Archives tagged: Apple
Sitting atop an old bushel basket, the aroma of aged tobacco wafting through the air, and the loud jumbled racket of an auctioneer rattling off lot prices, was the recollection of my first auction experience. Reminiscing over nostalgic memories of accompanying my grandfather to the American Tobacco Company sale in Reidsville, NC, at the ripe age of 6 years old will be forever engrained in my mind. Not until a graduate school game theory class evoked my long lost love of auctions, did I start thinking about the efficacy of auction marketplaces allocating resources among consumers.
More What do Eastman Kodak, Sears Roebucks, K-Mart and American Airlines have in common? They are all U.S. corporate icons on the verge of implosion and each one of these likely failures is through a fault of corporate marketing management. The rules for marketing are pretty simple. So what is “marketing?”
More For some reason, consumers often find the underdog more attractive than the category leader, according to research done by Harvard Business School Professor Anat Keinan. In this article, we examine some of the drivers that makes underdog marketing successful.
More A number of years ago, I was contacted by an attorney who was representing an inventor. It seemed that inventor had created a universal cap for an automotive water heater. This cap could work as a replacement for any water heater.Like most inventors, this one happened to be mentally long on technical expertise and mentally short on the realities of the marketplace. Also, like many investors he was working on a shoe-string.
More The 2011 graveyard of dead icons might get another — Eastman Kodak. This 131-year old mainstay of Corporate America is struggling to survive. It recently posted a much higher than anticipated loss and lower revenues. It continues to struggle from selling film to selling digital camera and printers.
More And You Think Your Employees Aren’t Powerful? …It Only Takes One!
Like comparing apples and oranges? No, apples and employees! The employee that isn’t trained to exhibit excellent customer service skills or takes it upon him or herself to alienate customers is like the proverbial apple that “spoils the barrel”, creating an atmosphere that spawns negativity and steals from your bottom line. It only takes one employee to send your customers running away screaming to your nearest competitor, even in the world of electronic interactions.
Chief executive Howard Schultz had the right idea about evolving the Starbucks logo, but his solution shows some of the hubris that got the company into trouble a few years ago.
The best brands are built upon a clear business strategy translated into a clear brand strategy. A brand strategy is consistently communicated to both internal and external audiences until it becomes the DNA of both employees and customers. Starbucks accomplished this mission, and then killed it.
More In my research, what I learned was that despite the fact that most companies are committed to the concept of differentiation, at any given moment they are also intensely aware of what their competitors are doing, and it is this competitive vigilance that ultimately pushed them down a path of conformity.” Youngme Moon, HBS Professor and author of “Different: Escaping the Competitive Herd”
More Are you ready for the new paradigms? Do you have a Kindle or iPad for reading books? Do you read your daily newspaper on-line? What kind of home entertainment system do you have connected to your High Definition TV that will allow you to see movies, previously available only at the video store or from a vending machine? What must a successful company do to survive and thrive in this environment?.
More The saga of Steve Jobs and the Apple IPhone 4 gives warning to any strategic smartphone marketer who attempts to intrude on Apple’s turf.
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