Consumers are enraged at Netflix’ steep price increases with good reason — a 60% increase is hard to take during a prolonged recession. As a result well over 1 million have already cancelled their subscription. From the consumer’s POV, Netflix’ latest plans to split the offering into two unrelated services, Netflix and Qwikster, are utterly [...]
Tags: Netflix·Netflix on PS3·streaming media·user experience
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 Print PDF
My brother is writing a book with his stepdaughter about their scarily parallel stories as cancer fighters and survivors. At the moment, they’re working on author photos for the book cover. This process has made me think about the stories that faces tell, or hint at; the messages that can be perceived subliminally when your [...]
Tags: personal branding
I wish some agency that specializes in intelligent database mining and direct marketing would help my local phone company stop wasting trees on fruitless direct mail pieces. Here’s the deal: my recycle bin now contains somewhere between 5 and 10 pieces of unopened direct mail offers from Qwest, Print PDF
The cycling sub-culture offers an interesting environment for observing the power of branding in action. Over the years I’ve learned that the “boys who bike” are very status conscious, and proudly display team affiliations and other brand badges all over their bodies, their bikes and their gear. I’ve also learned that if you ride the “wrong” bike, you’re invisible to your fellow cyclists.
I love strolling and window shopping in Paris. There’s a special mystique that window dressers in Paris employ that brand teams and marketers everywhere would do well to emulate. Shop windows in Paris do a wonderful job of conveying the idea of what’s being sold — of conveying the brand essence, helping you envision how [...]
Tags: brand marketing
After blogging about “the female economy” as the world’s biggest untapped market opportunity, I’ve been on the lookout for evidence that companies and brands are marketing specifically to women. I’ve seen a couple of examples recently, an encouraging sign. Both offers focus on helping women overcome the gaps in our understanding of mechanics – things [...]
For years I’ve loved QuickBooks – a tool that made managing my company’s money remarkably pleasant. I used to rave about it to colleagues. But over the past several product releases I’ve become disenchanted; I think Intuit has lost its way, and has lost sight of whose interest it was pursuing. No longer customer centered [...]
Researchers at the MIT Media Lab have released an online tool that attempts to characterize your digital persona based on data mining of online resources. Right now the tool is in the fun and exploratory phase, but it offers food for thought. Have you ever wondered what your digital fingerprints might look like, if there [...]
My friend Shivonne Byrne has just posted a wonderful entry on how to manage your personal brand. Check out her blog: Marketfusions: Everything is a Brand, Including You. She encourages people to think through: Their person vision Their fundamental purpose or reason for being Their values Their passion and then develop a personal brand plan that [...]
Tags: personal branding
PDF