When you’re selling hammers, every prospect looks like a nail. You’ve heard the expression before. The loyalty version of this is that many suppliers think every solution has to be currency based because that’s what they are selling.
I can hear the groans now, but don’t worry. I’m an advocate of data-driven marketing strategies that are [...]

Disappointing economic results were reported this week, with retail sales stagnating in August due to less than robust job growth and consumer confidence that continues to waiver. The U.S. Census Bureau reported that median income figures, adjusted for inflation, have declined 2.3% since 2009.
In related news, a report from the Conference Board on World Income [...]

Cycling commentators like to quip that the individual time trial is a “race of truth”. In other words there’s no place to hide as the man and machine face off against the clock.
The winner of the most recent edition of the Tour de France was decided on the final day in such a race, as [...]

Watching the Miami Heat and Boston Celtics kickoff their playoff series this weekend, I saw the latest in gratuitous advertising from a beer company, in this case Miller Light.
I’m not sure if I should be complemented or insulted that I’m among the demographic targeted by the ads. Consistent with past campaigns, Miller clearly trades on [...]

I just saw a preview of the new Morgan Spurlock movie Pom Wonderful® Presents: The Greatest Movie Ever Sold. Spurlock is the raconteur behind the funny but frightening documentary Super Size Me, in which the protagonist ate nothing but McDonald’s food for a month—which caused him to become fat and physically ill.
This time out [...]

It was recently reported in the trade press that Pepsi had slipped to the #3 soft drink in sales, behind Coke and new #2 Diet Coke. But most interesting was the speculation behind the drop. In an Ad Age article titled “How Pepsi Blinked, Fell Behind Diet Coke”, it was hinted that Pepsi had put [...]

When I first saw a QR code, I shrugged my shoulders and thought “one more piece of technology looking for a solution”.
I’m not cynical … I’ve just lived through years of expectation for smart cards and contactless cards only to see the technologists and vendors more excited about the product than consumers ever were.
Now I [...]

The customer has escaped. We can no longer control the process of how and where they get information. ~Marjorie Kalter
There’s a sea of change taking place in the way we communicate with customers, and these changes are rewriting the definition of advertising as we know it. In fact, I believe that as marketers we now [...]

A few questions about Brands
Why do some brands dominate and others just compete?
Can brand value be created solely on perceived value and word of mouth hype, or is there a prerequisite that the brand promise be walked-out through customer experience?
Does our always-on world that glorifies multi-tasking and accepts information waterboarding as the norm make it [...]

I saw a TV commercial for the Discover credit card the other day and they made a claim that caught my eye. It was one of those “we’re #1” declarations, in this case: We’re “#1 in customer loyalty”.
The claim was not explained during the commercial and it got me wondering: to a consumer, what does [...]