Archive for June, 2009
I’ll trade you a cup of water for my new Prius?
At The Churchill Club of Silicon Valley’s Annual Top Ten Tech Trends Debate in May, five prominent venture capitalists argued about which trends are going to gain traction in the coming year. Joe Schoendorf, partner at Accel Partners, and past vice president of marketing for Apple, had the crowd nodding as he advanced the prediction that water technology will replace global warming as an international priority.
Schoendorf explained that the world is running out of usable water and that this is a higher immediate threat than global warming.
Energy production consumes large volumes of water…coal, nuclear and biomass gasification all require water. According to a report on theoildrum.com a 50 million gal/yr plant will use 600,000 gallons of water a day – much of it used to dissipate the heat of the process. Gasoline refining processes use about 3 – 4.5 gallons of water for every gallon of gas.
Do you have a plan?
Facebook Keeping Face
While the social media world has been fixated with Twitter – naysayers, advocates, rule setters, collectors, faux pas – Facebook has been not so quietly keeping pace in their own growth. The last time we took a serious look at Facebook, we reported the “Granny syndrome” as the fastest growing segment. Well there’s news to report since then.
On today’s MENG (Marketing Executive Networking Group) webinar, Richard Krueger, the facilitator of FACEBOOK STRATEGY FOR BUSINESS AND BRANDS, provided some pretty staggering statistics. And he should know. He has devoted the past year and a half to studying this online social network for writing a book on its marketing applications.
Target redefines value brands
image source: mypbrand.com
Target has gone and changed the game in what I have always seen as a bit of a mystery in the retail space—value brands. Their new up&up rebrand puts a new face on their typically bland value brand product line. This clean and modern rebrand instantly elevates the perceived quality of these products.
The interesting part of this rebrand, to me, is the potential to change consumers’ opinion on value brands across the board. If up&up stays perceived as a value brand, Target now has a substantial leg up. In a time where lots of consumers are actively seeking better prices and value, up&up now looks like a better quality brand priced at the same low price. Given the choice between this and any other similarly priced value brand, I would always choose the better presented up&up brand.
I look forward to seeing what kind of success Target sees with the re-brand—more interestingly if other value brands will follow suit.
See more pictures after the jump.
Dare to be Different
Tuition has become a leading factor for students reviewing higher education options. Students might also seek alternatives to the traditional university scenario; including more distance learning, tightened graduation timelines, more AP classes at the high school level, etc. So where does that leave higher education institutions? Students have options – and are clearly exercising them. The challenge for universities is to properly position themselves as a provider of choice.
Uncovering differentiation that leads to distinction isn’t as difficult as it may seem. After careful analysis of a local MBA school in a highly competitive marketplace, we uncovered distinct “sweet spots” that this school provided as well as needs unmet by competitors. We also learned that the ideal student was actually a collection of tightly-niched, mid-level executives seeking additional skill sets to propel them to management material. From there, we developed unique umbrella brand positioning with pinpoint outreach strategies in order to appeal to this subset of highly desirable students.
Vertical Marketing Wins Tempo Award for Constellation Energy
Constellation Energy recently won a Tempo Award, an honor bestowed by the Chicago Association of Direct Marketing, for it’s surgical use of targeted marketing. The campaign focused on an important aspect of brand differentiation for Constellation Energy that is not easily replicated: their ability to offer local energy expertise, coupled with relevant sector experience. From there, CNE desired a targeted effort to penetrate a high potential vertical sector through awareness of this expertise.
Colman Brohan Davis developed a multi-wave direct marketing campaign that took a personalized approach to educating energy buyers and administrators about the competitive gas, electric and fuel programs available to schools and government agencies in Texas.
Video: The next biggest thing on the net?
It’s hard to believe that something that has entertained us for years would now be deemed the next hottest thing on the internet, but video took that distinction yesterday at B2B NetMarketing in Chicago.
Oh sure, YouTube rocked our internet world a couple of years ago when broadband got its mojo and cable companies needed a promotional vehicle to drive demand for costly broadband thereby boosting revenue by satisfying customers with faster and faster line speeds. With Comcast’s The Fan you could nearly replace the national network’s newscasts with a customizable video library of the day’s events that interests you in the order you would like to see them. This was mighty favorable in our household and really raised our consciousness toward the various uses of video on the net. We don’t have to explain the benefits of video to explain its value – illustrations, demonstrations, visual enhancements.
And with a greater proliferation of broadband connectivity for residences came an increase in home offices and a growing trend toward the “work from home” day which in turn just pressed even more demand for yet faster broadband speeds.
Perhaps what pushed B2B marketers into video-as-content was the recent explosion of smartphones with video capability. Now a mobile sales staff or a buyer on-the-go has access to videos anytime, anywhere just as they do at their desks.
