I find TED talks as interesting as the next person. The speakers are generally experts at engaging listeners in interesting topics. But it doesn’t take long to have heard enough of them to get a bit dizzy with all the disparate ideas. There is everything from the lessons learned from tying your shoes to technology […]
There are trends in the marketing world much like there are in the fashion world. Certain buzzwords and concepts become the latest style for a time within the broader business world. And marketing professionals rightly capitalize on that to connect their trade with professionals from other business disciplines with whom they collaborate. Often the latest […]
I’ve just recently discovered that as a young man fresh out of college I had a quintessential Michigan experience and didn’t even know it. Growing up one of my fondest memories was visiting my grandparents in Iowa. Several of my cousins lived near by. During those visits we would all gather at our grandparents house […]
Sometimes the strategic marketing reason you engage in a business activity (like social media) is different than or at least greater than the publicly stated reason. That strategic reason is what I’m calling an “unintended benefit.” Several years ago I began developing a loyalty program for the organization I was working for. Our purpose seemed […]
I began my marketing career in the juvenile products industry. It was there that I learned one of the foundational principles of marketing – the difference between trying to capture a market and trying to create one. The primary target market of our company was pregnant women. It was a clearly defined market and one […]
J.C. Penny announced their quarterly results and the New York Times’ Andrew Ross Sorkin has weighed in with his assessment of the situation saying JCP executives are living in a “fantasy world.” We are fascinated by this story because of the central issues at play. Two of the issues are critical marketing strategy questions – […]
Early on in the evolution of digital, viral marketing (as I say that it makes it sound like a long time ago but it really wasn’t) I had a board member say he was excited to see we were producing podcasts. “Now we’ll reach young people!” Later I had a colleague (not in marketing) who […]
I believe it was veteran direct marketer Ernan Roman who I heard say at a marketing conference several years ago that one of the keys to a successful email campaign was to first set the expectations of your customer and then meet them. That statement has stuck with me ever since as a foundational principal. […]
Recently we wrote about the changes going on at JC Penney (JCP) and the challenges they face in the transformation of their brand. Now comes another interesting article by Margaret Bogenrief on BusinessInsiders.com titled “Ron Johnson Really Is Destroying JC Penney.” While I am not as bold a Ms. Bogenrief to prognosticate on the success […]
I was reading an article about B2B’s marketing like B2C’s and a couple thoughts come to mind. Here is the link to the original article on MarketingProfs.com. First was a comment a long time marketing consultant recently told me. There are more marketing similarities across industries than there are differences. Now that may have been […]
