Consumers not feeling the love from brands

03/15/10 06:43 AM

When asked “what brands care about you?,” not a single global consumer said they believed any brand cared about them, except as a source of profit. When asked what brands they love, more consumers answered Apple than any other brand. However, many consumers said they love no brand and even find loving a brand unnatural. And you thought social media was going to show consumers how much you cared. Read More...

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They still don't get it

03/14/10 03:11 PM

According to an article in Ad Age; If the 2000s was the Google decade, then the 2010s will be the Facebook decade. As with the last 10 years, this era will unleash an avalanche of change for media companies and advertisers. You can see the writing on the wall, pun intended. The article written by a VP from Edelman Digital shows that they still don't understand the digital channel.
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Is Google the next mighty company that could fail ?

03/14/10 09:19 AM

Jim Collins, in his book "How the Mighty Fail" says that failure is much more likely to result from corporate overreaching than from complacency. Given the number of businesses that Google is entering, or plans to enter, I wonder if they are in fact good business decisions or based on the ego of their CEO ? Read More...

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Consumer spending up, for a month anyway. What should marketers take away from the latest news ?

03/13/10 08:16 AM Filed in: Consumer spending & The Economy

The Commerce Department on Friday reported that retail sales increased a seasonally-adjusted 0.3% in February from a month earlier, despite winter storms across a large swath of the country that analysts thought would keep shoppers home bound. Retail sales excluding the volatile auto sales increased 0.8%. Compared with a year ago, sales rose about 4%. However, before you pop the cork on that champagne not that consumer confidence figures, which have been around since the late 1960s, show widespread skepticism. The consumer confidence index calculated by the Conference Board is now at 46, an extraordinarily low level. Last month, 6.2 percent of people surveyed by the board said business conditions were good. That is the lowest level ever recorded. Read More...

Tags: Economy

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Twitter user profile: Is your audience using Twitter ?

03/13/10 06:23 AM Filed in: Social Media #socialmedia

Believe it or not there are some old rules of marketing that still apply. One of the oldest that is still applicable is "go where your audience is". Right now Twitter is NOT where your audience is for a lot of companies and allocating resources to Twitter maybe a waste of company dollars. Read More...

Tags: Twitter

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Marketers most important buzzword this year ? ROI

03/12/10 11:49 AM Filed in: Social Media #socialmedia

Marketers are tired of hearing about social media & Twitter. They are tired of hearing about engagement. Why? Because management is on their ass and everything they do has to have an ROI. A new Anderson Analytic report sheds some light on what's important to marketers and number one on the list: ROI. Read More...

Tags: ROI & Social Media

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Why you should be testing all the time and why you need more than one homepage

03/11/10 09:32 AM Filed in: Website development

“Continuous improvement is better than delayed perfection." -Mark Twain. It seems that many companies, however, don't believe in this philosophy when it comes to their websites. They don't test often enough and most have just one homepage. They are missing a valuable opportunity and it clearly shows they have a long way to go to master online marketing. Read More...

Tags: Testing & Optimization

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Why I won't be purchasing an Apple iPad

03/09/10 03:06 PM Filed in: Products that are nice to have but that you don't need

"After working on its highly-anticipated tablet device for three years (or more), Apple unveiled an expensive e-reader. While there's no doubt that this is just the first model of Apple's new tablet family, the iPad is a disappointing effort that fails to live up to the hype. The iPad is both an oversized iPod Touch and an under-powered netbook."-The Street Read More...

Tags: Apple

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If you think consumers are going to go back to their free spending ways, think again

03/09/10 11:30 AM Filed in: Consumer lifestyles

Companies need to recognize that there will not be a wholesale return to a pre-recession shopping mode and will need to adapt to the changed behaviors and patterns to win in today’s changed marketplace. That is a quote from a new report on consumer behavior from Kantar Retail. In summary: you had better start changing the way you brand and market today because tomorrow maybe too late. Read More...

Tags: Consumer spending

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Companies don't want Linchpins they want sheep

03/08/10 02:03 PM Filed in: Working in corporate America

Seth Godin's new book "Linchpin" is a good read. In short the book makes the case that you should be indispensable and stand out to make a difference even though it may mean "you will no longer be loved" by coworkers and managers. On paper it's a good argument, in reality too many organizations want people who will do a decent job, not make waves and do it for less money than others. Read More...

Tags: Linchpin

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Still a lot of really bad marketing and advertising out there

03/07/10 06:24 AM Filed in: Really bad marketing

There is so much really bad marketing out there today and unfortunately some of it keeps coming up like a really bad meal. Here is my list of some really bad marketing campaigns that are wasting a lot of dollars and only making their ad agencies richer. Read More...

Tags: LAck of marketing talent

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Creative use of advertising gets editors upset

03/06/10 09:14 AM Filed in: Print Ads

There is creative use of advertising then there are people who just don't get it. Yesterday's LA Times had a front page that featured a picture of Johhny Depp dressed as the Mad Hatter from Alice in Wonderland. It was colorful and a creative ad but the top editor of The Times, Russ Stanton, and several of his deputies vigorously opposed the ad before it was published because they felt it would "diminish the brand". Obviously Mr Stanton is from the old school when it comes to media. Read More...

Tags: LA Times

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