I’ve been around for more than five decades and have never seen a time when Americans were more polarized in their public speech. Sure, we’ve all felt one way or another about hot-button issues, but, for the most part, we kept those thoughts to ourselves.  With the spread of easy-to-use social media, camera phones, and...Read More

In ancient times a business might buy a yellow pages ad, a few ads in the newspaper, and attend a local business expo as a year’s marketing efforts. Those days and opportunities are long, long gone, yet many businesses in Hawaii are still stuck in the marketing landscape of 20 years ago. Here are some...Read More

Are we headed toward a recession? If we have one, will it be deep and long or short and mild? I have no idea, but I subscribe to the belief that it’s better to be prepared for rough times than to enter them unprepared. Many of the businesses that perished during COVID weren’t necessarily bad...Read More

I love Steven Covey’s 7th Habit of Highly Successful People: Sharpen the Saw. Here’s from that chapter, Suppose you were to come upon someone in the woods working feverishly to saw down a tree.“What are you doing?” you ask.“Can’t you see?” comes the impatient reply. “I’m sawing down this tree.”“You look exhausted!” you exclaim. “How...Read More

I’m admittedly not an overly political person. I don’t watch news about politics for the most part, and if one of my Facebook “friends” posts anything political or partisan, I unfriend them immediately. That said, I do vote in every election and do, on occasion, donate to causes and candidates that I support.  Why Government...Read More

One of the things we like to think about in marketing is the amount of money you didn’t make by doing something poorly. For example, the lack of an online presence (website, claimed Google Business listing, etc.) guarantees that people who want to find what you have won’t. Massive opportunity lost. Wait times, guests leaving...Read More

Kona Impact has been making COVID signs since the beginning of the pandemic. Many, Kona Impact included, thought the pandemic would be reasonably short-term, but we now know it’s going to be around well into 2021. We also know that the number of visitors will begin increasing in mid-October, which will mean many businesses will...Read More

I was taking my dog for a walk the other day and came across a newspaper box stuffed with a relic from days gone by– a phone book! It’s worthy of note that the phone book is still being produced, and some businesses still advertise in it. The fact that this one particular phone book...Read More

Kona Kones is a real fruit ice cream business that just got started in West Hawaii. Kona Impact designed and installed the graphics on their custom trailer. We did not make their logo, which would have been proud to make–it’s a great logo–but we did help them focus on a logo that would go best...Read More

I had a lot of fun the other day when I received a cold call from a marketing company. They had no idea, I would guess, that online marketing is what I do, day in and day out, so there are few things I haven’t seen. The first hint of a scam was the spoofed...Read More