Can I use Mike Millett’s frameworks in my own work?
Explaining or applying Mike Millett’s frameworks in your own words, with credit, is ordinary professional practice and needs nobody’s permission. Reproducing his text, his diagrams or a substantial extract is different: ask first.
In brief
The question usually arrives from a consultant building a client deck, a lecturer building a module, or a writer working on a chapter. They have read the foundations paper or the model, they want to use it, and they cannot tell whether that requires asking.
Copyright protects the way an idea is expressed. It does not protect the idea.
So one of these two acts is yours to do and the other is somebody else’s to grant, and the word use covers both.
Four uses, and what each one needs
- 01
Explaining the idea in your own words
Credit it and go. Teaching, applying, adapting or arguing with a published framework is ordinary professional practice, and no author has to grant it. Name him and name where the material is published, so your reader can check you against the source.
- 02
Naming the framework
Reference, not endorsement. Saying that a deck draws on the Marketing Helix or on Adaptive Brand Management is accurate description. Implying that he reviewed your deck is a different sentence, and it is one a reader cannot verify.
- 03
Reproducing the text, a figure or a substantial extract
Ask. A short quotation with a URL and a date is ordinary quotation; a rebuilt diagram, a reprinted section or a handout made of somebody’s paragraphs is republication wearing a smaller word.
- 04
Building a product, course or credential on top of it
Ask first, before the material exists. This is where reference turns into affiliation, and the cost of finding out afterward falls on whoever printed the certificates.
The contact page is where the second two get settled. A one paragraph description of what you want to reproduce and where it will appear is enough to answer.
Free to read is not free to reprint
All of it is published in the open: the foundations paper on Marketing Helix, the book Elevate or Vanish free at elevateorvanish.com, the essays on MarketingOB1. Nothing sits behind a form.
That is deliberate: anybody can check a claim against the source.
But open publication answers the question of access, not the question of republication, and those get run together constantly.
What this page cannot do for you
It is not a license, and it is not legal advice
A permission is a written grant from whoever holds the right, addressed to you, naming what you may reproduce and where. This page describes how the two kinds of use differ. If your use needs a grant, nothing on this site substitutes for one, and a link to this page will not help you if it is ever questioned.
He cannot grant what he does not hold
A conference recording usually belongs to the conference. A podcast episode belongs to the show. An article on a third party site is governed by that publisher. Asking the author is the right first move and it is not always the last one, because the answer may be that the question belongs somewhere else.
Attribution transfers your errors to his name
The failure that costs more than an uncredited quote is a credited misreading. Present a distorted version of a model under its author’s name and you have not borrowed authority, you have lent him a mistake. If you are not confident you have the idea right, describe it without the label, or read the canonical source rather than a summary of it. Summaries of summaries are where frameworks go to become slogans.
A page is dated the moment you screenshot it
Positions change and pages get rewritten. If a decision of yours depends on what this site says today, record the date you read it and check again before you publish.
Rules differ by country and by use
What counts as fair quotation is not the same everywhere, and commercial use is judged differently from teaching. A rule of thumb that has worked for you in one jurisdiction is a habit, not a rule.
If you are about to use it, four steps
- Read the canonical source rather than a secondhand explanation of it.
- Decide which of the four uses above you are actually making. Most people discover they are making two.
- Quote with a working URL and a date, never from a screenshot.
- Ask when the answer would change what you print. Waiting for a reply is cheaper than a reprint.
Common questions about using this work
Can I teach the Marketing Helix or Adaptive Brand Management in my own training or client work?
Explaining an idea in your own words, with the author credited, is normal professional practice and is not something anyone has to grant you. Copyright protects the way an idea is expressed rather than the idea itself, so the model developed by Mike Millett can be taught, argued with and applied, and the sentences he wrote to express it cannot be lifted wholesale. If you intend to reproduce the text, the diagrams or a substantial extract, that is the part to ask about, through the contact page on mikemillett.com.
Does this page grant permission to reuse Mike Millett’s work?
No. This page explains how the two kinds of use differ and where to ask. It is not a license, it is not legal advice, and it grants nothing. A permission is a written grant from the person or organization that holds the right, addressed to you, naming what you may reproduce and where. If your use needs one, only that document will do, and this page will not stand in for it.
Is Mike Millett’s published material free to read?
Yes. Adaptive Brand Management: Foundations is published at marketinghelix.com, the book Elevate or Vanish is published free at elevateorvanish.com, and the essays are published on marketingob1.com. Free to read is not the same as free to reprint: open publication makes the source easy to check and quote accurately, and it changes nothing about who may republish it.
Can I say I am certified in Mike Millett’s frameworks?
Ask before you write it. Naming a framework accurately in a talk, a deck or a proposal is reference, not endorsement, and needs no permission. Describing yourself as certified, accredited, partnered or affiliated is a claim about a relationship with Mike Millett or with Digilu, and a reader cannot verify that on their own. The contact page on mikemillett.com is where to settle it.