Jim Joseph
May 1, 2013
This means that brands are suddenly jumping into intense conversations with a real point of view, on issues that could be seen as quite controversial. All this for what feels like the first time ever!
Jaime Hoerbelt
Aug 23, 2012
Who’s controlling your brand message? Recent high-profile Twitter blunders from Progressive Insurance and online store CelebBoutique underscore the challenges of outsourcing your voice as a brand.
E. J. Schultz
Mar 27, 2012
Brand mascots are rebounding as marketers redeploy old characters in new ways, create fresh ones from scratch and use digital media to spin out rich storylines not possible in the past, when critters and cartoon characters were pretty much confined to TV. While it might be too early to declare a full-fledged mascot revival, brand characters are undoubtedly regaining attention.
Karl Greenberg
Nov 22, 2011
How do you make a decentralized global apparel company without a single, cohesive voice around the world, no e-commerce, and a lagging digital presence into a unified global brand with a vibrant digital, social and e-commerce strategy, with eight million Facebook fans, dwarfing any other jeans marketer and e-commerce growing 40% per year?
Nov 12, 2010
Attention hipsters planning to give an “ironic” Christmas present this year: Snuggie is in on the joke, too.
Stuart Elliott
Nov 8, 2010
On Madison Avenue, there are talking dogs, talking horses, even talking margarine tubs, not to mention talking brand characters like the E*Trade babies and the Keebler elves. But Mr. Peanut, the dapper Planters mascot since 1916, has never spoken — until now.
Joe Light
Nov 2, 2010
After forcing callers into automated customer-service lines, some companies are trying to sweeten the experience—by making the recorded voices less annoying.
Jun 21, 2010
Steve Jobs denied that Apple is developing a search engine when he was asked on stage at the D8 conference recently - not that that tells us anything about what's really going on in Cupertino's labs.
But the speculation persists not about if Apple will move into search, but when, how and why.
Mar 12, 2010
A hot new social-networking service dubbed Bubbly, which is essentially a voice-based Twitter, is quickly gaining popularity among Indians. And thanks to Bollywood celebs being early adopters, Bubbly is growing virally and with virtually zero marketing spend.
Mar 10, 2010
A personal bond with customers lets your company escape the commodity pricing wars and provides you with a powerful new marketing arm: loyal customers who will promote and defend your company online and off--for free. Here are seven tips for getting the process started of building customer loyalty in a big way.
Cameron Chapman
Feb 15, 2010
User interfaces—the way we interact with our technologies—have evolved a lot over the years.
From the original punch cards and printouts to monitors, mouses, and keyboards, all the way to the track pad, voice recognition, and interfaces designed to make it easier for the disabled to use computers, interfaces have progressed rapidly within the last few decades.
But there’s still a long way to go and there are many possible directions that future interface designs could take. We’re already seeing some start to crop up and its exciting to think about how they’ll change our lives.
Feb 7, 2010
Recently, at CUNY, we held a roundtable for ad sales people from hyperlocal blogs to big newspapers to hear what they are hearing from local merchants. We’re wrapping up our research for the New Business Models for News Project — indeed, it was Alberto Ibargüen, head of the Knight Foundation that funded this work, who said he really wanted to hear sales people’s perspective — and beginning research for Carnegie-funded work on new ad models, products, service, and sales methods, working with The New York Times on The Local.
Bruce D. Temkin
Jan 13, 2010
What makes Barnes & Noble a better brand than Charter Communications--and many others? Customer experience.
Forrester Research recently released its third annual Customer Experience Index. The study ranked 133 US companies across 14 industries using feedback from more than 4,600 consumers. Barnes & Noble came in at the top for the second year in a row, slightly ahead of Marriott Hotels and Hampton Inn. Other winners: Amazon.com and Costco. At the other end of the spectrum, Charter Communications took the bottom spot for the third consecutive year. Also at the bottom: Cigna and Medicaid.
Oct 13, 2009
Google wants to own the search experience across every mobile media platform, and its latest offering is a universal search box that lets users of Android-based smartphones look for apps, contact information and web content right from the device's home screens. This means users never have to leave their phone's home page or open a web browser to look up stock quotes, weather or a flight's status. The Quick Search Box,as it's called, also ranks search results by what a user has searched for and has used most often. Android users can also search and call contacts by voice with a tap of the microphone button next to the query box.
Sep 17, 2009
Twitter users on Thursday will, for the first time, be able to make voice calls directly to each other through the microblogging service.
A new third-party offering from Jajah known as Jajah@call is expected to go into beta Thursday morning that will allow Twitter users to initiate a two-way voice chat with other users by typing "@call @username"--where "username" is someone's Twitter ID--into any Twitter client. During the beta period, the company said, the calls will be limited to two minutes, but the company will evaluate that length during beta. However, it sees the two minute period--after which the call will end--as "the verbal equivalent of a tweet."
Apr 2, 2009
The battle for the minds, and throats, of consumers who drink lower-calorie beverages is intensifying as a leading brand enters the category.
Glacéau Vitaminwater, sold by a unit of the Coca-Cola Company, is bringing out on Thursday a low-calorie line called Vitaminwater10. The number refers to the calories in each eight-ounce serving and compares with 50 calories in an eight-ounce serving of the regular varieties of Vitaminwater.
Mar 31, 2009
Coke has launched a new iteration of its "Destapa La Felicidad" ("Open Happiness") Hispanic-market campaign. The new effort, bearing the tag "Destapa Tus Sueños" or "Unleash Your Dreams," includes new point-of-sale, shopper experiences, consumer promotions, television, radio, print and out-of-home advertising, and mobile, digital and music components.
Mar 31, 2009
Quick service chicken chain Popeyes has introduced a campaign featuring a feisty, truth-talking character, as part of its continued strategy of using real people in ads.
Mar 29, 2009
Once again Microsoft’s ad strategy is off-base. Their newest ad criticizes Apple for being expensive by “documenting” one woman’s quest to find a laptop that meets her needs for under $1000.
Valeria Maltoni
Feb 25, 2009
We're now in what I am starting to call the perfect storm for social media.
On one side we have lots of very smart and accomplished professionals
who are and have been using these tools to network, learn, and some to
market themselves successfully to new jobs and careers. On the
other we have many companies that are starting to see the need for
different answers to growth than the diminishing returns not guaranteed
by traditional channels.
Feb 12, 2009
Mass marketers have generally taken a wary stance toward blogs, but
Frito-Lay isn't just embracing bloggers, it's letting them define their
brand.
Feb 9, 2009
It's a recurring pipe dream for technophiles and luddites alike: computers that not only listen but understand
our every command. And each year, like clockwork, someone claims this
day is upon us—that we can toss out our keyboards and warm up our
larynges for a new relationship with our machines.
Jan 23, 2009
For a span of nearly seven years, Coke struggled to find its voice.
CEOs Douglas Daft and then Neville Isdell made bold proclamations
to crowded ballrooms that Coke would return to its roots of
creating "iconic advertising."
Colin Goedecke
Jan 20, 2009
When The Wizard of Oz goes from black-and-white to color, the story springs to life all the more vividly; extraordinarily. In
the eyes of today’s audiences, many companies’ stories, images and
messages are missing a richly individual character: a truly distinctive
color, contrast, aura, personality.
Jan 19, 2009
Much has been made of Mr. Obama’s eloquence — his ability to use words
in his speeches to persuade and uplift and inspire. But his
appreciation of the magic of language and his ardent love of reading
have not only endowed him with a rare ability to communicate his ideas
to millions of Americans while contextualizing complex ideas about race
and religion, they have also shaped his sense of who he is and his
apprehension of the world.
Seth Godin
Dec 12, 2008
Headlines matter now more than they ever did. Headlines provoke and introduce. They cajole and they position. No headline, no communication.
Davis Thinking
