QVIews

"Hero customers" are inexpensive to serve, as well as loyal, gregarious, and willing to try anything their suppliers put out. Sounds too good to be true…. 1to1 Magazine: Holding out for a Hero Cultivating hero customers — that is, identifying, measuring, and growing them — is one part art and two parts science. It requires…

Advertising Age has another great story of marketing. And you know what? They did it the old fashioned way… AdAge.com: Story of a Dog Biscuit Brand by Randall Rothenberg Brother Curry is a one-armed Jesuit priest with a Ph.D. in theater history from New York University, who blended his love of performance, his understanding of…

Here’s a surprising tidbit of information. What’s the mostly heavily read site for business news? Could it be www.Forbes.com? How do they do it? Everything’s free. Are they successful? Rumor has it their online ad revenues will be greater than their print revenues within two years. But where are the numbers for Business Week? AdAge.com:…

This article in the NY Times doesn’t contain any stunning insight, but researchers have found more evidence that neighbors influence purchase, especially larger, riskier purchases, such as cars, especially when people have more to lose. This fact makes it harder for new brands or comebacks, but it does point to the importance of focusing marketing…

The NY Times notices the LA Times has Michael Kinsley experimenting with the editorial page. Kinsley says that one of his goals is to ‘surprise people.’ NY Times: Upheaval on Los Angeles Times Editorial Pages by Alicia C. Shepard While some editorial pages have been nudged into new directions, Mr. Kinsley, the editorial and opinion…

At iMedia Connection, researcher Joe Pilotta has a two-part article about how new forms of communication are changing the landscape for advertisers. The article is pretty tough reading, and you have to swallow a big gulp of Marshall McLuhan, but the destination is fasicinating. He points out the all forms of media exist simulataneously in…

There’s a lot of good stuff in this article about American culture and how it’s evolved, but I’m just quoting the insightful remark about blogging. I highly recommend the whole article. It’s long but easy to read because it’s so well written. Link: Commentary – Culture in the Age of Blogging by Terry Teachout As…

The success of this promotion discussed below really wasn’t driven so much by ‘personalization’ as by the creativity and commitment of the marketing team. This campaign went to 4,000 carefully selected people who might buy the new Xerox printer and the marketing materials were all actually printed on the printer being marketed. Now here’s the…

I’m not sure what to make of this news. Proctor & Gambel is closing their Reflect division which sold customized make-up through its web site and at a couple of pilot stores. Apparently it was making a little money but it wasn’t sufficiently successful for P&G, which wants "major brands." But they say they learned…

The wisdom of Grant McCracken, below. In 46 years I have observed that stupid fads fade, that the easy way out turns out to be a dead end, and that goodness and mercy prevail. Just watch, you’ll see it, too. Link: This Blog Sits at the Intersection of Anthropology and Economics. When all those consumers…