Musings of a Marketing Maven

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Entries Tagged as 'Back to Basics'

UCG Affects Holiday Greeting Cards, Too">UCG Affects Holiday Greeting Cards, Too

December 23rd, 2009 · Comments Off · Back to Basics, Creativity

This year a sig­nif­i­cant pro­por­tion of the greet­ing cards we’ve received have been assem­bled from dig­i­tal con­tent cre­ated by our fam­ily mem­bers and friends. Most of these cards fea­ture fam­ily pho­tos and/or snap­shots of peak moments through­out the year; a few are totally hand­made, artsy, often col­lages with no dig­i­tal ele­ments. Per­son­al­ized cards, user-generated content […]

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Twitter vs. Traditional Media for Holidays

December 16th, 2009 · Comments Off · Back to Basics

As I write my Christ­mas and New Year cards, I’ve been think­ing about the pros and cons of tra­di­tional cards ver­sus Twit­ter for hol­i­day greet­ings. For­give the wry humor… Twit­ter Pros No paper cuts No yucky after­taste from seal­ing envelopes No last-minute dash to the Post Office to buy more stamps Print PDF

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Noting the Changes

December 15th, 2009 · 2 Comments · Back to Basics

While updat­ing my con­tacts data­base for Christ­mas card labels, I noted how many changes there have been in the past sev­eral years: so many older aunts and uncles who have died, so many mar­riages in dis­ar­ray. It was a sober­ing thought. And a rea­son to be grate­ful for the friends and fam­ily who still surround […]

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The Secret of Healthcare Reform — Visualized

October 8th, 2009 · 2 Comments · Back to Basics, Creativity

As this slideshow from Dan Roam reveals, the health­care reform debate is really a debate over insur­ance reform: who pays for health­care. His slideshow dra­ma­tizes who the play­ers are in this debate, what are their moti­va­tions, and how this impacts the Amer­i­can con­sumer (and tax payer). This is the best resource I’ve seen to help clarify […]

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Blessings for Dana

October 2nd, 2009 · 1 Comment · Back to Basics

This post is for my brother Dana, who has begun fight­ing can­cer Print PDF

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Why Don’t They Listen to Their Customers?

September 24th, 2009 · Comments Off · Back to Basics, Tools & Technology

The idea of phone com­pa­nies lis­ten­ing to their cus­tomers is per­haps an oxy­moron, but I haven’t given up hope. Brows­ing Verizon’s list of sup­ported cell phones, I was struck by their obvi­ous lack of needs-based seg­men­ta­tion. Like most car­ri­ers, they seem Print PDF

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A Perfect Twitter Moment — Not!

September 17th, 2009 · Comments Off · Back to Basics

Despite hav­ing an iPhone app for tweet­ing, my per­fect Twit­ter moment eluded me. On the day I was dying to answer TweetDeck’s “what are you doing” ques­tion, I wasn’t car­ry­ing an iPhone. Sev­eral Sun­days ago my hus­band and I were kayak­ing in the golden light of a late after­noon on Cape Cod waters. Sud­denly our […]

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Wal-Mart Will Accelerate Green Retailing

July 16th, 2009 · Comments Off · Back to Basics, Marketing

Today’s Wall Street Jour­nal announced a mas­sive “green” ini­tia­tive by Wal-Mart that will even­tu­ally enable con­sumers to make informed choices about the envi­ron­men­tal impact of the prod­ucts and brands they’re think­ing about buy­ing. Because of Wal-Mart’s enor­mous clout with both sup­pli­ers and con­sumers, the impli­ca­tions of Wal-Mart’s announce­ment could be game chang­ing. Print PDF

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The Smell of Lavender

July 3rd, 2009 · Comments Off · Back to Basics

Walk­ing around Mer­cer Island yes­ter­day, we enjoyed the sights and smells of laven­der bloom­ing every­where. It’s early sum­mer here, with long and sunny days; col­ors don’t start fad­ing until sun­set begins around 9:30 PM. Just per­fect for din­ner and a glass on wine on the deck over­look­ing the hills that ring Lake Wash­ing­ton. The smell […]

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It Takes a Community

June 24th, 2009 · 2 Comments · Back to Basics, Creativity

Lately my friends and I have been talk­ing about how peo­ple suc­ceed, won­der­ing why some are more suc­cess­ful than oth­ers despite com­pa­ra­ble intel­lec­tual advan­tages or innate tal­ents. Most of us have read Mal­colm Gladwell’s Out­liers, and we’ve been com­par­ing his case stud­ies to our per­sonal expe­ri­ence and pon­der­ing the impli­ca­tions. Our Own Sto­ries, And Belated […]

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