A recent book review caught my attention. The book being reviewed, Obsessive Branding , was authored by Lucas . With a title like this, I figured the author would have plenty of controversial statements to make. Talk about an In all fairness, I have not read the book in question. ... more

Two years ago less than half of all consumers used search to find a local business. But today that number is upward of However, most small businesses today still don't have a website in fact less than of small business owners are online. For them the problem is not just ... more

The number of brands on a growing list of social media marketing . Just under two weeks ago, I posted a list of about 120 examples of brands either using social media for marketing or being impacted by users exerting influence in the channel. Since then, the list has almost ... more

A new Association of National (ANA) study this summer shows that of ANA member respondents believe their overall marketing budgets will be reduced up to with almost a third saying it will be in the range. What else is new? Isn't marketing seen as a luxury in some organizations? Are ... more

With global sourcing strategies in place, companies often assemble finished goods from raw materials from hundreds of suppliers. However, not all suppliers act ethically, and some take short-cuts in quality control. In order to properly manage our brands and take ownership of the "customer experience"–marketers need visibility into the supply ... more

Nothing happens unless leadership leads, which is very different from a leadership team that manages. Managing is yesterday's news. Great companies and those that want to be great will hire executives, directors, and middle managers who know the difference between leading and managing, and who themselves are Leaders show, they ... more

Have you ever heard of an advertising agency whose principals don't think their future is in advertising? Then, you haven't heard of Gary Koepke and Lance Jensen, Boston-based 's In a recent USA article, "Ad agency Modernista relies on out-of-the-box thinking", some rather interesting revelations were divulged. Profound, in fact. ... more

It's hurricane season here in Houston, and the weather weenie in me recently made a fascinating Web discovery. Then the marketing wonk in me started wondering... what could this cool find teach me (and maybe you) about creating a blog that "the locals" buzz about loud enough to draw readers ... more

Should the TV networks replace ad agencies? That's the question raised by Media " author Brian (no relation) at a recent New York Media Information Exchange session and reported by Advertising Brian says the TV and cable networks know what their audience wants, while at the other end are the ... more

If you have every questioned the power of , consider United Airlines lost of its value the other day due to the supposed re-posting (or careless reading) of a six-year-old Chicago article about the firm's 2002 bankruptcy According to the New York , a reporter for Income Securities Advisors in ... more

They may not be the ones you think I mean. No not the internal customers or your bosses boss like the CEO, CFO or COO. I mean real customers of marketing. Let me explain If you are like me working to drive thought leadership out of our organization and into ... more

Who says that social networking is just for kids? Or for tech-savvy marketing professionals, for that matter? The rise of niche communities has given everyone from knitters to animal lovers and doctors to truckers a place to communicate. But now even secret agents have a place to make * * ... more

The age of Google, which celebrated its birthday Google is a decade old. This may be longer than you remember; for many people, the company's watershed event was its IPO a little over four years ago at the seemingly expensive price of in a dutch The company now unquestionably dominates ... more

PJA On launching an internal innovation blog, and what we've learned In January, we launched PJA (as in money, or improvisation, or scratch pad), an internal blog for our advertising agency. The launch was quiet, and our expectations modest. Simply put, we wanted a better way than email for collecting ... more

Here's another great case study for corporations successfully using [The Home Do a [Twitter search for In recent days, you see a flurry of tweets with tips, suggestions, and pointers to Web content about preparing for hurricanes. Rather than approach the community as something to be 'engaged', the company is ... more

Last Saturday on Twitter, Whole ' "Tweet of the Day" caught my eye. The post, which "retweeted" a user's comment involving the term "Oh my f'ing prompted me to question whether the company's judgment in the of that term was This led to a blog post with more than 20 ... more

Another convention coming to a close gives rise to a conversation we marketers are just getting started. After all, when it comes to political candidates--and political conventions--we're not just talking policy, we're talking brands. And on that note we're back for Round #2. Round #1 is right To commemorate this ... more

Sharon McCarthy recently conducted an interesting survey of Executive Summary Here are the top definitions for the word "interactive", although if you look through the entire list, you could probably group more of the items together–but for our purposes it Just a couple of 1. It's amazing how rich this ... more

Since I spend most days in front of a computer screen, I am an early adapter to things online. So when I heard about Google Chrome launching yesterday, I downloaded it in the afternoon. I also uninstalled it two hours It's not that it isn't good. It has plenty of ... more

In this Marketing Over Coffee we discuss our test drive of Google Chrome and what it means, eCommerce Payments, and Virtual Street Teams..... all that and more in this Marketing Over Coffee, a weekly audio program sponsored by MarketingProfs that covers classic marketing tactics and what's new on the technology ... more

Wegman's Food Markets have quietly expanded on the privately owned grocery chain's "Locally Grown" program, according to a recent article in Progressive . The two-decades-old program now comprises a network of over 800 Better yet, these family farmers are able to bring myriad selections of fresh fruits and vegetables to ... more

It takes two to make a baby. And even though I would argue that women carry the majority of the weight (hey, at least for the first 9 months), a child's genetic makeup is inherited from their mommy and daddy. Why am I telling you this? Because I'm perplexed that ... more

Sometimes I have to admit it is hard to keep up with all the new advances in social technologies. And when I hear the buzz about certain technologies getting louder and louder it often times prompts me to seek out the help of a trusted Enter Jesse Stay .... Facebook ... more

100 The number of users on on August 26, To put that in perspective, imagine if ALL of the residents of Mumbai, Karachi, Istanbul, Delhi, São Paulo, Moscow, Seoul, Shanghai, and Mexico City (the nine largest cities in the world), Athens GA, and Newell PA (pop. 551) were all registered ... more

And ITToolbox recently released the 3rd wave of research on social media and the IT professional. The first two surveys were focused on information consumption habits, specifically how Web 2.0 channels and communities–such as blogs, bulletin boards, wikis, and social networks–influence how IT makes purchase We decided to have a ... more