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New York Times, July 30, 2008 — Several national restaurant chains were shuttered on Tuesday, possibly offering an early taste of what’s in store this year for businesses that depend on free-spending consumers whose budgets are now being squeezed.
Advertising Age, July 30, 2008 — Comcastmustdie.com, the blog, began a mere 11 months ago with this simple preamble:
Actually, I have no deathwish for Comcast or any other gigantic, blundering, greedy, arrogant corporate monstrosity. What I do have is the earnest desire for such companies to change their ways. This site offers an opportunity — for you to vent your grievances (civilly, please) and for Comcast to pay close attention.
Advertising Age, July 29, 2008 — Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz said the coffee retailer will cut 1,000 jobs in addition to those resulting from the 600 store closures announced earlier this month. It's unclear how many marketing personnel will be affected, but those familiar with the matter said some groups are facing double-digit cuts in what's being described internally as a "bloodbath."
In another organizational move, Michelle Gass is back in the marketing department, as senior VP-marketing and category. Ms. Gass, a 12-year Starbucks veteran, is credited with much of the Frappuccino's success. She was elevated to senior VP-global strategy in January, and has been overseeing Mr. Schultz's much-discussed (and debated) turnaround plan. Her move is viewed as a need for her expertise in... continue reading
MediaPost Publications, July 29, 2008 — A recent JupiterResearch study underscores that actual spending on social media marketing has not caught up with the hype surrounding the emerging category.
The report found that half of all advertisers are spending less than 5% of their online budgets on social marketing in 2008. Keeping budgets small is the highly customized nature of social media campaigns, compared to search or display advertising.
Advertising Age, July 29, 2008 — What are the limits of consumer loyalty when a particular product or service consistently stumbles, or just doesn't work? What if those stumbles are actually due to the immense popularity of the product?
Any fast-growing brand that has seen its infrastructure quiver under the weight of widespread customer demand should look for a lesson on how not to do things in Web 2.0 darling Twitter.
Forrester, July 29, 2008 — Brands joining twitter
It’s no coincidence that brands that are under public scrutiny from customers, competitors, and other social groups start to turn to the most vocal of all –right in the epicenter of dialog.
Twitter is, for better or worse, a global chat room where honest, often vitriolic opinions are shared. With the recent public anointing of online support effort, Comcast Cares in New York Times “Griping Online? Comcast Hears and Talks Back” –it’s easy to see why corporation communications, and PR professionals are ready to embrace the dialog.
Marketing Charts, July 29, 2008 — The greatest value of online communities is they increase word-of-mouth (35%), increase brand awareness (28%), bring new ideas into the organization faster (24%) and increase customer loyalty (24%), according to a survey of organizations using online communities.
New York Times, July 28, 2008 — In her two years at Google, Anna Patterson helped design and build some of the pillars of the company’s search engine, including its large index of Web pages and some of the formulas it uses for ranking search results.
Now, along with her husband, Tom Costello, and a few other Google alumni, she is trying to upstage her former employer.
On Monday, their company, Cuil, is unveiling a search engine that they promise will be more comprehensive than Google’s and that they hope will give its users more relevant results.
Advertising Age, July 28, 2008 — Media are inescapable. They're present in every aspect of life, at all times and in all locations. A realistic approach to media research today has to take into account that we expect to be stimulated constantly without concern for channels.
Advertising Age, July 28, 2008 — It's just common sense that if you give a little, you'll usually get a little in return. But to paraphrase President Harry S. Truman, that (inadvertent) font of marketing wisdom, "If common sense were so common, more [marketers] would have it." Marketing is nothing more or less than an exchange of value. The better the value the marketer provides, the more time and attention they'll usually get back from their target. If the value delivered by the marketer is exceptional, then the consumer will pay back the marketer with loyalty and brand evangelism in good times and bad.
BusinessWeek, July 28, 2008 — "Design thinking" may seem like just another new buzzword in the lexicon of innovation, but Procter & Gamble (PG) is using the approach to change its culture. Leadership is listening, learning, and deploying; cross-functional teams are cracking vexing problems across its business landscape; and visualization, prototyping, and iteration are facilitating communication internally and with customers like never before. Here's a look inside one of the most intriguing change management efforts going on in Corporate America today.
New York Times, July 25, 2008 — Brandon Dilbeck, 20, a student at the University of Washington, was complaining recently on his blog, Brandon Notices, about Comcast’s practice of posting ads in its on-screen programming guide. He assumed he was writing for his own benefit. “It feels like nobody ever really reads my blog,” he said. “Nobody has left a comment in months.”
New York Times, July 24, 2008 — Facebook, the rapidly growing social network, unveiled some new features on Wednesday as it works to broaden its reach online and to recalibrate its sometimes contentious relationship with the thousands of developers writing programs for the service.
In a speech at his company’s annual conference for developers, called F8, Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s 24-year-old chief executive, also demonstrated the company’s new design. He predicted that there would soon be a wave of social Web sites built on top of the information users give to social networks.
Wall Street Journal, July 24, 2008 — Ahead of the release of its fiscal-year sales Thursday, drinks maker Pernod Ricard SA signaled a change in its growth strategy.
The French company, which has been on an acquisition binge, said it plans to sit tight for the next few years and nurture the labels it already owns.
"Organic growth is a must," Pernod Managing Director Pierre Pringuet said in an interview.
Wall Street Journal, July 24, 2008 — Most people know what brainstorming means, but few are ever taught how to do it effectively.
Matt Bowen, president and chief executive of Aloft Group Inc., a 28-employee marketing firm in Newburyport, Mass., devotes much time to teaching his employees the ropes of effective brainstorming.
Wall Street Journal, July 24, 2008 — In its early days, Chris Wallace's company didn't always have enough work to keep its staff fully occupied designing interactive Web sites for clients. But it didn't want to lose any talent. So he and his co-founders decided to tell employees they could pursue their own interests in their downtime, doing just about whatever they wanted, on the clock.
An unexpected side benefit emerged. Employees spent some of their spare time writing music and building photography and video skills. When the company needed ideas to pitch to potential clients, it tapped into employees' personal projects. Mr. Wallace says he has had meetings with potential clients where 40% of the work he showed them was done by employees in their downtime.
USA Today, July 23, 2008 — Three of the TVs are dark in Wal-Mart's electronics department, where the only two clerks in sight stock a shelf and disappear. At a nearby Target, the digital camera desk is unmanned, and there's no staff roaming electronics. In Circuit City, a clerk concedes it's his first day on the job and first week in the country.
MarketingVox, July 23, 2008 — The web's role is becoming integral for brick-and-mortar retailers, even for in-store purchases, according to (pdf) a recent Nielsen Online survey, which found that of those that recently made consumer electronics purchases in a store, 80 percent visited the store's website first, reports MarketingCharts.
Brandweek, July 22, 2008 — With the Olympic Games just a month off, some brands are looking to extend their sponsorships with social media programs.
Lenovo has created 100 athletes' blogs in an attempt to align itself with some less mainstream sports, such as field hockey and modern pentathlon. It gave the athletes laptops and video cameras to chronicle their preparation for the games.
Brandweek, July 21, 2008 — Every Mother's Day is filled with marketing possibilities, considering the $12 billion or so consumers are said to spend on the holiday each year. With that in mind, Philosophy, a skin care and cosmetics brand, wanted to broaden its considerable appeal with women via a more emotional Mother's Day campaign.
Advertising Age, July 21, 2008 — In one of my earliest books, "Leveraging the Corporate Brand," I predicted the creation of "a new kind of senior officer, a CCO or chief communications officer," which inevitably gave way to the title chief marketing officer. I am now predicting a trend that will see the CMO inheriting the CEO post.
New York Times, July 21, 2008 — Staples’ Easy Button is the star of the company’s new back-to-school advertising campaign, which uses humor to directly address its customers’ financial worries.
The button, a concept invented by Staples’ advertising agency, McCann Erickson, for the 2005 Super Bowl, is the centerpiece of three new 15-second spots that begin running in select markets, primarily in the southern United States, on Monday; ads will be introduced nationally Sunday.
Advertising Age, July 21, 2008 — After seven years as perhaps the most visible, outspoken and successful Procter & Gamble Co. chief marketer in decades, Jim Stengel has announced he's leaving the post Aug. 1 and the company Oct. 31, after some special project work. In this interview with Advertising Age's Jack Neff, he discusses his legacy, what the transition to Marc Pritchard as global marketing officer means and whether he really does love the media as much as, say, Madonna does.
Advertising Age, July 17, 2008 — Nike's "Just Do It" theme is 20 years old, and the marketer is planning a push of Olympian proportions to commemorate its anniversary.
The company is planning an epic global campaign titled "Courage," with 60- and 30-second spots to begin airing in the U.S. on Aug. 8, the day of the Olympic Summer Games' opening ceremonies, while a micro-site, nike.com/courage, goes live today.
Advertising Age, July 17, 2008 — There's a "secret sauce," as a friend would put it, to creating a recipe that works for serving up innovation success. But if businesses have trouble getting it quite right, it's because they're short on a critical ingredient: inspiration.
Advertising Age, July 16, 2008 — DETROIT (AdAge.com) — As it plots major spending cuts and bats back bankruptcy rumors, General Motors Corp. today celebrated the opening of a $15 million green dealership, LaFontaine Automotive Group's new Buick-Pontiac-GMC and Cadillac facility in suburban Detroit.
Wall Street Journal, July 16, 2008 — One of the hot investments for businesses these days is online communities that help customers feel connected to a brand. But most of these efforts produce fancy Web sites that few people ever visit. The problem: Businesses are focusing on the value an online community can provide to themselves, not the community.
Advertising Age, July 15, 2008 — Financial executives don't think there's much truth in advertising.
According to a new study, six in 10 financial executives believe their companies' marketing departments have an inadequate understanding of financial controls, and seven in 10 said their companies don't use marketing inputs and forecasts in financial guidance to Wall Street or in public disclosures.
Advertising Age, July 15, 2008 — Like hundreds of thousands of people across the country, I stood in line last weekend at the Apple Store in Newport Beach, Calif., to buy the new iPhone 3G for my daughter after three unsuccessful attempts at nearby AT&T stores.
Witnessing this exuberant demand for a new product made me wonder if this feat could be repeated in other categories, such as the auto business. What would an automaker have to do to seduce consumers to stand in line to buy a hot new car? Here are some lessons from the iPhone:
Advertising Age, July 14, 2008 — BzzAgent, a network of regular-Joe brand advocates, is making a big bet that word-of-mouth marketing will outperform any other discipline when it comes to ringing registers and driving advocacy for brands.
With its "WOM Impact Guarantee" program, which launched today and will run throughout the rest of 2008, BzzAgent is inviting any brand marketer and its agency partners to take part in a challenge in which BzzAgent and the agency partner will run competing campaigns. If BzzAgent does not top the competing agency by 20% across four metrics — brand awareness, consumer opinion, purchase intent and actual sales — the agency will refund the marketer the cost of its word-of-mouth campaign and measurement costs.
eMarketer, July 14, 2008 — Consumers are expanding the definition of what they consider spam. More than one-quarter of consumers in Asia-Pacific believe that promotional e-mail or newsletters that were opt-in—but no longer engage them or address their needs—are spam, according to the Epsilon/Return Path "2008 Consumer E-mail Survey."
Advertising Age, July 14, 2008 — It's well-accepted today that innovation is important throughout an entire enterprise. Even in the marketing arena, this has prompted an opening of floodgates to let in a slew of innovative ideas that go far beyond new products.
Spurred by everything from open innovation networks to cross-industry advisory boards to crowd sourcing, the deluge of ideas brings exciting potential for inspiring breakthrough concepts and for disruptive innovation. But with so many possibilities also comes the challenge of managing the exploding innovation process. Because of the critical role that marketing innovation plays in an organization's growth, the question that arises is: How involved should a CEO be and when should the responsibility lie mainly with the chief... continue reading
Advertising Age, July 14, 2008 — There's a "secret sauce," as a friend would put it, to creating a recipe that works for serving up innovation success. But if businesses have trouble getting it quite right, it's because they're short on a critical ingredient: inspiration.
Adweek, July 14, 2008 — When it comes to social media, Ford is an admitted neophyte. It dipped its toe in the water with its well-received "Bold moves" campaign in 2006, and it hired a social-media consulting firm to create blog-friendly press releases. But for the most part, it has remained on the sidelines when it comes to using new technology tools to foster two-way conversations with customers and its employees.
New York Times, July 13, 2008 — A FEW years ago, a self-described “militant liberal” named Val Curtis decided that it was time to save millions of children from death and disease. So Dr. Curtis, an anthropologist then living in the African nation of Burkina Faso, contacted some of the largest multinational corporations and asked them, in effect, to teach her how to manipulate consumer habits worldwide.
Fast Company, July 11, 2008 — The Web is an extremely fickle place. A Web service can be hot today, and dead in the water tomorrow. While there's no true science for determining exactly what makes one stick while another languishes, there's a lot to be learned after one fails. Considering a startup? Here are 10 recent failures to add to your case studies.
New York Times, July 10, 2008 — When Apple opens its online App Store for iPhone software on Thursday, Steven P. Jobs will be making an attempt to dominate the next generation of computing as it moves toward Internet-connected mobile devices. The store, which will offer more than 500 software applications, including games, educational programs, mobile commerce and business productivity tools, may be a far more important development than the iPhone 3G, which goes on sale at the same time. An abundance of software could make the iPhone’s operating system dominant among an abundance of competing phones.
ReadWriteWeb, July 10, 2008 — Kiva.org is the world's first person-to-person lending web site that helps empower entrepreneurs in the developing world by connecting them with others who lend them small amounts of money called "micro-payments." Founded in 2005, the site now connects lenders in 70+ countries with business owners in 43 developing countries and works with 89 microfinance partners. Now Kiva is tapping into the power of Facebook to attract new members to their cause.
Brandweek, July 10, 2008 — RadioShack is turning to social networks to raise brand awareness among younger consumers. The company this week partnered with Facebook to launch an application called MyMosaic, which forms multilayered mosaics from users' pictures.
New York Times, July 9, 2008 — Google, known for its plain-Jane approach to Web design, has come up with something much wackier. On Tuesday the company introduced Lively, an online tool that allows people to embody a cartoonish online avatar and have text-based conversations with friends and other Internet users in virtual chat rooms. The rooms can be added to any blog or Web site.
MarketingVox, July 9, 2008 — Screen time of the average American continues to increase: TV users watch more TV than before (127 hrs, 15 min per month) and also spend 9 percent more time using the internet (26 hrs, 26 min per month) than they did last year, according to the Nielsen Company (via MarketingCharts).
eMarketer, July 9, 2008 — Text messaging is especially popular with US adults ages 18 to 34, according to Universal McCann's 2008 "Media in Mind" study. Respondents from that age group sent an average of 13 text messages every week.
FastForward Blog, July 8, 2008 — One of the aspects that I love about NPR’s new morning Show Bryant Park is that the show shows you what is going on behind the scenes with their Twitter feed and a daily video showing what will be on the show the next day. BPP was tested in beta by allowing a lot of interaction - real time research.
MediaPost Publications, July 8, 2008 — A day after officially announcing plans to provide so-called "total audience measurement index" or TAMI ratings, for NBC Universal's coverage of the 2008 Summer Olympic Games, Nielsen Co. today released the first comparable audience estimates across three "screens:" TV, the Internet and mobile devices, and the findings indicate that the new video platforms do not appear to be cutting into television's action.
GigaOM, July 8, 2008 — The big buzz of the evening is that Twitter, a San Francisco-based start-up that allows anyone to post short up to 140 character messages to its platform and thus broadcast them to one or many using different media such as web and mobile, is about to acquire Summize, a Potomac Falls, VA-based start-up that uses the Twitter API to search and find relevant messages on Twitter.
New York Times, July 7, 2008 — Decades ago, celebrities like Ed McMahon and Barbara Walters promoted Alpo dog food. Now, dog owners — and their pets — can do it themselves by taking part in a video contest being sponsored by the brand.
The Alpo Real Meat Moments contest, now under way, is seeking video clips of the dog that is the biggest “meat maniac” in the country — that is, the pooch that goes ga-ga in the most photogenic and entertaining manner whenever Alpo is served for dinner.
The Deal, July 7, 2008 — General Motors Corp., which has seen its shares fall to 1950s-lows in recent weeks on fears of a slowing economy and due to its overreliance on gas-guzzling trucks and SUVs, got a boost Monday from a Wall Street Journal story reporting that the automaker is looking to cut thousands of white-collar jobs and could sell or axe some of its brands.
Wall Street Journal, July 7, 2008 — Organic growth. It's the Holy Grail these days of chief executives battered by global competition and eager to find new streams of revenue without always resorting to acquisitions. A cottage industry has sprung up to advise companies on how to achieve organic growth. But many companies already possess the means to turbocharge their sales, break out of industry molds and capture new markets with innovative products and services.
Brandweek, July 7, 2008 — Midtown Manhattan's Rockefeller Plaza is home to a new, sleek, oh-so-stylish cafe. For workers in nearby office buildings or for tourists that flock to the site, it's a comfortable place to unwind, grab a sandwich or a coffee, check e-mail, surf the Net via free Wi-Fi or check the news on MSNBC.com, the owner of the facility. The MSNBC.com Digital Cafe, which had a soft launch two weeks ago and will be fully operational in mid July, is one of several brand extensions the company is creating in an effort to deliver its content in new and interesting ways.
Wall Street Journal, July 7, 2008 — NBC Universal plans to use its coverage of the Beijing Olympic Games to launch a new system for measuring viewership across an array of different media, including video-on-demand, cellphones and the Web, as well as traditional television. NBC hopes the new system — which will be offered to advertisers at the start of the new fall season — will give it ammunition to persuade advertisers to buy ad time on newer media such as VOD and cellphone video.
Wall Street Journal, July 7, 2008 — Accidents happen. And, sometimes, innovation follows. In fact, although we often don't like to admit it, some of the most important innovations have happened by accident. Over the centuries, researchers have stumbled over hosts of big ideas and inventions while searching for something entirely different — or not searching for anything at all.
Wall Street Journal, July 3, 2008 — When it comes to China, sportswear giant Adidas AG thinks bigger is better.
At midnight Friday, the company will open its biggest store in the world here. The long, glass-clad rectangular building reflects Adidas's ambition to use China as a battleground to overtake rival Nike Inc.
Wall Street Journal, July 3, 2008 — Mike Stewart is putting off law school in favor of teaching in Washington, D.C., for the next two years. Katherine Atwill, an Ivy League graduate, stopped interviewing at consulting firms in favor of teaching in the Bronx.
Young people like these are part of the growing ranks of college graduates who, amid a worsening job market, are contributing to a surge in applications and enlistments at public-service agencies like Teach for America and the Peace Corps.
Brandweek, July 2, 2008 — For those who think media fragmentation and niche marketing have redefined marketing permanently, here's something to chew on. What if the microscopically splintered youth demo out there right now—recent college grads on down to kids riding the bus to preschool—ends up gelling, melting and solidifying into a uniform power bloc of consumers? And what if, contrary to popular wisdom, they're not self-important, undisciplined individualists riding on digital highs, but a team-playing, risk-averse group that fosters familial bonding? All this would mean that Gen Y actually looks a lot more like, well, AARP. It would mean that the billions of dollars'worth of microtargeted marketing being created right now just could be a . . . waste of time? Then what?
Wall Street Journal, July 2, 2008 — What's in a brand name? That which we call Coca-Cola would by any other name be just as satisfying, right? Wrong, says a study conducted by Baylor University researchers. The study's subjects were presented with two glasses of soda – one labeled Coke and the other unnamed – and asked to state their preference. They overwhelmingly chose the labeled drink, even though both were Coke.
BusinessWeek, July 2, 2008 — Something's up at Wal-Mart. Visitors to walmart.com will notice that the logo consumers have become accustomed to over the past 17 years is gone. Gone, too, are the sharp, uppercase letters spelling out the name of the Bentonville (Ark.) company and the pointy star that served as a hyphen. In its place: a new logo made up of rounded, lowercase characters. The hyphen has disappeared. And in place of the star is a symbol that resembles a sunburst or flower. It appears after the "Walmart" name, like an asterisk begging for a footnote.
FastForward Blog, July 1, 2008 — On the App Gap I recently wrote about Brightidea’s Webstorm Idea Collection and Ranking Portal that facilitates the innovation process (see Brightidea – Brings Focused Enterprise 2.0 Capabilities to Innovation). In my conversation with Matt Greeley, CEO at Brightidea we covered one of the impressive uses of Webstorm outside the firewall, Cisco’s I-Prize. I think this is a great story with some lessons learned for others who want mine the wisdom of crowds, so I will explore it more here.
MediaPost Publications, July 1, 2008 — Dealing with dozens of feeds from hundreds of Web sites, social networks and blogs may be par for the course when it comes to the new practice of brand reputation management. But online strategists have a slew of new media monitoring tools at their disposal.
Boulder, Colo.-based Filtrbox joins Trackur, Snydey Web and Google Trends as the latest entrant to the space, offering an application that aims to make aggregating, sorting through and sharing online information cheap and simple.
Brandweek, July 1, 2008 — Because widgets have the ability to spread virally, they are often touted as an ad medium of the future, but there's a downside to that virality: exponentially increasing costs. Typically marketers pay a vendor for creating widgets, which are mini software applications with videos, games and other content that can be moved from site to site by Web users.
Prophet, July 1, 2008 — There's a "secret sauce," as a friend would put it, to creating
serving up innovation success. But if businesses have trouble
because they're short on a critical ingredient: inspiration.