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 [...]

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 [...]

Regardless of your hobby, profession or even your belief system, these days it’s easy to find a group of people just like you. Go to online community organizer Ning and you’ll discover over 1 million communities, for everyone from sand volleyball enthusiasts to landscape architects to supporters of the Kwam Um School of Zen.
Now it [...]

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, [...]

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 [...]

The population group born between 1977 and 1996 known as Generation Y or “Millennials” is roughly 80 Million strong and represents almost 25% of the US population. Nearly equal in size to the Boomers, the segment is 50% larger than Generation X and is the most ethnically and racially diverse generation in US history.
Understanding Millennials [...]

The creators of television and cable reality shows could be sued for practicing deceptive bait and switch tactics. The genre which includes The Apprentice, The Girls Next Door, Miami Ink, and The Hills are touted to chronicle people interacting in real-life situations. I’m sorry but what is portrayed is much closer to pure entertainment than [...]

Of the many investments that a business can make, one of the most precarious is its corporate brand. Investment in brands run into the millions of dollars and, on the heels of the Ad-Fest known as the “undercard” of Super Bowl Sunday, the extent to which companies will spend to have their message heard is [...]