Archive for January, 2007
Hoax! Bad-Idea Marketing from Turner Broadcasting
I did hear a lot of sirens during the morning, but, hey, it’s the city. You hear sirens.
Around noon, I left to work in The Writers’ Room of Boston - which is a library-quiet workspace: no phones, no access. Nothing to do but write.
My sister Trish called mid-afternoon. “Where are you?” she asked. “Is everything [...]
Transparent Pricing
I’m considering a new pricing model.
Currently, I charge clients an hourly rate for my work. If a client prefers, I will give them a project price, but that’s really just the hourly rate multiplied by estimated number of hours. If there are expenses (printing, travel, etc.) they are passed on at cost, but that’s [...]
PowerPoint: Say it Again
Okay, this is not news to anybody, but Seth Godin’s post on PowerPoint abuse is worth repeating, because no matter how many times anybody talks about good and bad ways to use the omnipresent Office app as a presentation support tool, the parade of awful presentations continues.
Except that he’s only about 80% right, I think. Seth writes [...]
The Bunco Squad: Head’s up marketing at P&G
Yesterday’s Inside the Cubicle picked up on an article in the Wall Street Journal that detailed the efforts that P&G uses to get to know their customers better. In this case, the product is Prilosec, and the prospective customers are women who play the dice game, Bunco.
Before I even get into the thoroughness of P&G’s [...]
Vista and Value Propositions
What’s the value proposition of Windows Vista for consumers? Specifically, for consumers who have a PC running Windows XP?
I took a look at Microsoft’s Vista site to try to find out. There, I learned that “the wow starts now.” Okay, so what’s the wow?” An animated graphic promises that it will be easier, safer, more [...]
CNN Money on "Misadventures in Marketing"
CNN Money Business 2.0 has a very funny section dedicated to 2007’s 101 Dumbest Moments in Business. It includes a subset on marketing that’s pretty good and definitely worth taking a look.
Among the high-lights (or low-lights):
A promotion for Spirit Airlines that revolved around a ” help find Jimmy Hoffa’s body” theme. You’d think that, at minimum, [...]
That Unlovable Device
The Boston Globe’s Business Filter blogger, Maura Welch, commented on our overscheduled lives, which seem to consist these days of interruptions being interrupted by more interruptions. And then a few minutes later I found myself looking at this ad:
And I thought, “Do you really want to go there?”
I don’t have a Blackberry (or similar device). [...]
"Let’s Keep in Touch!"
Networking. Everybody understands its value, but for many people, it seems like a chore. It puts many of us our of our comfort zone - we know that in some cases, we’re talking to people not because we particularly like them (not that we dislike them, we may just be ambivalent), but because they might be helpful to us in the future. Or maybe [...]
Microsoft and Wikipedia
You’ve probably heard that Microsoft is in the doghouse for offering to pay a blogger to edit Wikipedia articles about their technology. It sounds at first like something along the lines of ”flogging” (a la Wal-Mart), but I don’t think it’s quite that clear.
Microsoft Corp. has landed in the Wikipedia doghouse after it offered to pay a blogger [...]
Collateral That Sales Really Uses: Take Two
Along with John Whiteside, I enjoyed Jonathan Kranz’s article that provided a list of tips for building collateral that sales will really use, which appeared on Marketing Profs the other day. Anything that helps improve the fractious relationship between sales and marketing is for the good. We now what happens when those relationships get really out [...]
