A Contrarian's View of Marketing, Media and Branding
Yahoo’s recent results were lousy. Mayer reported that during the first three months of this year, Yahoo generated much less revenue than most Wall Street analysts expected. Yahoo sold 7% fewer ads than it did during the same period a year ago, and that it charged 2% less for them. Yahoo sold fewer ads because people [...]
How much longer can some brands, products and services continue to treat its customers like trash. The airlines still haven’t learned that traveling today is akin to root canal and causes people a lot of stress. Rather than raise fares to pay its people well and give us basic services beyond a soft drink and [...]
As I had predicted here a long time ago Ron Johnson was shown the door after a brief time as the CEO of JC Penney. Don’t feel sorry for him though because like so many other CEO’s he is being rewarded for failing with a $150 million pay package. This must be a real comfort [...]
Former JC Penney CEO Allen Questrom said “Penney had an existing base of people who decided to shop there. Those customers chose to come to you because of what you are. You can’t decide to change that without testing it first. I can’t imagine that this was done with the idea that sales would decline 25 [...]
An article on Fast Company entitled “For One Week, My Incredible Pebble Smartwatch Was All It Promised To Be–And Then It Stopped Working” is a great case study for any startup that feels they have a great product but fall short in other aspects of the brand. Essentially the authors Pebble smartwatch stopped working and [...]
Marketing 101: Advertising is supposed to sell your product not just to get people talking about it. The hype is on and now there are previews for Super Bowl commercials all over the web (yawn). After the Super Bowl the media will list the winners and losers but who is going to talk about [...]
According to Blair Reeves “Millennials, we’re told, have the attention span of a hyperactive squirrel. They cannot think more than 140 characters at a time because they’re addicted to multitasking. They want mad lulz, not substance. They are overconfident in themselves and need constant stimulation and affirmation. And boy, are they into this social media [...]
There are a lot of free reports available via the Internet. Some of them have great information, if they’re not a sales brochure is disguises, but who the hell has the time to read all these reports when most marketing executives just want the bottom line and “what’s in it for me” summary ?
Today brand marketers have to recognize that we’re dealing with groups of empowered consumers or business customers that have the ability to ignore our brand messages, recast them to suit our own needs or perceptions, and also the ability to “broadcast” them to other potential prospects and customers well ahead of our own attempts to [...]
People love to attack the frontrunner and they are lining up to take pot shots at Apple’s even though the profits on Apple’s business is more than most PC makers sales. But there are some key lessons here from the decline in Apple’s stock and we can all learn these valuable real time lessons if [...]
I love the challenge of marketing today because consumers have a wealth of information at their disposal 24/7/365 via the Internet. Over the last 17 years I have worked on some great brands including Sony's Discman, Canon Video products and consumer pharma brands like Cialis. I have learned a lot and continue to apply what I have learned via new learning.
dick cheney "smiling"
It’s been said that Millennials want to change the workplace and I can see why. It’s more important to know that you left your mark on a business and actually did something than to come in everyday and just do “work”. If an executive in your company says he wants change beware that when you start to implement change he will be there to have your back.
Stephen cannot have hit the nail on the head more soundly but social media “experts” and social media analysts who have never developed or implemented a social media marketing program would have you believe otherwise. A comment on this BLOG by a reader said something which stroke a chord with me; “you can have all the data you want but if you don’t use common sense with your marketing...
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