I was on a morning flight from NY to Chicago yesterday, reading the story in the New York Times about the death of Gourmet Magazine. News about yet another magazine folding is hardly even news.
What makes this more interesting is that I looked up from the article to see that the in-flight entertainment was an [...]
Over the past 9 months, moderate and up-scale retailers have resorted to unprecedented deep discounts to drive sales and maintain store traffic. And it worked, for a while.
Now, it looks like these price promotions have begun to wear out. The Wall Street Journal had a very interesting article on the topic the other day Discounting [...]
Price promotions are an important tool, especially in these difficult economic times. But, the panic of declining sales often leads marketers to confuse price promotion with brand strategy. No where is this more evident than in fast food, where we’ve seen many restaurants try to drive traffic by virtually giving away their food.
A recent LA Times article outlined some [...]
Also posted in Consumer Spending, Consumer behavior, Marketing Trends | Tagged brand, branding, Consumer Spending, fast food, food, Market Research, marketing, marketing research, price, prices, quality, recession |
There has been a lot of press recently on the dramatic rise in Private Label products. Most of the articles say something like: “Consumers are moving to store brands in an effort to save money”. Case closed.
In reality the causes of the shift - and the implications of the shift are a little more complex.Â
For [...]
Yesterday’s Ad Age featured an article by Bob Garfield that I think does a great job of summing up the factors leading to the decline of global media. I certainly enjoyed reading it - I hope you will too. Bob Garfield Article.
The Bottomless Pit of CPMs
Garfield points to the primary factor fuelling this mass implosion as [...]
Companies across the world are trying like crazy to incorporate elements of Social Media into their corporate sites. Very few ever get it right. Most are so corporate focused that their efforts just look like more ads. Others don’t understand that you have to provide some value to the participants - not just a place [...]
I have finally found a bright spot in these financial hard times. Direct mail is in the tank. My mailbox is less cluttered, trees feel safer and my mailman is walking a little straighter.
The most recent report by Mintel Comperemedia reports that nearly all the major Direct Mail categories are down. Some of the categories [...]
As we all know, advertising revenues are down. Print, TV, Radio, Online. All down. So, media companies are looking everywhere to fill that void. So if traditional advertisers are down, what’s going up?
Porn
Cable companies may be raising their subscription rates - but apparently they’re starting to lower the cost of On-Demand-Porn channels. In addition, they’re [...]
In the past five years, music companies, newspapers, book publishers and others have seen their revenues plunge as they’ve lost control of their content. Now television broadcasters are fighting the same bloody, ugly and ultimately losing battle for control.
Network executives and advertisers have been tearing their hair out trying to understand what to do about [...]
