Tuesday, August 28, 2007

CMO’s: Is The Glass Half Full or Half Empty

An article today in The McKinsey Quarterly (may require free registration) details the immense changes ahead for the CMO position at many companies. Depending on your viewpoint, these changes could be perceived as continuing distractions for CMO’s in what is already becoming a difficult upper management role, or it could be seen as a genuine opportunity to shape an expanded and critically-needed function in an era of new media, fragmented audience segments, almost ubiquitous brand touch points, and growing marketing complexity.

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The Good, The Bad, and the Transgender of the Simpsons Movie / Burger King viral campaign.

I have been a Simpsons fan for the majority of my life. I have seen nearly every episode and have bought every season on DVD the day each is released. So you can imagine how excited I was when the news came out that there would FINALLY be a Simpson movie. I watched every clip and trailer I could get my hands on and eagerly awaited the elaborate ad campaign and tie-ins that would surely usher in such an event. One of those tie-ins was with the online viral darling, Burger King, in the form of simpsonizeme.com.

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The Most Popular Brand of 2007…And I’m not Talking About Apple

The Macarena, Tickle-Me Elmo and the Spice Girls in the ’90s. SUVs, the Adkins diet, and Crocs in the ‘00s. Pop culture is always exciting, and Americans like to be hip. Each year, we buy brand-name fashionable clothes, new cars, and the hottest cell phones in an attempt to show that we’re always up on what’s in style.

Let’s face it-much of what’s “in style” is determined by what we see in the media—or by what we see in Hollywood. Recently, our favorite celebrities have become extremely environmentally friendly. They’ve gone green, so to speak, and turned being “green” into a brand of it’s own that has become the high-class trend of the year.

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Monday, August 27, 2007

Online Customer-Service Surveys: Is Anybody Listening?

Do big companies really care what people say on customer satisfaction surveys? Do the results trickle down past an analyst’s spreadsheet at corporate headquarters? Do companies actually take action? As a focus group of one, I’m here to report that, yes, there are real people reviewing, listening and following up on what us, paying customers, have to say. And in doing so, they are helping cement customer loyalty. Let me explain.

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Friday, August 24, 2007

Marketing Easy Credit in a Credit Crunch Environment

Online headlines scream “More trouble in subprime mortgage,” while on the same page, banner ads tout “$300,000 mortgage for $995/month,” or “Bad credit OK.” So is there a problem or not? 

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