Rounding up marketing for the week
As the result of Apple earnings and the many subsequent articles last week, I've been ignoring most of the regular marketing beat for a couple weeks. To try to address that shortfall, I've put together a few interesting marketing articles and data points I noticed during that period but haven't yet found time to write about.
First, I'm late with this one. The New York Times had an article last week on how small business owners are hiring speech coaches to help them present themselves and their companies better. The article is now behind a subscriber/pay wall at the New York Times, but it's worth noting that this strategy isn't just for small businesses. We've worked with a lot of large companies whose senior executives would benefit hugely from basic speech coaching, but somehow, they think its just for marketers. The same executives who insist on $800 pens and $4,000 suits somehow think that umm'ing and stuttering their way through presentations is just fine. Go figure.
Secondly, there was a great article noting how retailers are starting to identify and retaliate against what they call "devil shoppers", or those who abuse generous store return and warrantee policies. A colleague and I wrote a Forrester research paper back in the late 90s saying that digital businesses would figure out how to fire their most unprofitable customers. Sounds like reality has caught up to that projection.
Thirdly, Microsoft is back in the news today with a Boston Globe article that is part of its Vista PR campaign, touting how much new business activity the release of Microsoft Vista is bringing to Massachusetts. I've seen other releases touting the benefits to other states. The ironic marketing bit around these releases is the fact that Microsoft doesn't realize that most consumers and businesses don't perceive it as a good thing that they have to spend a lot of money on new hardware, software, and services to run their latest release. Yes, lemons to lemonade is good marketing, but only if you can clearly explain the benefit to the users. This one misses the boat, especially compared to systems like Mac OS X and Linux that tend to get more performance out of existing hardware with each release. Microsoft's marketing playbook is starting to show its age.
First, I'm late with this one. The New York Times had an article last week on how small business owners are hiring speech coaches to help them present themselves and their companies better. The article is now behind a subscriber/pay wall at the New York Times, but it's worth noting that this strategy isn't just for small businesses. We've worked with a lot of large companies whose senior executives would benefit hugely from basic speech coaching, but somehow, they think its just for marketers. The same executives who insist on $800 pens and $4,000 suits somehow think that umm'ing and stuttering their way through presentations is just fine. Go figure.
Secondly, there was a great article noting how retailers are starting to identify and retaliate against what they call "devil shoppers", or those who abuse generous store return and warrantee policies. A colleague and I wrote a Forrester research paper back in the late 90s saying that digital businesses would figure out how to fire their most unprofitable customers. Sounds like reality has caught up to that projection.
Thirdly, Microsoft is back in the news today with a Boston Globe article that is part of its Vista PR campaign, touting how much new business activity the release of Microsoft Vista is bringing to Massachusetts. I've seen other releases touting the benefits to other states. The ironic marketing bit around these releases is the fact that Microsoft doesn't realize that most consumers and businesses don't perceive it as a good thing that they have to spend a lot of money on new hardware, software, and services to run their latest release. Yes, lemons to lemonade is good marketing, but only if you can clearly explain the benefit to the users. This one misses the boat, especially compared to systems like Mac OS X and Linux that tend to get more performance out of existing hardware with each release. Microsoft's marketing playbook is starting to show its age.
Technorati Tags: Advertising, devil shoppers, Marketing, Microsoft, Speech coaches, Retail
posted by Carl Howe at
8:29 AM
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