I read some really great year end posts during the week leading up to New Year’s Day. Amidst the “Top 10/50/100″ lists, there were thoughtful, humorous, and motivational takes on how to evaluate 2009 and approach 2010 with energy and enthusiasm.
One or two that caused me to take my finger off the mouse and pause [...]

I’ve gotten into a bad habit with my children. Whenever they ask me about overzealous promises from a product advertisement, I just tell them “It’s probably not true, it’s just marketing stuff“.
The bad part is that I am instilling a degree of cynicism in the little ones, but then [...]

Black Cats, Black Magic, and Black Friday … sounds like a threesome to avoid.
But untold millions will be lining up the day after Thanksgiving in the wee hours of the morning with steely-eyed focus and adrenaline pumping – all with the almighty bargain in mind.
Maybe it’s a gender thing, but while you might find me [...]

Two forces are at work in the financial services industry today that place banker marketers at an interesting crossroads.
The first phenomena is a new wave of regulatory pressure on banks and credit card issuers specifically targeted at credit cards. This has occured as a reaction to the tough economy endured in the US leading Congress [...]

Earlier this year, I blogged on Loyalty Truth about the Ford Fiesta Movement. As you may recall, the Ford motor company gave new Fiesta automobiles to 100 social media-savvy drivers for six months—hoping they would post videos and blog about the Fiesta, to build some buzz around the car’s early-2010 launch.
I really hadn’t heard much [...]

Editor’s note: I was fortunate to moderate a panel at  Loyalty Expo 2009 this week titled Building Engagement with Millennials. The panelists were rich in expertise engaging and building brand with Generation Y as well as using email and social media as tools for communications. Bjorn Larsen Founder & CEO Edhance,  Atle Skalleberg VP Marketing [...]

Have you heard about the Ford Fiesta Movement? It may sound like a grass roots Buy American campaign, but it’s really a pretty ingenious ploy by the Ford Motor Company to generate some buzz around the stateside launch of the European Ford Fiesta model.
It seems that Ford has signed up 100 “agents” who have been [...]

If you’re of a “certain age” and have teenagers in the house, then you might have caught yourself proclaiming that your young Millennials (Generation Y) are wasting their lives playing Halo, World of Warcraft, or tinkering with their MySpace page. Since adolescents revel in the opportunity to point out hypocrisy in their adult family members, [...]

My  philosophy about personal development is simple: never stop learning, remain teachable, read lots (kindle, LCD, or paper) and network with people who know something you don’t. I am also a disciplined goal-setter which serves as a compass for the activities just mentioned. This might not be enough to compete with Tony Robbins for self-help [...]

The promise of social media to Loyalty Marketers should be clear. We’ve been advocates of establishing two-way dialogue with program members for the past 20 years, touting that only within the trusted environment of a loyalty program will customers share their preferences, aspirations, and concerns relating to your brand.
Don Peppers and Martha Rogers coined the [...]