I have been thinking lately about how customers form their perceptions of brands and what we can do about influencing those memories. Brands and products can easily become look alike commodities, which makes gaining mind and wallet share more difficult. Brands want to be distinctive, stand out among the crowd and be noticed by consumers. […]
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Facebook is a Tough Place for Brands to Call Home
April 9, 2011 
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There’s no denying that Facebook is becoming a major channel for brands on the planet. I spend quite a bit of time there and likely you do as well. Brands are investing significant amounts of thought, human capital and money in hopes of garnering customer engagement and eventually revenue. But Facebook doesn’t make it easy. […]
Continue readingThere is No Social Media Playbook
January 6, 2011 1 Comment
As the calendar has turned to 2011, we have been inundated with an endless barrage of Social Media predictions compiled by experts and dabblers alike. Some of what I have read are excellent and well informed perspectives backed by data and research, while others appear to be, well, nil-informed. As Yogi Berra once said, “Prediction […]
Continue readingThree Years of Blogging. Really.
October 13, 2010 1 Comment
Breaking news! Today marks the third anniversary of my first blog post, and you probably don’t care. But that’s the beauty of a blog. People post even if no one cares. The past 1,095 days as a blogger will be remembered by me as both an enriching and challenging experience. One has to face the […]
Continue readingAdaptive Marketing: Coping with Real Time Customers
May 14, 2010 0 Comments
The theme of the recent Forrester Marketing Forum held in Los Angeles this past April was Adaptive Marketing: How to Design a Flexible Organization to Thrive on Change. As usual there were Forrester speakers and presentations by big brands who have been working to either adapt their own marketing efforts to the fast-changing consumer, or providing […]
Continue readingConsumers Wield New Found Power – Is it Being Abused?
November 7, 2009 1 Comment
I have always been an advocate for listening to the voice of the customer. In the eighties I was the GM for a bookstore chain. From time to time I would receive letters from customers who had an unpleasant experience with a staff member, or felt our practices, or title selection, was not acceptable. I […]
Continue readingMultichannel Mania at the 2009 Forrester Consumer Forum
October 30, 2009 2 Comments
Just back from the Forrester Consumer Forum. I say just back, but actually it took place in my hometown, Chicago. There was a great turn out and some very engaging keynotes. One of the major benefits of attending a Forrester event is the quality of presenters and attendees. I had lunch with Brad Brooks, VP […]
Continue readingUser Generated Content Disrupts Brand Search Results
August 23, 2009 7 Comments
In a June 8, 2009 article from Marketing Vox and Nielsen BuzzMetrics SES Magazine entitled Turning Blogs and user-Generated Content Into Search Engine Results, Chris Aarons, Andru Edwards and Xavier Lanier state: 25% of search results for the world’s Top 20 brands link to user generated content This is probably at once exciting and frightening for […]
Continue readingWill the Next Agency be the Client?
April 11, 2009 0 Comments
I’ve worked with agencies nearly all my professional life. Big, small, east coast, west coast, midwest, south, you name the region, I’ve worked with a company based there. Always thought I should switch sides at least once in my career and work for one, but so far the opportunity hasn’t presented itself. Perhaps someday it […]
Continue readingAll the News That’s Fit to Digitize
March 13, 2009 1 Comment
There is a precipitous drop in printed newspaper readership. Digital media delivers the same information more quickly, more efficiently and of course in an interactive manner that paper can’t touch. But touch is an important distinction. You can touch a newspaper. How many of us love to wake up Sunday morning and reach for a […]
Continue readingRapid Fire Marketing Techniques are Required for Social Sites
December 14, 2008 0 Comments
The New York Times recently ran a story by Randall Stross assessing how big brands are doing with advertising campaigns on social networking sites like Facebook. The results have not been encouraging for advertisers. Top line: big brands can get consumers interested (term used loosely) using old school tactics like sweepstakes or spend gobs of […]
Continue readingGet Keynote Presentations without the Travel
December 3, 2008 0 Comments
Time is money (does that mean money is time?), so I pick and choose what conferences I attend very carefully. I’ve got to have a high level of confidence that I’ll be able to learn something valuable, bring it back to my staff or others in the company and expand my network of people that […]
Continue readingLast and Final from the Forrester Consumer Forum 2008
November 8, 2008 1 Comment
As mentioned in the last episode, this post will skip the Forrester speakers and customer presentations and cover one of the “outsiders.” Forrester always places a strong speaker at the end of the second day in an attempt to help keep their attendees on site. It usually thins out anyway, but for those who stay […]
Continue readingUse of Social Media Will Accelerate in an Economic Downturn
November 7, 2008 1 Comment
I have been pondering something lately, and have formed the following hypothesis. The current economic climate will lead to an increase in the growth of Social Media participation. More people will explore it for the first time and others that have only dabbled will move up the participation ladder. There is a convergence of elements […]
Continue readingForrester Consumer Forum 2008: Maslow is Dead – First in a Series
October 31, 2008 1 Comment
I attended the Forrester Consumer Forum in Dallas earlier this week. It was my 16th Forrester event which speaks volumes about how I respect the company, value their people and study their work. It’s a day and a half of data, insights and big thinking with a sprinkling of small track sessions scaled down to […]
Continue readingRethinking Social Media in an Economic Downturn
October 9, 2008 4 Comments
It doesn’t seem like that long ago we were in the midst of the dot com bust. Remember shredding the brokerage statements without even opening them? Remember going through all those organizational exercises at work and being asked to do more with less? We got really good at it as I recall, and it appears […]
Continue readingManaging Your Career with Social Media
September 29, 2008 4 Comments
There are many reasons people use social media. Some use it as a forum for stating opinions, others to keep in touch or getting back in touch. Still some for no other reason than it’s interesting and fun. Most of us connect on Linkedin, to keep our eye out for a new journey or just […]
Continue readingHere Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing without Organizations – Book Notes
August 13, 2008 1 Comment
Clay Shirky’s book, Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing without Organizations combines the revolution of social networking with real world, real people examples. Throughout the book, Mr. Shirky takes what could have easily ended up as classic case studies (boring) and brings them to life with characters and a sense of drama. This technique […]
Continue readingGroundswell: Winning in a World Transformed by Social Technologies – Book Notes
August 7, 2008 1 Comment
It seems all the marketing world is abuzz over social media. Everyone wants to do it, but there is no best practices approach to follow. That is until now. Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff, two high powererd analysts at Forrester Research published a book this spring containing their recipe for starting and nurturing social community. […]
Continue readingForrester Finance Forum 2008 – Last of Three Posts
July 2, 2008 0 Comments
Customer Expectations During the Online Application Process This post closes out my series on the Forrester Finance Forum held in New York City on June 23rd and 24th, 2008. You can read part one here and part two here. I always walk away from a Forrester Forum with a rich list of insights. If I […]
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