Brands that want to continue to have paying customers need to figure out how to market to the next generation.
All I really need to know about marketing I learned on summer vacation.
Branded content is now on the menu at the International Festival of Creativity in Cannes for the first time.
Bizspeak is a way to keep from committing to one path in a constantly changing marketplace.
When the year-end wrap-ups come in, 2012 is sure to be labeled the year of the story.
The messaging from political campaigns in a presidential election year is about as close and uncomfortable as actual hand-to-hand combat.
Twice a year, the marketing business pauses in its reinvention to expose its fear of fundamental change and highlight the disconnect that exists between what it says and what it does.
While privacy concerns are understandable, what most people care about at the end of the day is the price-value equation. They're willing to give up personal information about themselves if it helps a marketer target them more effectively and efficiently. If you can use past behaviors and stated preferences to deliver a better experience and waste less time, go for it.
A picture is worth a thousand words, but not every one of my observations is worth a full column. Or so my editors tell me. Most, however, are worth at least 140 characters. With that in mind, and to help ring in 2012, I proudly present my Twitter-ready views, insights, unsolicited tidbits of advice and meaningless random thoughts on the absurdities of modern marketing.
Be my Valentine! Now, let's see what I can buy/purchase/consume to express how I feel. A greeting card, for starters, pre-printed with someone else's sentiments, a frilly box of chocolates complete with a picture chart so you can avoid biting into the one with that weird green cream, or a dozen red long-stems.
Walking the streets of New York City after a recent Sunday brunch, an out-of-town friend delighted in the sight of a woman making her way home in what seemed to be the outfit she had worn out the night before. "That's what I love about New York: the anonymity," my friend said.
The campfire analogy. It's about the best definition of social marketing I've heard yet. It comes courtesy of Ashton Kutcher, who isn't only good-looking, famous, successful, wealthy and married to Demi Moore.
Darla is a customer service rep for American Express. But to me, she is more than that: she is the face, or more precisely, the voice that saved the brand's image in the mind of one loyal longtime cardholder.
Things ain't what they used to be. Once, I could describe myself as a back-page columnist for a monthly magazine. No more. Now, I'm a transmedia storyteller who develops original content for distribution across multiple platforms.
Sad as it is to admit, I've probably engaged in several dozen conversations over the years — some rather heated — that revolved around the definition of the word "brand." Occupational hazard, I guess.
Forgive me readers, for I have sinned: it's been a long time since my last confession. Actually, this one is rather difficult to get out. A bit embarrassing and — to be honest — I can't really believe I'm saying it out loud. Don't judge me. I think I like my airline. Stop looking at me like that. It's true, and I don't care who knows it.
We are CEOs of our own companies: Me Inc. To be in business today, our most important job is to be head marketer for the brand called You. It's that simple — and that hard. And that inescapable
Direct marketers still spend more time than they like trying to prove to the rest of us that their industry is not populated solely by junk mailers and cheesy infomercial pitches. They have a good case. It can easily be argued, and has, that all marketing in the digital age is direct marketing.
Do brands need to dabble in social media just to be there, or is presence without relevance more dangerous than absence? This is a question I had been toying with, and one for which my brain wasn't producing any satisfactory answers.
Just minutes after the ball dropped to usher in the new year, my Blackberry buzzed. I had already hugged or called my closest family and friends but was happy to accept the good wishes of another.
Across from the desk in my office is a framed black-and-white shot of a veteran Joe DiMaggio and a rookie Mickie Mantle at the old Yankee Stadium.
It is a time of intense transition in the music business. New technologies are changing the definition of content and distribution. A young singer competes in a popular show and wins the audience vote. His victory is just the beginning as he is plugged into a marketing machine.
Brands that enable consumer behavior will be rewarded.
So-called privacy experts wring their hands almost daily about the amount of personal information being harvested by corporations for marketing purposes. But if those companies prove to be as inept at interpreting that data as my least-favorite hotel clerk, consumers have little to worry about.
Company of the week R2C GroupR2C creates, produces, distributes and measures messages that inspire and compel consumers to do something with a brand to drive commercial advantage. The full-service advertising agency specializes in creative, production, media, analytics and performance. |
What's in our mailbox this month: fitness postcards from Retro Fitness, American Woman Fitness Centers, Union's United Taekwondo Academy, and Bally Total Fitness. (We're totally pumped.)
Social data can improve a brand's bottom line and customer relationships. Just ask brands Infiniti and Diamond Nexus.
Here are three must-have data sets that every marketer should include in his or her email strategy.
