consumer insights

by: Jonathan Salem Baskin

Trust and reliance on brands and corporate reputation are at all-time lows, and it blows me away that marketers can't seem to figure out why.

I say that we've forgotten how to tell the truth. Worse, we allow ourselves to get distracted by the latest and smartest ways to avoid it.

by: Jonathan Salem Baskin

"Mass-affluent" brands like Burberry, Tiffany, and Coach are hurting in this dicey economy of ours, just like their lesser-branded competitors.

I guess I still don't understand the branding equation: expenditures on branding are an investment because they imbue products and services with attributes, associations, and a substantive equity that should somehow supercede competitive comparisons of function or price.

by: Jonathan Salem Baskin

Congrats to the PR person who pitched the story I read in today's paper, entitled “Rebranding Can Refresh Tired Corporate Image.”

The litany of ill-defined, esoteric, and incomplete terms served-up in the first two paragraphs was enough to make my head spin:

by: Jonathan Salem Baskin

Dunkin' Donuts, which has been on a tear recently with no-nonsense, Joe Sixpack branding that is simple, obvious, and direct...is about to confuse everyone with healthy-for-you menu options.

by: Jonathan Salem Baskin

Wal-Mart has announced that it is cutting prices, setting up holiday shops in its stores, all in the hope that it can capture holiday sales now...instead of waiting for the selling season that traditionally arrives the day after Thanksgiving.

by: Mark Rogers

How do you build brands post-Google?

As the recession begins to bite, brands are finding that getting through to customers is tougher than ever.

Offline advertising is showing diminishing returns. McKinsey predicts that by 2010, traditional television advertising will be one-third as effective as it was in 1990.

by: Dick Stroud

Forbes has an interesting article (s), some might say an idiots guide, to how to make money from Baby Boomers. If you don’t want to read the text, have a look at this slide show.

by: Alex Eperjessy

by: Roger Dooley

by: Design Translator

Something that has always been a career hazard for a designer is being out in front, absorbing information, and then synthesizing to predict what the next big consumer trends are.