Ads Follow Web Users, and Get More Personal

New York Times, July 31, 2009 — For all the concern and uproar over online privacy, marketers and data companies have always known much more about consumers’ offline lives, like income, credit score, home ownership, even what car they drive and whether they have a hunting license. Recently, some of these companies have started connecting this mountain of information to consumers’ browsers.

Managing beyond Web 2.0

Companies should prepare now for the day when Web 2.0 morphs into Web 3.0.

McKinsey Quarterly, July 31, 2009 — It’s hardly news that the Internet has evolved into the primary vehicle for communication, information, and commerce. But in a surprising twist, today’s online customers—as both producers and consumers of their own content and services—ferociously guard their online experiences. This trend, which goes far beyond Web buzz, is catching some executives by surprise and making others more than a bit worried.

Microsoft And comScore Partner To Measure Brand Marketing

MediaPost Publications, July 31, 2009 — To help brand advertisers better measure and track their online ad campaigns, Microsoft on Thursday announced a collaboration with comScore to design a digital media-planning service. The Reach and Frequency Planner — or RF Planner, for short — was developed to help advertisers more easily determine and predict how consumers will respond to their digital ads.

Everybody Likes To Watch: 90% Of Young Adults Use Video-Sharing Sites

MediaPost Publications, July 29, 2009 — By mixing brain-eating aliens with the prospect of free network programming, Hulu's marketing efforts appear to be paying off as 35% of Web users now say they have viewed such content online.

By comparison, just 16% of Web users said they had watched or downloaded TV shows or movies in 2007, according to new data from the Pew Internet and American Life Project.

Facebook and MySpace: Beware Of The Mommy Bloggers

MediaPost Publications, July 29, 2009 — was reading the write-ups of last week's BlogHer conference in Chicago secretly jealous that even though I'm a mommy and a blogger, this junket was simply not in the cards for me.

But it wasn't just jealousy that drove my interest, it was how the mommy bloggers inadvertently, perhaps, uncovered a central truth about social media marketing: it isn't at all about carefully targeted display ads, or search ads, but about relationship-building. Unfortunately, that isn't something the Facebooks and MySpaces of the world have learned to monetize very well yet. So, while the discovery of the mommy bloggers is great for advertisers, it's not so great for those who are trying to be the broker that connects the bloggers with the marketers. That connection is already... continue reading

I.B.M. Will Buy a Maker of Data Analysis Software

SPSS makes software to help businesses and governments organize and analyze data to make better decisions, useful tools in a downturn.

New York Times, July 29, 2009 — I.B.M. took a big step to expand its fast-growing stable of data analysis offerings by agreeing on Tuesday to pay $1.2 billion to buy SPSS Inc., a maker of software used in statistical analysis and predictive modeling.

Major technology companies have made a flurry of such purchases in recent years, grabbing suppliers of software that helps businesses and governments organize and analyze data to make better decisions.

Managing Your Small Business’s Online Reputation

Monitoring the Web conversations, interacting with customers and honing your technical know-how can help your business get ahead.

New York Times, July 29, 2009 — Your customers are talking about you — and the whole world is listening.

Local review sites are reshaping the world of small business by becoming the new Yellow Pages, one-stop platforms where customers can find a business — and also see independent critiques of its performance.

How do you manage your reputation when everybody is a critic?

Social Media Best Practices

Keep the dialogue going.

eMarketer, July 29, 2009 — Marketers have become more than willing to start a conversation about their brands through social media. But that’s only the beginning of the marketing effort.

Tesco Customers May Soon Find Chickens at the Checkout Counter†

British Retailer Joins 'Grow Your Own' Movement by Renting Out Allotments, Selling Live Birds

Advertising Age, July 28, 2009 — Tesco, the world's third-largest retailer, is embracing the recession-inspired trend to "grow your own" produce by offering allotment spaces to rent in the U.K and selling live chickens.

In a bid to mark out its green credentials, Tesco has applied for planning permission to create an initial batch of 30 allotments near one of its Dobbies Garden Centre stores near Southport in the north of England. Dobbies, a 24-store chain acquired by Tesco a year ago, has seen a boom in sales of vegetable seeds over the past year, and will also sell an allotment "starter kit" to provide customers with everything they need to get growing and help novices keep soil fertile and sustain the patch of ground

The Web Is Flat: Why Time Spent Online Is Leveling Off†

Forrester Survey Says Use of Internet Media Stayed Steady at 12 Hours a Week

Advertising Age, July 28, 2009 — Time spent with the internet, as it turns out, doesn't balloon indefinitely.

That might sound obvious, but this is the year web surfing leveled off at 12 hours a week after growing from less than six hours a week in 2004, according to Forrester's annual survey of more than 40,000 American consumers' self-reported media habits. The report, released Monday, also indicates relative stabilization in other media channels, most notably newspaper and magazine reading.

At BlogHer Confab, Marketers Show Moms Some Love†

Pepsi, P&G, Walmart, Kodak, Others Look to Learn Lessons of Social Media While Feting Moms With Luncheons, Gift Bags

Advertising Age, July 27, 2009 — If you were wondering where the media budgets have gone, you might have tried looking around Chicago late last Thursday through Saturday, or maybe even check out one of the city's pawn shops this week.

At the BlogHer '09 conference in Chicago marketers were lining up to woo around 1,500 mommy bloggers with swag, celebrity appearances, shopping sprees and lavish entertainment of the sort that seems part of a bygone era to most of the marketing world.

Big Spenders Get the Most Buzz†

BrandIndex: LG, Ford Advertising Has Consumers Talking

Advertising Age, July 27, 2009 — Spend and you will get buzz.

That seems to be one takeaway from YouGov's BrandIndex, which compiled daily feedback from thousands of consumers for the first half of the year in order to find out which brands consumers are buzzing about and which brands they're not.

GM's Appointment of Lutz Shows No Respect for Marketing†

Without a Story, Carmaker's Advertising Isn't Going to Cut It

Advertising Age, July 27, 2009 — General Motors' new advertising and marketing czar is Bob Lutz, who until April of this year headed global product development. According to CEO Fritz Henderson: "Bob's responsibilities beyond creative design will include brands, marketing, advertising and communications." (I can visualize Bob at his first meeting with one of GM's agencies: "I'm not a marketing expert, but I did stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night.")

Has respect for marketing fallen so low that the most difficult job in the profession (getting GM out of the ditch) can be given to someone with so little experience in marketing?

Marketers Like Twitter More Than Consumers Do

MediaPost Publications, July 27, 2009 — The Rockies may crumble, Gibraltar may tumble, they're only made of clay, but is Twitter here to stay?

Harris Interactive's new study with LinkedIn Research Network suggests advertisers are a lot more optimistic about the staying power of that web platform for pointillist pontification than regular people. The firm ran an online poll of 1,015 marketers and agency types and 2,025 consumers in June, asking their opinions about Twitter and its uses as a marketing platform and found some disparities.

Marketers, Unlock the Possibilities Within Data†

The Analytics Explosion Demands You Develop a Strategy for Taking Advantage of It

Advertising Age, July 27, 2009 — Fate has played a terrible joke on those thousands of people who entered the marketing and advertising profession to escape the rigors of math. That's because the digital revolution driving the crisis of centricity is all about data, math, analytics, chi squares and sigmas. Everyone in advertising and marketing must recognize that their creative output will be shaped by advanced analytics more than ever before.

Marketing Takes a Beating in Beltway†

With New Congress, Industry Fights Off Attacks From All Corners of D.C.

Advertising Age, July 27, 2009 — As if the recession pummeling the industry wasn't enough, the business is starting to feel besieged by the Beltway.

Organic Foods Get on Private-Label Wagon†

As More Shoppers Pinch Pennies, Grocery Chains See 'Natural' Expansion of Store Brands

Wall Street Journal, July 27, 2009 — Organic farmers and grocery retailers are embracing the idea of lower-cost, private-label products to retain newly budget-conscious consumers.

Supervalu Inc., the fourth-largest U.S. food retailer by sales, expanded its Wild Harvest organic brand to 312 items, from 150 last spring. Safeway Inc., the third-largest U.S. food retailer , last fall began selling its organic food brands to other retailers.

Private-label organics have "broken some price barriers for shoppers, and everyone is price sensitive these days," said Mike Gilliland, chief executive of Newflower Market Inc., a natural-grocery chain based in Boulder, Colo., with 25 stores.

Tracking deliveries of all kinds is on everyone's radar

USA Today, July 27, 2009 — Dawn Pabst hates the wait for a pizza delivery. So after she orders a pepperoni pizza from the Domino's website, she never waits.

She tracks.

The Air Force technician from Las Vegas tracks the second-by-second status of her pizza via colorful, thermometer-like gauges at Dominos.com. She's one of millions of customers who monitor everything from order accuracy to the moment their pizza is prepped, baked, boxed or sent for delivery.

Marketing Pose

New York Times, July 26, 2009 — For its first fiscal quarter of 2009, the chain Lululemon Athletica reported that consumers spent $81.7 million in its stores, which represented a slight increase over the same period in 2008. What were shoppers buying? “Yoga-inspired athletic apparel” is how the company describes its wares. This includes specifically yoga-related gear like mats. But it also includes items whose connection to the practice of yoga is harder to parse: bags, jackets, dresses, even hats.

Is Customer Service a Media Channel? Ask Zappos†

Brand Turned Cost Center Into Unassailable Asset Even Amazon Looks Up to

Advertising Age, July 24, 2009 — Is customer service a media channel? It's a great time to ask that question, as it comes right smack in the wake of Amazon purchasing Zappos for nearly a billion dollars. That's a big number for an online shoe company.

Amazon Opens Wallet, Buys Zappos†

Wall Street Journal, July 23, 2009 — Amazon.com Inc., making the biggest acquisition in its 14-year history, said it would buy rival online footwear retailer Zappos.com Inc. for about $847 million in cash and stock.

The Seattle e-commerce giant’s purchase reflects its most serious effort to tap into Internet sales of apparel, the largest online-shopping category and one in which Amazon has had limited success in the past.

Pepsi Sweats Over Gatorade†

CEO Nooyi Concedes Sports Drink's Growth Days Are Over; Redesign Backfires

Wall Street Journal, July 23, 2009 — PepsiCo Inc. is fumbling in its efforts to turn around sales of Gatorade, which weighed on second-quarter profits.

Sales of Gatorade, which PepsiCo snared in its $13.8 billion acquisition of Quaker Oats Co. in 2001, have slid this year despite a flashy new marketing campaign that simplified the product's label to "G."

Study: C-Level Execs Readying For Economic Recovery

MediaPost Publications, July 23, 2009 — Anticipating a robust economic rebound, C-level executives at large companies have already begun investing in technology, new products and services, and marketing initiatives, according to a new report from Forbes Insights — the custom research practice of Forbes Media — and Gartner Research.

"Executives are optimistic and preparing for growth," concludes the study of some 650 executives surveyed late April and early May.

Staples and OXO: Poor Timing or Strategic Boon?

The recession could challenge Staples' pricey new co-branded products from OXO, but the partnership may also set the retail chain apart

BusinessWeek, July 22, 2009 — How's this for bad timing? Staples (SPLS) just introduced 25 co-branded office products from OXO Good Grips that cost up to five times more than Staples' own brand. The retailer's customers are in no mood to spend, however. Staples' same-store sales dropped 8% in North America in its most recent quarter. As Ronald L. Sargent, its chairman and chief executive officer noted recently, the chain is "in a very tough sales environment."

The Father of Social Networking

With Facebook, 25 year-old Mark Zuckerberg, turned a dorm-room diversion into a cultural phenomenon. His next goal? To finally turn the company profitable

Newsweek, July 22, 2009 — It's the stuff of dotcom legend. Harvard undergrad Mark Zuckerberg and a few friends hack into the university's photo ID database and create a site for students to rate and/or berate their classmates' pictures. Since Facebook's launch in 2004, it's become a cultural phenomenon that's outgrown its Ivy League origins, into middle America and started to expand into countries around the world. NEWSWEEK's Dan Lyons spoke with Zuckerberg about Facebook's rapid growth, how it's reshaped how we think about privacy and whether the site can get too big for its own good.

Advertising Will Change Forever†

Digital Spending Will Nearly Double in 5 Years, But Ad Budgets Won't

Advertising Age, July 21, 2009 — Here's one of the things we do at Forrester Research: we interview as many marketers as we can about their plans, identify trends and project future likely conditions, and then we put together some numbers to make a projection. If you've ever seen a Forrester projection, it comes from a process like this.

This means that inside every projection is an idea or ten about the future. Those ideas can be powerful, and they come from research with marketers and consumers.

Best Buy Goes All Twitter Crazy With @Twelpforce

Tech Crunch, July 21, 2009 — This is an interesting one: consumer electronics retailer Best Buy is encouraging hundreds of employees to handle online customer service and company promotions via Twitter, even airing commercials not mentioning their own website but merely the URL of the profile they created on the micro-sharing service (two spots embedded below). The new service, dubbed Twelpforce, was debuted over the weekend but so far hasn’t garnered a lot of online buzz, let alone followers on Twitter (currently at around 1350). I’m sure that will change soon enough.

Starbucks Credits McD's, Cost Savings for Sales Improvement†

CEO Says Golden Arches' McCafe Launch Drew More Customers to Coffee Category

Advertising Age, July 21, 2009 — Starbucks Coffee Co. appears to be coming out of freefall — thanks, in part, to marketing by McDonald's. In a third-quarter-earnings call this afternoon, Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz credited margin improvements, cost savings and attention brought to the category by its rival's big-budget McCafe launch with helping to improve Starbucks' same-store sales. The chain's same-store sales fell 6% during its fiscal third quarter in the U.S., but that still bests the prior quarter, when same-store sales were down 8%

Across U.S., ESPN Aims to Be the Home Team

After a successful test run in Chicago, ESPN is planning to launch local sports Web sites in three additional cities.

New York Times, July 20, 2009 — Not content with being a sports colossus with broadcasts in 200 countries, ESPN is taking aim at hometown sports coverage, threatening one of the last strongholds of local newspapers and television stations.

Caterpillar Rolls Out Its Hybrid D7E Tractor

Despite the economic turmoil, Caterpillar introduces a diesel-electric tractor, which it hopes will help drive the company's recovery

BusinessWeek, July 20, 2009 — Caterpillar's (CAT) earnings report today was cloudy—second quarter profits dropped 66% as sales cratered—but there was a silver lining: the company reported earnings of 60 cents per share, when analysts, on average, had expected earnings of 22 cents per share, according to Thomson Reuters. And the Peoria (Ill.) heavy equipment maker increased its 2009 profit forecast from $1.25 per share to between $1.15 and $2.25 per share, a tentative projection that reflects the uncertainty of the economic landscape.

Motel 6 Has Designs on Your Business

The budget lodging chain hired a designer of cruise ships and airline cabins to spruce up its look and lure in newly cash-conscious travelers

BusinessWeek, July 20, 2009 — Motel 6 hardly has a reputation for good design. At its best, the 47 year-old chain has been heralded for simple, no-frills efficiency. At its worst, it has been the punch line of jokes about dangerous roadside love-ins.

Twitter Generates $48 Million of Media Coverage in a Month†

But Can It Maintain Its Sizzle?

Advertising Age, July 20, 2009 — Twitter's been the toast of TV news programs, daytime talk shows, magazine editors and newspaper reporters. But what's all that chatter worth?

According to news-monitoring service VMS, a cool $48 million over the past 30 days. (That's half of what Microsoft plans to spend marketing its biggest product launch of the year, Bing.)

Walmart Browbeats Marketers for Bigger Slice of Their Ad Budgets†

Risk of Losing Shelf Space May Persuade Some to Fork Over Consumer-Media Dollars

Advertising Age, July 20, 2009 — Walmart has launched an aggressive push to have marketers divert their consumer media and marketing budgets into the giant retailer's growing ad budget and in-store marketing programs, using a simultaneous push to clear underperforming brands off its shelves as extra leverage.

The Crowd Is Wise (When It’s Focused)

New York Times, July 19, 2009 — FEW concepts in business have been as popular and appealing in recent years as the emerging discipline of “open innovation.” It is variously described as crowdsourcing, the wisdom of crowds, collective intelligence and peer production — and these terms apply to a range of practices.

The overarching notion is that the Internet opens the door to a new world of democratic idea generation and collaborative production. Early triumphs like the Linux operating system and the Wikipedia Web encyclopedia are seen as harbingers.

World's next top brands set to rise in the east†

Financial Times, July 19, 2009 — The world's next Coca-Cola or Starbucks is more likely to emerge from Asia, the Middle East or South America than the US or Europe as global economic wealth shifts.

In research prepared for the Financial Times, Wolff Olins, the consultants behind the London 2012 Olympics logo and the Product Red campaign, has tipped five food and drink brands from emerging markets to become global brands.

Last Man Standing

New York Times, July 18, 2009 — Brian Pollett, a music-loving college student here, headed into a local Best Buy store last month to pick up some Bose headphones. Why Best Buy? Because he didn’t want to shop online and wait for delivery — and Best Buy’s retail competitors are all out of business.

How 'Go/No Go' Thinking Can Stop Innovation Dead in its Tracks

Knowledge@Wharton, July 15, 2009 — In Unlocking Opportunities for Growth: How to Profit from Uncertainty While Limiting Your Risk, authors Alexander B. van Putten and Ian C. MacMillan offer a tool they call Opportunity Engineering (OE), which shows companies how to engineer the risk out of uncertain opportunities in order to pursue more high-payoff innovations. OE, the authors note, is both a tactical approach and a mindset. It provides a specific way of valuing opportunities, using proprietary software, that enables companies to plug in the parameters of a project and determine its potential quickly. In short, the authors say, OE helps inculcate a culture of innovation. Below is an excerpt from their book.

Wal-Mart to Rate Products’ Impact on Environment

The company is expected on Thursday to announce the creation of an indexing system meant to help retailers determine the social and environmental impact of their products.

New York Times, July 15, 2009 — Wal-Mart, which has been venturing into environmentally sustainable products and business methods for the last few years, is about to announce its most ambitious effort yet on that front. And it wants the nation’s other retailers to take part.The company is expected on Thursday to announce the creation of an electronic indexing system meant eventually to help Wal-Mart and other retailers determine the social and environmental impact of every product they place on their shelves.

The next 15 trends in social networking

Smart Company, July 14, 2009 — There is no hotter trend in the internet, marketing and media space than social networking. What started out as a way for ‘cool kids’ to talk to each other has now become essential part of every company’s marketing strategy.

Twitter is for old people, work experience whiz-kid tells bankers

Times Online, July 14, 2009 — Just over a fortnight ago, Matthew Robson had never worked in banking. This was mainly because he was 15 years and 7 months old and attending a comprehensive school in South London.

Today he is the talk of Tokyo, Wall Street and the City. Fund managers, CEOs and analysts are poring over his report, How Teenagers Consume Media, which he wrote last week while on work experience at Morgan Stanley

Zappos Review Incites Reproach From Agency Creative†

Ignited's Mike Wolfsohn Says Online-Retail Darling Exemplifies What's Wrong With the Process

Advertising Age, July 14, 2009 — Zappos is known for stellar customer service, but when it comes to dealing with adland, the marketer is portrayed in a blog post by a creative at ad shop Ignited as the poster child for a flawed agency review process.

Approval by a Blogger May Please a Sponsor

New York Times, July 13, 2009 — Colleen Padilla, a 33-year-old mother of two who lives in suburban Philadelphia, has reviewed nearly 1,500 products, including baby clothes, microwave dinners and the Nintendo Wii, on her popular Web site Classymommy.com. Her site attracts 60,000 unique visitors every month, and Ms. Padilla attracts something else: free items from companies eager to promote their products to her readers.

Marketing companies are keen to get their products into the hands of so-called influencers who have loyal online followings because the opinions of such consumers help products stand out amid the clutter, particularly in social media.

Brandinavia: Why Nordic Brands Rule

Brandchannel.com, July 13, 2009 — How did this small geographic area in northern Europe, comprised of countries with little political capital, become such a branding powerhouse? The story starts around AD 900, according to the book The Viking Manifesto: The Scandinavian Approach to Business and Blasphemy by Steve Strid and Claes Andreasson (Marshall Cavendish, 2008). The authors point to the Vikings as the admittedly barbaric forerunners of contemporary Vikings: “The Viking is more soft spoken, but alive and well. Without any army to speak of, they still invade with a better idea and a new approach to marketing, advertising, culture and corporate culture.” The book’s premise is interesting: that the Viking philosophy survived and has been updated, resulting in modern business success.

Millennials Most Interested In Loyalty Programs

MediaPost Publications, July 13, 2009 — U.S. consumer participation in rewards programs is on the rise across all demographic segments, according to Colloquy, the Cincinnati-based loyalty marketing consultancy. The study reports a 19% participation growth by the general population since 2007.

Participation by Millennials (ages 18-25) has climbed 32% since last measured in 2007.

A Muscle Car to the Rescue for General Motors

.M.’s new Camaro, a throwback to another era, is creating a buzz in otherwise quiet showrooms

New York Times, July 10, 2009 — Believe it or not, General Motors has a hit car on its hands.Amid the gloom of bankruptcy and a miserable market for new vehicles, G.M.’s new Chevrolet Camaro muscle car is winning over consumers looking for a little excitement in a bland landscape of look-alike sedans and watered-down sport utilities.

G.M. sold 9,300 Camaros during the month of June — more than either its entire Buick or Cadillac divisions could muster on their own.

'United Breaks Guitars': Passenger's revenge video becomes a viral hit

United Airlines says it will meet with Canadian musician Dave Carroll to make restitution

Chicago Tribune, July 9, 2009 — Canadian musician Dave Carroll could have sung the blues after United Airlines workers at O'Hare International Airport smashed his guitar and the carrier refused to pick up the $1,200 cost to repair it.

Instead, he turned the experience into a witty ditty, "United Breaks Guitars," and scored an instant hit on YouTube, his first in a 16-year career. Posted on Monday, the video had been viewed nearly 150,000 times by Wednesday.

Best Buy and TiVo Are Forming an Alliance

New York Times, July 9, 2009 — TiVo, the Silicon Valley company that popularized the digital video recorder, and Best Buy, the national electronics chain, are forging a broad partnership.

On Thursday, the companies plan to announce that Best Buy will heavily promote TiVo products in its 1,100 stores in the United States. TiVo will develop a version of its set-top box, to be sold in Best Buy stores, that will let the retailer advertise its products and services to TiVo subscribers on their home televisions.

Getting to 'Wow': Consumers Describe What Makes a Great Shopping Experience

Knowledge@Wharton, July 9, 2009 — Paula Courtney found "wow" when she took her daughter to the employee washroom at her local grocery store. A sign by the door instructed workers to remain physically by the side of any customer experiencing a problem until that problem was resolved. Later, when Courtney was in the checkout line, the cashier noticed Courtney's blueberries were squishy. The cashier insisted on walking back to the produce section to find a fresh box.

Google Plans a PC Operating System

New York Times, July 8, 2009 — In a direct challenge to Microsoft, Google announced late Tuesday that it is developing an operating system for PCs that is tied to its Chrome Web browser.

The software, called the Google Chrome Operating System, is initially intended for use in the tiny, low-cost portable computers known as netbooks, which have been selling quickly even as demand for other PCs has plummeted. Google said it believed the software would also be able to power full-size PCs.

Welcome to the Network Era

Prophet, July 8, 2009 — In this article, Scott Davis discusses the concept behind Shift 2 from his latest book. He writes about managing the network opportunity for your business, and the challenges to understanding and embracing these dynamics.

J. C. Penney Plays Up Its Manhattan Opening

New York Times, July 7, 2009 — J. C. PENNEY, a retailer with middle-American roots, intends to make a grand entrance with its first store in Manhattan, a place at the heart of retailing.

Smartphoniacs: Addicts of the Information Age†

Wall Street Journal, July 7, 2009 — Among everybody from our leaders to our teenagers, no habit is spreading faster than being connected 24/7 via a smart phone.

Help yourself†

The recession spurs self-service

Economist, July 2, 2009 — AMERICANS worried that cheap labour in faraway countries threatens jobs at home should redirect their gaze to the mirror. Yes, companies are outsourcing jobs—to their customers. They are steering ever greater numbers to ATMs instead of tellers, websites instead of telephone hotlines and automated checkouts instead of manned registers. The recession is making them even keener.

Self-service is on the rise in industries from retailing and entertainment to travel and telecommunications.

How to Keep Aging Brands Relevant

Prophet, July 2, 2009 — Joseph Gelman discusses why some brands may not be relevant to consumers anymore and how this trend could be avoided. Through several examples of “old” brands, such as Telefónica, Ford, and Burger King, which managed to renew their image, Gelman studies different formula to make a brand become young again. *Please note, this article is in Spanish

Delivering Digital Marketing

Friends, not cannibals.

eMarketer, July 1, 2009 — The two-day DDB conference in London, sponsored by Broadcast magazine, brought together representatives of the UK government, the BBC, BSkyB, ITV, Virgin Media and other broadcasters with executives from Hulu, NBC Universal and Google. Media agencies and consultancies also took part.

How Coke Is Targeting Black Consumers†

Q&A With Yolanda White, Assistant VP of African-American Marketing

Advertising Age, July 1, 2009 — Coca-Cola re-established a dedicated African-American marketing group in 2006. The beverage giant has spent the past few years testing programs and conducting market research. And in the first half of this year, those efforts have come to fruition, with four new campaigns for the Dasani and Coca-Cola brands.

How to Turn Research into Innovation Gold

You did the interviews, got the photos, and compiled the reams of data. Now what? A Steelcase experience could guide your next innovation project

BusinessWeek, July 1, 2009 — Throughout the winter of 2006, the long, white walls of the room assigned to Steelcase's (SCS) health-care research team looked like a scrapbook.

The four-member group based in the Grand Rapids (Mich.) headquarters of the office furniture giant was studying the experience of cancer patients, and had spent months interviewing and photographing doctors and patients in oncology units at nine hospitals across the country. Hundreds of the thousands of pictures they'd taken lined the walls, along with almost as many Post-It notes. There were collages, created by cancer patients to express treatment as it is, and as it should be, and interview transcripts and traditional market research in stacks on the conference room table.

Standing before all of this... continue reading

Inside Disney's Toy Factory

Chris Heatherly and Len Mazzocco use systematic brainstorming and prototyping for the innovation to overhaul the lineup every six months

BusinessWeek, July 1, 2009 — Imagine a small girl holding a brand new toy for the first time. The colors and contours light up her eyes; her mental gears crank as she examines the product, figuring out its purpose. Then, she smiles as she happily joins the new, imaginary world from which the toy was originally born.

Chris Heatherly, 34, and Len Mazzocco, 53, design toys that inspire such scenes on a daily basis for hundreds of thousands of children around the world. Together, the two help run Walt Disney's (DIS) toy division, under the Disney Consumer Products banner.

Owning the Right Strategic Imperatives

Prophet, July 1, 2009 — In this article Scott Davis outlines a marketer's 5-step plan to becoming a growth catalyst.

Why America Is Addicted to Olive Garden

Fast Company, July 1, 2009 — On a Tuesday morning in April, the presidents of three of the largest restaurant chains in the country slip into an unmarked white van in Orlando, Florida, and embark on an unprecedented mission — sharing their latest trade secrets.

You know their brands: $3 billion — plus Olive Garden, with its heaping bowls of pasta and all-you-can-eat breadsticks; $2 billion — plus Red Lobster, which introduced middle America to the wonders of fried shrimp; and nearly $1 billion LongHorn Steakhouse, whose variations on a theme include steak stuffed with fontina cheese and wild mushrooms.

You probably don't know they're part of the same company, Darden Restaurants. It's the country's largest full-service restaurant operation, the 29th-largest employer in the United... continue reading