Funny, I was looking through the kitchen cupboards today and realized that, except for some razor blades, I haven’t bought any mainstream consumer packaged goods for a long time. I’m sure I can’t be alone. Even though profits remain healthy at the big CPG companies, it’s developing markets that are primarily driving growth.
Actually, there were [...]
Gradual Change
Thoughts on marketing, branding and social media.
Advertising
Big Brand Free
Mobile Advertising’s Unknown Unknowns
A friend in the investment banking industry once cautioned me about working for a public company traded on a junior exchange. In his words, “the value never catches up with the promote.” By which he meant that a story that’s been sold simply to drive up the share price isn’t sustainable in the real world, [...]
What Does the Scanner See?
Google’s latest move in the offline advertising world is the tagging of print ads with barcodes that can be scanned with cellphones. Mathew Ingram thinks this one’s a bad idea, and he’s not alone.
I agree with the criticism that the act of scanning ads is awkward and vaguely ridiculous, but I’m also interested in what’s [...]
Stating the Obvious
I’m surprised there hasn’t been more of this kind of thing. You know, doom and gloom predictions on the state of the ad market. Paul Kedrosky’s been blogging pretty actively about the bearish bloggers metaphorically stockpiling canned food and water in their basements, but there’s not been nearly as much public anxiety about softer ad [...]
Up is Down
Only a few weeks ago predictions for online ad spending were generally exuberant. It’s just one person’s opinion, but today’s interview in the Silicon Alley Insider with Carl Fremont is a little bit sobering. Fremont heads up media buying for Digitas, who purchased about $250 million worth of online inventory in 2006 prior to their [...]
It’s the Story, Stupid
A couple of stories caught most of the Internet’s eye yesterday and today. Mark Zuckerberg’s dismal performance on 60 Minutes and the rumors about Facebook not buying Plaxo. Breaking it down, here’s what really happened:
1. VentureBeat writes provocative story about Facebook buying Plaxo, to drive traffic;
2. TechCrunch writes provocative and contradictory story about Facebook not [...]
Influence
A few years ago I was involved peripherally with the Chief Marketing Officers Council and their initiatives on marketing performance measurement. More recently I did some consulting work for a luxury auto maker to consolidate marketing data from various online and offline channels and create a dashboard for this information. And more recently still I’ve [...]
Breaking News: Marketing Still Difficult!
Let me play devil’s advocate here… Where exactly is the evidence that the relationship between brands and consumers is changing so radically? Yes, much more diverse media inventory is available and gets populated than used to be the case, but mostly it’s filled with regurgitation of ideas and affinity to brands that has been generated [...]