Archive for the 'Consumer Brands' Category

There are a number of comparison shopping sites available. Internet Retailer reports that a new site called DiscountMore.com has decided to compare these comparison search engines. DiscountMore.com views comparison shopping sites like Shopping.com, PriceGrabber.com, ShopZilla.com, PriceRunner.com and Shopper.com essentially as search engines similar to Google and Yahoo-the difference being comparison shopping sites search for […]

From its modest beginnings in 1942, in a tiny garage in Mumbai, the Asian Paints brand has grown in leaps and bounds over the last few decades. With a focus on product innovation and quality through a consumer-centric approach, Asian Paints has achieved a leadership position in the Indian paint industry. Today, the brand has […]

Would you perform open heart surgery if you had never been to medical school?  What about defusing a live bomb without any prior formal instruction?  “Ridiculous”, you say.  “That would be the height of foolishness.”  Obviously, you are 100% correct!
Hold on to this thought now while we take things down a notch or two.  If […]

I’ve always admired 3M. They are the people who invented scotch-guard, post-it notes (unless it was really Michelle) and heaven knows how many other incredible inventions. Their history is one of innovation until recently as flagged by a ‘brand infiltrator’ friend of mine.
A couple years ago a smart photographer and friends […]

As a retailer, the last thing you want to happen is to lose customers. Without realizing it, you may already be losing them. Are you doing any the following?

Lack of Product Knowledge

When a customer asks a question, are they met with a blank stare, lots of information, or a “let me find out and […]

Even if you haven’t yet shopped for a smart car, it’s hard not to see them (cute as they are) and wonder: Who really fits in those tiny vehicles? Can I even fit my groceries in one? Could it withstand a collision, even at a low speed? Does it hold enough gas to get me […]

Brand managers are fond of lists showing how their brands stack up against the competition.  The same is true for nation branding.  But how do you rank a nation brand?  How does Germany’s brand stack up against Singapore’s? Or France’s against the UK’s?
Simon Anholt, a nation branding expert who advises governments on such issues, […]

Cause-related marketing can increase sales as much as 74 percent in certain consumer-goods categories, and consumers spend twice as long looking at cause-related ads than generic corporate ones, according to a study by Cone and Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business, MarketingCharts reports.
The 2008 Cone/Duke University Behavioral Cause Study finds a strong link between […]

Arguably, the king of cheap chic is US retailer Target. Faced with intense retail competition years ago, Target chose “to reposition itself as a mass merchandiser of affordable chic goods,” according to professors Patrick Barwise and Sean Meehan, co-authors of the book Simply Better (Harvard Business School Press). While Kmart was approaching bankruptcy and Wal-Mart […]

You probably know that Crocs are fairly popular shoes these days–with kids and weekend warriors (personally, I can’t go there). But did you know that when you search for “Crocs” on Flickr there are 27,761 results? (And a solid majority of them are about the shoes, not the reptiles.) Search for “Jibbitz” and you get […]