Back Seat Marketers

The WSJ reports today that P&G and Google are swapping employees to get a better understanding of each other. With P&G as one of the leading advertising companies in the world, this move has long reaching upside for Google and P&G.
I’ve noted that Yahoo and Google shouldn’t be focusing on each other, they should focus […]

Obama is going to do his weekly address to the nation not only on the radio, but also on YouTube and posted on his transition site change.gov (from a domainer’s perspective, nice name). He is following the the new social media tenant of person-as-marketer. The most credible person to represent his administration is himself, […]

No doubt, these times are increasing the focus on value marketing. What is becoming more obvious is the need to increase the focus on ensuring that a company’s strategy has meaningful purpose beyond the financial statements.
What do I mean by purpose? Umair finally kicked me in the head on this one last week […]

Dilbert is spot on today about writing up a business plan:

A bit of optimism goes a long way in getting a new project off the ground. I guess folks that start businesses and new projects run at a 10 out of 10 on the optimism scale (which is hard in times like these).
The other […]

Per BCG on the recent events (thanks to Ryan):
Saving will be more attractive than consuming. Many of the trends we have seen in the past, like trading up, luxury etc. will be stopped or reversed for many consumers – so companies must not simply extrapolate the trend of the past 20 years.
The real key to […]

from psuedopop via Flickr
The Pew Research Firm is helping define the middle class. A battle ground for politics is also so critical for marketers to understand.
Per the Pew summary, here’s a portrait:
12 Percentage of the middle class that say “being wealthy” is very important to them.
14 Percentage of middle class that lost their jobs in […]

Some deals just don’t create the value promised. AOL and Time Warner ranks pretty high in that category and many, including me, wonder how a deal for so much money could have been so wrong.
Confession: I made a bet on AOL + Time Warner back in the day and lost when it went South. […]

I watched Disney’s latest tween movie made for TV (with the kids): Camp Rock. OK, standard fair as far as made for TV movies go, but I have to say that Disney seems to be figuring out an updated model for successful media management.
Beyond Scarcity Marketing with events such as Hannah Montana, Disney is […]

Can’t help but think that the possible combination of Best Buy and Circuit City is an old school move to get quick hit, bolt-on growth instead of a way to create value for consumers. Honestly, how does a DVD rental chain integrate with an electronics retailer other than products from one are played by products […]

Umair is “communitied out”, no small task for a guy that lives and breathes this stuff.
I’ve been stewing for a bit on recent deficiencies in the current web information fire hose which just slams down so much information so fast that my trip to a meeting today meant I missed out on “the dialog”. Not […]