You gotta love eHarmony – even if you’re not in the market for love

by Kaira Sturdivant Rouda
I’ll admit it. I’m a big fan of eHarmony.com and I’m married and the mom of four. The reason I’m a fan is the marketing genius and lessons we all can learn from the site and its approach. Launched in 2000, the site is the #1 trusted relationship destination on the [...]

Motorola Falls to Pieces

by Mike Megalli
Big news day for Motorola with the announcement by CEO Greg Brown that they would be splitting off the company’s mobile handset business. As we have covered before, this news in the latest in a series of shake-ups, mix-ups and screw-ups that have dropped the tech giant to a shaky 3rd in the [...]

Consumer Demand for “Customization” Rapidly Accelerating

by Robert Passikoff
The convergence of two trends has morphed into an increased desire on the parts of consumers for more customized product and service offerings. One is consumers’ heightened feeling of control over virtually every aspect of their lives. The second, the commoditization of almost everything creates a natural craving on the parts of consumers [...]

Consumer Advisory Boards: Chrysler At The Cutting Edge (Who Knew?)

by Andrea Learned
It is always nice to see a glimmer of hope from a brand in a very troubled industry - especially one that so represents the can-do history of America. And, so it was when I read a MediaPost article by Karl Greenberg about Chrysler’s new consumer advisory board (aka CAB). For [...]

Bargaining, Blackberry in Hand

Deep in the jungle of discount shopping at Filene’s Basement in NYC last week  I did some subversive shopping. A deeply discounted Catherine Malandrino black top boasted savings of more than 60% it was down to $60, but was that the lowest it would go?  I whipped out the blackberry and fired up Bonfire Media’s eBay [...]

Holding Up Half the Sky: Women Emerge As China’s Core Consumer

by Fara Warner
During my travels in China during the past decade, it has been heartening to see the advancement of women in the country. Access to education and business opportunities are beginning to give Chinese women their rightful place in the country’s economic expansion.
Consider a few facts from a report by Ernst & Young in [...]

Influence Marketing? Vertical Networks’ Opportunity, Recession Marketing Jitters

Holidays - albeit short ones - are good times to catch up on your reading - and if you did not, well, I did it for you and found a couple good reads you might enjoy.
1. A really good string of discussions (studies, articles & commentaries) on the myths and realities of viral marketing [...]

CoreBrand 2007 Brand Power Rankings

Observations by James Gregory, CEO, CoreBrand
The number one and two spots on the annual CoreBrand Corporate Branding Index® ranking, Coca-Cola Company and Johnson & Johnson, are unchanged since 2004.
Who is winning the battle for share of corporate reputation? Harley-Davidson continues to rev its engine, having improved five places since 2004 and two in the past [...]

Essential Signposts for Telling a Brand Story

by Dan Hill
A brand has to be more than just a guarantee because a guarantee is too rationally oriented-A brand transcends product, and creating an emotional aura around a brand must transcend it because a guarantee focuses on an often stated, explicit brand-product relationship. An emotional aura concerns the intuitive brand-consumer relationship. This split is [...]

Daaaaad! Mom’s Hogging the Computer, Again

It’s long been my experience that women come to technology only when they realize it can save them time in their daily lives. It appears now that  online shopping and social networking have reached their tipping point with moms. An eMarketer report released yesterday says today, more than 40% of all women who go online in [...]