Back Seat Marketers

The WSJ reports that spending is far off, and the more luxury and discretionary, the less people chose it.

As people hunker down, lose their jobs, see iconic corporations change dramatically, and face a new reality of a more fundamental lifestyle, we’re going to see a shift of importance in creating value. Value in 2007 was [...]

Here’s a thought, retailers, do something different than super low prices to get my attention. Door busters were interesting, but they’ve run their course, but now, as your shopper, I’m tired of the mayhem that comes with 6 AM start times, elbow throwing and not getting the 1 of 6 ultra-low priced items I went [...]

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 [...]