Slowdown Grinds Into Luxury

by Milton Pedraza
Recession is all but official as luxury retailers’ sales go soft in 2008 along with consumer confidence, jobs, and the housing outlook. Real estate foreclosures are up, prices are down.
Stiff headwinds continue to buffet luxury firms. Neiman Marcus says that comparable sales in February tumbled 7.3 percent from a year ago - the [...]

As The Pendulum Swings: Men Are the New “It” Shoppers

by Andrea Learned
You know how the pendulum swings, don’t you? It starts with huge arcs of differences in opinions, perspectives and ways of doing things, and slowly calms itself down with smaller arcs of movement and a more steady hum to its swing. Well, I see a marketing equivalent.
For years and years, [...]

“Life Rage” is Tempered by Goodness - Faith Popcorn Study Finds

The tension between “Life Rage” and “Goodness” is the key cultural current to watch in 2008, according to futurist Faith Popcorn’s BrainReserve, which fielded a quantitative online study that surveyed 1,105 representative Americans in December.
“From a visceral worry for our very survival -our planet, our culture, and our civilization, to fundamental concerns with the [...]

GM’s Brand Rivalries

by James Gregory
The General Motor’s Corporation has an incredibly diverse brand portfolio at its disposal. However, with brand diversity comes the challenge of balancing market share among those brands. Competing against outside brands will only work if your internal brands are not competing amongst themselves. As their eight automotive brands release similar products, each [...]

I Don’t Care, You Choose: How the Vast Product Choice on the Web Makes Us Miserable

We’ve got too much choice and it’s making the consumer unhappy.
The evidence:
1. Researchers at the University of Iowa recently found that people who have only a little information about a product are happier with that product than people who have more information.
2. eMarketer and Media Post pundits weigh in:

Can Marketing to Women Become More Compelling for Men?

by Andrea Learned
How does “marketing to women” become compelling for men (especially those in traditional industries) who just don’t see it as relevant to their success? This has been the question driving my passion and research of late, and, interestingly, it has taken me back to the truths of human behavior: sex and [...]

Keeping and Eye on Celebrity Design Collections

by Robert Passikoff
A recent study has shown that many celebrities, i.e., actresses and models have taken to launching their own design ventures, but no big surprise there. With product differentiation more and more difficult to come by, and agents and managers seeking new revenue streams for their clients, what could be more practical? After all, [...]

Intel ’s Atom Launch

by Michael Megalli - Partner, Group 1066
Intel is the kind of client that branding consultants dream of. In addition to being the world’s largest manufacturer of semiconductors, Intel has run one of the most successful ingredient branding campaigns in history. Beginning in 1991, Intel has successfully stemmed the tides of commoditization with a simple sticker [...]

Give Me Credit for Those Offline Sales Too

At last I am validated. I sell advertising to a bunch of retailers and I frequently get the pushback that we don’t convert as high as google adwords. Of course we don’t! People who are finding retailers on Google Adwords are on the direct mission to purchase a commodity – whether it is [...]

News Bytes: Online Magazine Brands, How Men Shop

Where the Boys Are in the Mall? (no, this is not geo-location for teenage girls) the answer… not where you might assume, according to a recent Harris Interactive study commissioned by Men’s Health magazine. Despite the popular cliché, men actually do like to shop.
Perhaps not quite the fashionistas, men are buying fewer suits but they [...]