Mar 9, 2010
Kara Goldin was pregnant when she was diagnosed with gestational diabetes in 2004. The first thing she cut out of her diet was sugary drinks. Her blood sugar problems improved, but Goldin still craved flavored beverages. She tried to find an all-natural, sugar-free drink that tasted good, but she struck out. Her solution? Goldin, a former vice president at AOL, created a beverage that became Hint, the brand and the company.
Mar 9, 2010
General Motors recently announced that it is killing off the Hummer brand, after a sale to China’s Sichuan Tengzhong company fell through. The company did manage to find a buyer for Saab. This is part of bigger move by GM to drastically focus its brand portfolio, after having gone bust last year and been rescued by the US government.
Why did the Hummer brand die, but Saab survived?
Danah Boyd
Feb 25, 2010
In his seminal pop-book, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi argued that people are happiest when they can reach a state of "flow." He talks about performers and athletes who are in the height of their profession, the experience they feel as time passes by and everything just clicks. People reach a state where attention appears focused and, simultaneously, not in need of focus at the same time. The world is aligned and everything just feels right.
Consider what it means to be "in flow" in an information landscape defined by networked media, and you will see where Web 2.0 is taking us. The goal is not to be a passive consumer of information or to simply tune in when the time is right, but rather to live in a world where information is everywhere.
Feb 24, 2010
Starbucks coffee was the No. 1 brand tried by consumers in the coffee/tea category in January, earning twice as many mentions as No. 2 Dunkin' Donuts coffee and No. 3 Celestial Seasonings tea in a consumer survey conducted by Market Force Information, a worldwide leader in customer intelligence solutions.
David Brooks
Feb 17, 2010
Financial crises stink. In their wake, public debt explodes. Nations default. Economic growth falters. Taxes rise. Unemployment lingers. The current financial crisis is no different. The U.S. will have to produce 10 million new jobs just to get back to the unemployment levels of 2007. There’s no sign that that is going to happen soon, so we’re looking at an extended period of above 8 percent unemployment.
The biggest impact is on men.
Feb 16, 2010
I'm a tough customer. I admit it. Takes one to know one. I'm a loud shocking dose of reality for companies that sell me something. I expect too much from them. I've given them my money for, and put my trust in; their products or services, and I expect them to value that accordingly. I can be a firm's greatest ally or its worst nightmare.
So when something goes wrong, I want the company to fix it. Now! When it takes too long, I let them know it. When service representatives can't solve the problem, I want to talk to their bosses, their bosses' bosses, all the way up to their CEOs. And when a service rep tells me, "My supervisor will just tell you the same thing," well, there's nothing I want to hear less.
Bud Caddell
Feb 10, 2010
Advertising agency of the future sounds a bit like horse drawn carriage of the future.
I’m not saying for certain that there won’t be agencies in the future, only that the future doesn’t necessarily need agencies. Just like the future doesn’t need printed news but it needs journalism; the future needs commercial communications, but who creates them, the agency or the brand or someone else, is unwritten.
And though the future of the agency is unwritten, I have real doubts that agencies will survive or should survive.
Feb 3, 2010
Crystal Light is a sugar-free soluble powder manufactured by Kraft Foods since 1982. Originally offered in only five flavors, the line-up now includes twenty-eight. And as non diet sodas become more and more the face of fattening evil, flavored waters and juices have risen in popularity in the last few years. While I prefer my water on tap without any kind of powder, Kraft Food bets upwards of $40 million in advertising in the last couple of years and more this year, that other people do. And while Crystal Light is clearly targeted towards women, Kraft Foods estimates that 40% of consumers are men, yet at point of purchase, women are the overwhelming majority. This past November, Kraft Foods introduced a new look for Crystal Light with an environmental-friendly range of packaging.
James Russo
Jan 29, 2010
As we focus our attention on 2010, clearly the global marketplace is redefining itself. Not only in economic terms but more importantly in consumer terms. Consumers are more diverse, demanding and connected than ever before. To help give you a clearer look into what’s ahead, Nielsen has assembled videos from our global team to deliver insights into what consumers watch and what they buy. With evidence of a recovery emerging, understanding the global trends and local conditions is essential to success.
Paul Armstrong
Jan 28, 2010
The great and good from the world of social media met Wednesday at Davos and agreed their medium still hasn't reached its full potential, with one speaker joking that the really cool stuff wouldn't happen "until we're dead."
This is a frightening prospect when one considers how much our digital and real lives have blurred already. Seven of the 15 most trafficked Web sites in the world are social sites, according to George Colony of Forrester Research, a technology specialist.
Jan 28, 2010
Toyota is a company that has built its entire franchise on quality and reliability, and today, it faces being discredited at its very core. The carmaker's corporate-communications department has, so far anyway, attempted to make the recall of 2.3 million vehicles sound like a typical single-vehicle recall. But it wasn't -- not by a long shot.
You don't have to look any further than the Audi brand between 1978 and 1982 to see how faulty acceleration can put a severe break on sales and trust. Audi had one model affected; Toyota has eight.
Jan 26, 2010
The money continues to be on the promotion and now engagement phases of customer acquisition. White papers are a dime a dozen, so are loads of articles and posts patiently written with the audience in mind.
Tell me the truth, you've been guilty of wanting to hire someone who can write crisp copy that sells, which is not the same as just writing copy, without wanting to pay them a premium for doing so.
You are not alone.
Jack Loechner
Jan 22, 2010
According to the 2009 Cone Consumer New Media Study, an online survey by Opinion Research Corporation among a representative U.S. sample of 1,048 adults, comprising "new media users," 44% of American new media users are searching for, sharing or discussing information about corporate responsibility (CR) efforts and programs and are highly confident they can have an effect on business.
Jan 19, 2010
Two and a half years ago, Charlene Li and I introduced Social Technographics, a way to analyze your market's social technology behavior. Social Technographics was carefully constructed, not as a segmentation, but as a profile (that is, the groups overlap). That's because the actual data told me that people participate in multiple behaviors, and not everyone at a higher level on the ladder actually does everything in the lower rungs.
Jan 18, 2010
In spite of what you may have read, Jeff Zucker, the chief executive of NBC Universal, didn’t kill “The Tonight Show,” and neither did Jay Leno. And as much as NBC would like you to think it, Conan O’Brien didn’t do in the show with his bare hands either. The people who are responsible? That would be you and me.
Carl Izzi
Jan 17, 2010
For most marketers, the growth of multicultural segments became a business imperative after the 2000 Census and the generational focus shifted from boomer to Gen Y. If you're managing a large brand today, you are likely addressing these opportunities through some combination of targeted Hispanic, African American or Asian, and youth-marketing initiatives.
But today that segmentation is not enough; a bigger change is emerging that is more meaningful than just demography.
Arun Sinha
Jan 13, 2010
In a post-recessionary world, trust has moved from the individual to the corporate realm. It is one of the most important issues that business organizations face when it comes to the future of their brands.
A 2008 study by the Chief Marketing Officer Council found that some 99% of customers surveyed said they would either scale back or terminate relationships with companies that fail at building customer trust. In the past, trust may not have seemed like a natural part of management's role, but these days it is a critical part of every business, one proven to have an effect on the bottom line. Customers need to see that a solid foundation has been built within a business and that their needs will be addressed--especially in times of crisis.
Jan 7, 2010
In my interactions with CMOs at some of the largest companies in the U.S. and Europe, I hear a familiar refrain. It goes something like this: "My company is customer-centric, but marketing doesn't control the customer experience." Indeed, only 53% of marketers we surveyed recently reported that they "own" the customer experience, putting the brand experience in a channel or environment that does not think to speak with marketing's voice. Even fewer are directly responsible for loyalty programs, community management and customer service. And from a budget standpoint, 80% of marketing budgets go to advertising, with just 20% going to loyalty programs and customer experience.
Dec 21, 2009
A holiday season of Web price wars and aggressive online promotions by store-based retailers is leaving e-commerce a larger force in American retail.
While sales conducted at brick-and mortar stores are about flat this season compared with 2008, online retailing grew 4% from the beginning of November through Dec. 18 to $24.8 billion, according to Web tracking company comScore Inc. Online sales on Dec. 15 totaled $913 million, marking a one-day record for the industry.
Michael Fassnacht and James Shuttleworth
Dec 17, 2009
Popular culture, including TV shows such as "Mad Men," would have us believe the practice of marketing in an ad agency is a straightforward exercise, calling only for understanding the customer, coming up with a big idea, then creating something interesting and relevant to engage consumers.
Not quite. Marketing organizations today are under the gun as never before -- from a media landscape growing increasingly convoluted and a fleeting consumer universe to the mounting pressure of accountability for any marketing dollar spent. Today's new universe demands a different approach to the design and execution of any marketing effort. And yet, little intellectual brain power or emotional energy is being invested in improving the fundamental marketing process.
Lisa Bannon and Bob Davis
Dec 17, 2009
The economy appears to have begun recovering after the worst recession in half a century. But businesses ranging from shoemakers to financial services to luxury hotels don't expect American consumers to return to their spendthrift ways anytime soon. They see consumers emerging from the punishing downturn with a new mind-set: careful, practical, more socially conscious and embarrassed by flashy shows of wealth.
Much as the 1930s shaped the spending habits of an entire generation, many companies now anticipate a shift in consumer behavior that persists even after jobs and growth get back closer to normal.
Mike Linton
Dec 15, 2009
Does your company truly care about its customers or are you--and your employees--just saying you are "customer focused"? These days, customers won't be fooled if your company's actions don't live up to its promise.
Nov 19, 2009
Listening to a Bob Dylan album that I downloaded to my iPhone, I was prompted to rummage through a box of yellowing newspaper articles on entertainers and found a 2002 New York Times article, "Bob Dylan's Unswerving Road Back To Newport," which traces his merger of folk and rock.
Advertising and marketing professionals would do well to heed Dylan's example, which reminds us that life does not progress in a straight line. Personal and artistic integrity are underscored by fusion and change, which, in turn, is driven by the tension of a collage of opposites. The point: What is true for Bob Dylan is true for all people
Nov 17, 2009
We have more data on consumers today than ever, but do we really know more about how to market to them than we did 25 years ago? It's not our fault; it just used to be simpler back when the average consumer was easily defined, shopped in fewer places, and print, TV, radio and in-store were the only real options available for communicating with them.
Everyone knows that the Internet has changed the media landscape but we are only now beginning to realize how and to what extent. This past April, the GfK Group, Google & Coca-Cola announced that they'd measured a 97% higher purchase rate when TV and YouTube video interplay were part of an orchestrated, cross-media campaign.
John Gapper
Nov 12, 2009
Maclaren is a small private company with a big public problem, one that it has not handled well. On Monday, Maclaren announced that it was issuing repair kits for up to 1m pushchairs it had sold in the US over the past decade after 12 cases in which children’s fingertips were chopped off in the pushchairs’ hinges. By that afternoon, its website had frozen and its phone lines were overwhelmed by parents. Meanwhile, the British company founded in 1965 by Owen Finlay Maclaren, the inventor of the “umbrella-fold” buggy, told non-Americans they would be treated differently.
Nov 10, 2009
Ever since Yahoo introduced its "It's y!ou" campaign last September, it seems like we've been getting "you-ed" up the wazoo in advertising. Granted, technology is having a customizable moment and the use of the y-word reflects this. But there's more than one layer of irony in multiple advertisers attempting to target millions of people with messages about their individuality.
Marsha Lindsay
Oct 28, 2009
The right conversation strategy answers two big questions: What meaningful content will attract sufficient conversations with the right people? And, how will you jump-start conversations and keep them alive? When people are starved for time and already engaged in many conversations, jump-starting new and meaningful conversations is the big challenge of marketing today. Just building a website, writing a blog or posting videos on YouTube doesn't mean sufficient numbers to impact ROI will find them organically, much less take the time and energy to converse with you. By definition a conversation requires others to be present and participate -- otherwise you're talking to yourself. Perhaps therapeutic, but no way to make a living.
Oct 27, 2009
Lots of debate about the title of brand manager and exactly what the job should be: Much of it missing the point. Forrester, better known for its technology research, started the debate by suggesting “brand managers” should become “brand advocates” with a more consumer-centric approach and less loyalty to media channels and agencies.
Oct 27, 2009
Throughout the recession, many marketers have relied on so-called "recession-survival" lessons to drive their strategies. Unfortunately, these aren't always lessons as much as they are myths. We thought we would help dispel some of them and share a few tips to spur positive momentum.
Oct 15, 2009
1) Inconspicuous Consumption: Consumers respond to the social moment by taking consumption into the closet. As when we talk about going to Fred's (in-store restaurant), not Barney's. Or, ask to have new purchases shipped, rather than be seen carrying a branded shopping bag. Or, decide to have shoes repaired and last year's jacket altered. Spending as a covert activity. No bragging rights.
Oct 14, 2009
China's economy has positively purred over the past year compared to the rest of the world, with its gross domestic product growth hovering around 8%. But retail stores, airlines and hotels got an extra bump during the first week of October, when the entire country took an eight-day holiday to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the People's Republic of China.
Valeria Maltoni
Oct 13, 2009
All content is not created equal. While valuable content is the linchpin of an organization's marketing strategy, different types of content map to different part of the buyer's journey. McKinsey published a report earlier this year that confirmed what many of us with the ear to the digital space have known for a while - people don't like to be funneled into a neat graphic.
We're way past calling buyers consumers. Even as the term may be technically correct, it has an image problem. I prefer to talk about customers and since last week was customer service week and I was traveling, I thought we could have more than one customer conversation this week.
In the digital space, your content is likely to be activated by participation.
Oct 12, 2009
Last week on Facebook, amid the cacophony of status updates, many men received a cheeky invitation -- "Turn up your man smell" -- from a hopeful new friend: Old Spice. The Procter & Gamble brand was running an ad on the social networking site hoping to increase its 55,000-strong Facebook fan base. By today, Old Spice boasted nearly 175,000.
Brands are finding themselves in a position similar to that of the new kids at summer camp: they're anxiously looking for friends. In the world of social media, the potency of a person's network has always been key. Now, this virtual popularity contest has been joined by advertisers, who are scrambling to build fan bases they hope to mobilize on behalf of their brands.
Oct 12, 2009
As Facebook passes 300 million active users, it is quickly becoming the favorite engagement-marketing and communications platform of brands. While the robust social platform brings with it abundant opportunity, it also brings new challenges. Brand marketers and their creative agencies are more than ever operating in new territories, forced to rethink their tactical marketing approach and understanding of what metrics matter in this space.
On Facebook, consumers and brands are friends. The notion of consumers as friends is inviting to brands, yet most marketers are still somewhat unclear what this really means and how they should approach this friendship. As such, the remainder of this article aims to unlock some of the secrets to a successful friendship between a brand and a consumer on Facebook.
Oct 8, 2009
The Kroger Co. realized nearly a decade ago that to survive it had to put the customer first, and permanently. That meant larger stores with more products at cheaper prices. It meant cleaner aisles and shorter lines. It meant $4 generic prescriptions, organic food selections, Murray's Cheese counters and a 3-cent reward for using a reusable shopping bag.
It meant donating food to local food pantries, launching breast cancer awareness campaigns using local women, giving away its Deluxe ice cream to loyal Twitter followers.
"We told our shareholders our intention is to save money in places that won't matter as much to the customer, so we can pass on savings to the customer," Kroger CEO David Dillon told a packed Music Hall Ballroom crowd attending the Cincinnati USA Regional Chamber's annual luncheon Wednesday.
Oct 6, 2009
There seems to be this idea going around that usability testing is bad, or that the cool kids don’t do it. That it’s old skool. That designers don’t need to do it. What if I told you that usability testing is the hottest thing in experience design research? Every time a person has a great experience with a website, a web app, a gadget, or a service, it’s because a design team made excellent decisions about both design and implementation—decisions based on data about how people use designs. And how can you get that data? Usability testing.
Oct 5, 2009
My dad always said, if you want to get ahead of the leader, don’t follow his tracks in the snow. If I owned my own jewelry store, this would be the mantra for everything I did. And my store would be truly different.
I think the greatest challenge we all face is avoiding the well-worn track. So, how do we avoid falling into step with everyone else? The trick is to find inspiration, not from your competitors, but from brands outside your own category of business.
Let’s imagine that Apple went into the jewelry business. Now let’s imagine how the Apple jewelry store might look.
Sep 16, 2009
Any corporation can be forgiven being a little anxious these days. Everyone's confidence is being tested.
I interviewed Debbie Millman over the weekend, and she helped me see an unexpected connection between this confidence and the brand.
When the corporation loses it's nerve, it ceases to take chances. It begins to white-knuckle its way through the world. It begins to lean towards stasis. The consumer may too.
Dean Crutchfield
Sep 15, 2009
Crises are particle accelerators for brands that reveal their fragility, as we've recently witnessed with bankrupt banks, tampered-with pizzas, poisoned pistachios, dodgy cookie dough and lethal drugs. While there are impressive tomes on crisis management, we still are littered with embarrassing reminders of the recurring gap between preparation and accomplishment.
It's time to stop repeating the same mistakes when it comes to crisis management. It's also time to recognize the CMO's role in negotiating crises. As social media has enabled consumers to more actively participate in brands, the CMO arguably now has an even greater role to play in activating customer support or other mechanisms necessary at a time of crisis. That's because CMOs are more in tune with consumers; they are using social-media tools to interact with them, and they can harness those tools in a time of crisis, turning those most loyal consumers into brand ambassadors.
Jul 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.
Jul 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. Pabst says she even tracks the name of the person who bakes her pizza.
Jul 22, 2009
Today CSR stands for Corporate Social Responsibility. It's a concept that deals with a business's obligation to the people that help make it successful. Certainly, CSR embraces environmental responsibility, but it goes beyond that. It includes a company's policies and practices to better the lives of its employees, their community and society as a whole. It can embrace issues such as poverty, literacy, disease, education, biodiversity and more. Pretty much every forward-thinking CEO has embraced CSR as a key part of doing business today. According to CRO magazine, CSR is now a $37 billion industry.
But what about the other side of the coin? What about the consumer's responsibility? As the old adage says, it takes two to tango.
Jun 21, 2009
Your Brand Day, a now vintage meme that was started by Dear Jane Sample. It made the rounds last year, but has had a recent resurgence when two very popular technology and internet culture blogs Boing Boing and Kottke are jumped on the bandwagon.
Alan Wolk over at The Toad Stool, pointed to this meme resurrection, as he was one of the first to participate last year. Since I didn’t participate, I wanted to give it a go this time around.
Here’s my brand timeline.
Jun 13, 2009
Amazon is readying a return to TV advertising after it stopped running commercials in 2002.
The Internet retail giant isn't ready to hire an agency yet. Instead, it has kicked off a user-generated commercial contest to find submissions that tell its story. Amazon plans to work with winners to craft their entries into TV spots.
Derrick Daye
Jun 13, 2009
Brands have adopted a variety of tactics in response to changing consumer attitudes and behaviors. In the first quarter of 2009, we monitored more than 100 brand responses to the recession. We found that most approaches fit into six buckets: optimism, humor, nationalism, nostalgia, consumer empowerment and value/price.
Gord Hotchkiss
Jun 11, 2009
In a recent survey, we asked B2B buyers how they prefer ordering the things they order all the time. Sixty-three percent said they prefer to order them online. The next largest group was the 15% who would go the traditional route of ordering from a local office over the phone. Another 12% said they'd prefer to order from a real live sales rep. In a recent presentation to a client, I kept that pie chart of results up for a while, allowing it to sink in, because I think the implications are astounding. After it sunk in, I asked what I believe to be a fundamentally important question: "Look at the chart and ask yourself, how closely does your company's strategic direction and resource allocation match that pie chart? That's where your customers are going, and they're moving fast. Are you going to be there when they get there?"
Jun 1, 2009
Late last week, Procter & Gamble Co. revealed its sales expectations for the next few years, and things don’t look good: 2009 will increase 2-3% (below prior forecasts), and 2010 will be worse, perhaps climbing only a percentage point or two above flat.
May 22, 2009
A new survey by the Pew Research Center's project on social and demographic trends found that 60 percent of all younger and middle-aged adults say they are doing more shopping at discount stores or avoiding more expensive brands.Pew said nearly a quarter of younger adults say they plan to plant a "recession garden" to trim their food bills.
Another Pew study released in April found that from the kitchen to the laundry room to home entertainment, consumers are paring down the list of things they can't live without. I loved the title of that report: "Luxury or Necessity? The Public Makes a U-Turn." Is this dawning age of frugality here to stay?
May 21, 2009
Would you say that a value brand is one that offers the most benefit for the cost? That sounds reasonable, right? Until you realize that it depends on a particular customer's changing perception of the benefit as compared to his or her changing perception of its cost. This is not mumbo jumbo. It's a critical distinction.
May 19, 2009
Crowdsourced creations already form the foundation of sneaker brand Ryz, which sells high-tops featuring graphic designs created and voted into production by consumers. Now, a similar concept is being used to create Exuve, a new line of clothing "where the designer and the consumer are one and the same."
May 18, 2009
"Spent" looks at why, when scientific research shows that more stuff doesn’t lead to more happiness, humans are driven to endlessly acquire.
May 5, 2009
Marketers have made great strides in recent years to better understand and connect with moms. But in trying to perfect the message, many have forgotten to listen to the very consumer they are trying to woo.
According to M2Moms, 60 percent of moms feel that marketers are ignoring their needs, and 73 percent feel that advertisers don't really understand what it's like to be a mom.
Martin Roll
Apr 27, 2009
There are several stakeholders concerned with brand equity, such as the firm, the customer, the distribution channels, media and other stakeholders like the financial markets and analysts, depending on the type of company ownership. But ultimately it is the customer who is the most critical component in defining brand equity as it is his/her choices that determine the success or failure of the company and the brand.
Apr 23, 2009
Understanding how events occur in the brain - how we come to an “aha!” insight, how we make a decision, and so on - fascinates neuroscientists. And anyone interested in neuromarketing can’t help but wonder how we decide between two products, or whether to buy a product at all. And, since we like to believe we are thinking beings, just how rational are those decisions?
Brandon Evans
Apr 17, 2009
"Know your consumer" is a business commandment certain to be deeply ingrained at the heart of any successful company. Never, however, has that consumer morphed so quickly or become so elusive. It is important for marketers to grasp and understand the key drivers of this new empowered consumer, one who has grown up with brand new perspectives and redefined the interplay of communications, relationships, brands, technology and media. This is Consumer 2.0.
Grant McCracken
Apr 14, 2009
Detroit has never had a Chief Culture Officer, someone who could help the GM, Ford and Chrysler manage the opportunities and dangers that come from culture. (By "culture" I do not mean the corporate culture of Detroit. I mean the "software" with which we run the hardware of our world, the shared understandings, assumptions, rules and practices that inform how we see and act. This culture is rich, complicated and changeable. It needs someone standing watch all the time.)
Apr 10, 2009
Technology will shift the power from brands to people as they are able to control their own identity. As a result, the Social Contract between people and brands will evolve.
Apr 9, 2009
Newspapers across the country may be scaling back to survive, but online video appears to be one area where they are expanding aggressively. An analysis of 187 U.S. newspaper Web sites by Web video provider Brightcove shows a surge in their video-related activity last year.
Apr 9, 2009
Yesterday evening I co-hosted a tweetup in New York City where Ford was unveiling the new Ford Fiesta and a brilliantly conceived social media program to get 100 influencers to take the car on an extended test drive for 6 months as part of the Ford Fiesta Movement. The event was a gathering designed to help put a more human face on Ford and talk about a new Ford car that many of the 20 and 30 somethings who showed up (and are the target market for the Fiesta) may not have known about.
Jonathan Birchall
Apr 8, 2009
As the recession dramatically alters where and how Americans spend their money, there is an emerging consensus on the likely profile of the “new” US consumer who will emerge on the other side of the crisis.
Apr 8, 2009
Yesterday, prices on Apple's iTunes service went all kablooey. Songs now retail at three price points: $.69, $.99, and $1.29.
It's likely that most "popular" songs will be offered at the higher price point, though the record labels reserved the right to decide (and a brief check today revealed at least a few Top Songs still going for $.99. The presumption is that deep cuts/catalog songs will retail for $.69. Or something.
Do consumers benefit from the new pricing? Of course not. The record labels insisted on it, solely because they can.
Apr 6, 2009
With their jobs less secure, their houses worth less and their stock-market portfolios shrunken, Americans are saving more now. But will they still be thrifty when the recession ends?
No one will know for sure for years, but there's good reason to believe Americans will be saving more in the next decade than they did in the last one.
Apr 1, 2009
I give you the very reason search marketing is the most powerful platform of them all -- the point (aka intent) of the consumer using the channel is perfectly aligned with that of advertisers and the rest of the marketing ecosystem looking to exploit, er, leverage the channel.
Mar 27, 2009
Best Buy, ConAgra, Dr Pepper Snapple Group earnings drive gains.
Mar 23, 2009
New study shows consumers far more digitally savvy than agencies.
Garrick Schmitt
Mar 19, 2009
Today's consumer seems to have an insatiable appetite for information, but until recently making sense of all of that raw data was too daunting for most. Enter the new "visual scientists" who are turning bits and bytes of data -- once purely the domain of mathematicians and coders -- into stories for our digital age.
Mar 17, 2009
What do Toby Keith, the Professional Bull Riders Association and Monster Jam have in common? Fans and trucks. Ford has made reaching those fans central to marketing its F-150 pickup for years. Whether by giving fans a chance to be roadies for a Toby Keith concert for a weekend or win tickets to a bull-riding show, the company has activated its associations with those events, and similar ones in complementary categories with promotions dangling new trucks and experiences.
Abbey Klaassen
Mar 15, 2009
Pop quiz: Who has the most popular page on Facebook? Barack Obama. Who's second? Coca-Cola. Yes, sugared water runs second only to the leader of the free world. Who was it again that said people don't want to be friends with brands?
Feb 9, 2009
A great societal shift is under way, and no one is taking advantage of
it. Numerous trend reports, even the 2008 census, show conclusively
that men are more and more involved in taking care of their children
and homes. So you'd think package-goods marketers would jump at the
chance to include them in their marketing mixes. But you'd be wrong.
Feb 4, 2009
Who needs a design firm? Apparently not Nestlé Confections and
Snacks. The candy maker is asking consumers to pick the latest
packaging for its Goobers, Sno-Caps and Oh Henry! brands.
Jan 21, 2009
Corporate troubles and scandals around the globe and across industries
will have a lasting impact on the way people view big business and big
brands. It should have a lasting effect on the way companies name and
position their brands, too.
Jan 20, 2009
Netbooks, those pint-size laptops that unexpectedly sold like hot cakes
last year, are making life stressful for Hewlett-Packard, Dell and
Microsoft.
Jan 15, 2009
"We are all direct marketers now, whether we
know it or not," states Michelle Tiletnick, research manager of the
Direct Marketing Association, to conclude the executive summary of the
DMA's new 78-page qualitative report, "Future of Direct Marketing."
Dec 12, 2008
There was a hint of anticipation in some enthusiast circles last week
when the Detroit 3 submitted their plans in Washington, D.C. Long the
subject of Internet debate, these plans shed a light on which brands
might be heading for the chopping block. Two GM brands seem most in
jeopardy—Saab and Saturn—and Ford is reportedly considering selling
Volvo. Looking back through old Consumer Reports road tests, you can see the shortcomings in these brands’ line-ups that led to their weaknesses.
Davis Thinking
