By accident I recently came across an article that I have first read a few years ago, published in MIT Sloan Management Review. And I still find the core idea a very current one: how project management can benefit from brand management. The basic idea is that there is a market for projects inside any… Read More »
A particularly smart way of adapting your marketing messages to short-notice changes in your marketing environment is through humor and closer emotional bonds. A great example of this is the campaign that Royal Jordanian has been running in reaction to Donald Trump’s #travelban. You would think there isn’t much that an airline could do to… Read More »
Mark Bonchek and Cara France published their thoughts on means to achieve creative marketing on the HBR Blog. Their five theses or recommendations can be summarized as follows: Create with (not just for) the customer – This is all about involving customers right from the early stages of product development, using their experiences, expectations and… Read More »
Every year since 2010, Bright Local, an online search agency, conducts a large study on the role and relevance of online reviews. The most recent Online Review Survey provides a few very meaningful insights into the role of online review for buying decisions. It shows a further increase in the role of such reviews for online… Read More »
Over the weekend, I came across a very interesting exercise. In a move to find out how perceptions of beauty vary across the globe, the guys from Super Drug Online Doctors asked 18 designers across the globe to retouch an image of an underwear model to best fit with their culture’s perception of beauty and the “ideal… Read More »
Two researchers of Ohio State University have conducted a meta-analysis on research on the effect of sex and crime in advertisement. They come to a surprising conclusion – against the common sense notion of “Sex sells”: “As intensity of sexual ad content increased, memory, attitudes, and buying intentions decreased.” They found that as the emotional… Read More »
On the weekend I came across a remarkable chat between an Amazon customer and a customer service agent. While it is of course not realistic that every customer is treated in this way (and some agents or also customers might have reacted completely adversely), for me it really is a stunning piece of excellent communication… Read More »
Yesterday I happened to watch a great documentary about the century-old struggle for the soft drink consumer between Coca Cola and Pepsi. A really remarkable film highlighting all the marketing challenges and milestones of the two companies. I recommend every marketing and branding student to take 45 minutes, sit back and watch it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2fluoWku6Vw
As some of you probably know I currently reside in Laos – a country in Southeast Asia. So today I found an interesting advertising leaflet that came with my daily morning paper (the English-language Vientiane Times btw). Just to let you know – there are plenty of international tourists, expats and people working in the “development… Read More »