEO Matt Comyn nearly $8 million in bonuses, according to news.com.au:

Mr Comyn received an eye-watering $10.4 million pay packet, which included nearly $8 million in bonuses.

He probably deserved it.

Unlike the 7402 CBA employees who were getting underpaid since 2010, despite repeated requests to fix the unlawful employee agreements used by CBA.

And despite senior management misleading staff and the workplace umpire by claiming it was fully compliant with the law.

They got busted in the end. And finally fessed up:

AFR reported back in April that:

Commonwealth Bank of Australia has admitted to knowingly underpaying 7402 staff more than $16 million through mass use of individual agreements that unlawfully undercut union agreements.

Of course, the $16 million the CBA admits to withholding only accounts for their 2015 – 2021 wage scam. The 4 years of underpaying employees from 2010 to 2014 is protected by the statute of limitations.