Brand Strategy

Yes­ter­day I blogged about an emerg­ing chal­lenge fac­ing small busi­nesses — adapt­ing their web con­tent so it’s more usable and acces­si­ble for peo­ple who use smart­phones or tablets to go online. It’s amaz­ing what you can learn in a day by sim­ply focus­ing your atten­tion on a busi­ness issue. From Jakob Nielsen, the usabil­ity guru, I’ve […]

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Revised on January 16, 2012

Peo­ple buy­ing hol­i­day gifts from the Apple Store can be con­fi­dent those gifts will reflect Steve Jobs’ unique approach. But what about next year? What impact will Steve’s legacy have on future prod­ucts and services?

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Revised on November 29, 2011

When it comes to tech­nol­ogy mar­ket­ing and mes­sag­ing strate­gies, clar­ity often seems to be dep­re­cated — in exe­cu­tion, if not in intent. Instead, know­ingly or not, many mar­keters pur­sue its mir­ror oppo­site: obfus­ca­tion, par­tic­u­larly in com­plex prod­uct cat­e­gories such as enter­prise soft­ware. (See def­i­n­i­tions below.) Posi­tion­ing — The Intent to Clar­ify Ever since Al Ries and […]

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Image via Wikipedia   Apple is the mas­ter at craft­ing the buyer expe­ri­ence: whip­ping con­sumers into a frenzy of antic­i­pa­tion and then, delight­ing the new owner with all that hap­pens start­ing with the out-of-box expe­ri­ence. The recent iPad 2 launch appears to be fol­low­ing the usual Apple play­book:  months of prod­uct spec­u­la­tion in the techno-geek […]

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I love brands that place an endur­ing value on cus­tomer delight, espe­cially when they aim to do so across all touch points, and invest accord­ingly. The con­trast between brands that aim for cus­tomer delight ver­sus those that are, at best, trans­ac­tional can be really stark. Two con­trast­ing cus­tomer care expe­ri­ences illus­trate my point (B2C exam­ples). Here’s how a busi­ness strate­gist assesses these dif­fer­ing approaches.

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Revised on March 27, 2011

Con­tent strat­egy and con­tent mar­ket­ing chal­lenges have sparked some great online con­ver­sa­tions. Although the emer­gence of dig­i­tal media has put “con­tent” in the crosshairs, it’s the pro­lif­er­a­tion and diver­sity of new dig­i­tal devices that are forc­ing mar­keters to rethink how to com­mu­ni­cate with cus­tomers, part­ners and influ­encers with the best mix of dig­i­tal chan­nels, media […]

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Revised on March 27, 2011

Like other Mac users eagerly await­ing 4G LTE ser­vice in the US, I was angry to learn that Verizon’s ini­tial 4G modems will sup­port Win­dows only. There’s no offi­cial word when the ser­vice will be extended to Mac and iPad users… Ini­tial Reac­tions from a Long-time Mac User How could that be pos­si­ble, I fumed: Mac and […]

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Revised on January 13, 2011

LinkedIn aspires to be for busi­nesses what Face­Book is for con­sumers: the go-to social media con­nec­tor for B2B mar­ket­ing. Until recently LinkedIn’s pri­mary ben­e­fit for orga­ni­za­tions was employee recruit­ment. Now LinkedIn has launched a beta level ser­vice that lets com­pa­nies pro­mote their prod­ucts and ser­vices, and show cus­tomer rec­om­men­da­tions for each prod­uct or ser­vice. This […]

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As a girl, I shiv­ered one night in the base­ment where our TV had been ban­ished, and thrilled to the Bea­t­les’ Amer­i­can debut. Not all my shiv­ers were from the cold of that unheated room… I’d fallen in love. A land­mark event in 20th cen­tury music, the 1964 Ed Sul­li­van Show ignited the out­break of Beatlemania […]

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While updat­ing Inform­ing Arts’ web­site I was reminded, the hard way, of the need to keep dig­i­tal brand assets cur­rent. We stum­bled on issues relat­ing to trade­mark renewals and obso­lete dig­i­tal file for­mats. Even strate­gic mar­keters like me can over­look details like how cur­rent are your brand assets — can you still make changes with […]

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