Know what a “splash stick” is? If not, chances are good you will soon.
Literally, it’s a small wand of molded green plastic with a cap at one end. The stick fits into the slit opening of a plastic coffee lid, seals it and lets you walk down the street without fear of the telltale signs of the morning commuter: those splashed little droplets of coffee on shirt, skirt or pants.
Figuratively, splash sticks may be the future of Starbucks, a multi-billion-dollar brand that’s looking to reconnect with its customers. more…
A number of releases have come out recently about Hispanic marketing account wins or appointments, and that led me to thinking about a question I honestly don’t have the answer to yet. When brands target their interactive marketing at a Hispanic audience, how well do they do in fulfilling that audience’s online needs? more…
If you’ve got something to market, there’s nothing like finding a group of consumers already interested in what you’re selling. The search marketing industry is built on what writer John Battelle has called “the database of intentions”: Figure out what people are looking for, then serve up ads they’re likely to find relevant to those desires. Google made $5.2 billion doing just that last quarter. more…
There’s a point where technology and marketing converge, where making something easier to do also makes it easier to persuade people to do it often. And among the nation’s retail food chains, the pizza category seems to be the hotbed of innovation.
That makes a certain sense. Pizza is much more likely to be home-delivered than either chicken or burgers, so the easier its players can make the ordering process, the more convenience-minded customers can be led to opt for pizza over those other choices—or over rivals’ pies. more…
TV viewers who grew up in the mid-Atlantic region—I count myself among them—may cherish fond memories of the commercials featuring Tom Carvelas, founder of the Carvel retail soft-serve chain.
Actually, I don’t recall Carvel showing up often in the ads, which usually featured real workers and franchisees self-consciously making ice cream specialties for the camera. Carvel’s contribution to the spots was primarily as voiceover. But what a voice. It’s been described as “gravelly”; in fact, it sounded like he’d been gargling lugnuts. more…
You may not know what “FiOS” stands for, but communications provider Verizon is running an online promotion that should take care of that. They dearly hope so, because FiOS is an important key to the company’s future.
The acronym refers to Verizon’s “Fiber Operating System”, the fiber-optic network the carrier is building that allows it to bundle television and high-speed Internet services with digital phone services. The service lets Verizon compete with cable companies’ bundled offerings, and Verizon is so far the first large U.S. carrier to sell it. more…
Sometimes it seems as if mobile marketing has been waiting for its moment in the spotlight about as long as the Chicago Cubs have been waiting for a World Series win. And like the Cubbies, mobile too often seems poised for a winning streak, only to wind up in the cellar for another year. more…
The mantra in the early days of the Internet was that “content wants to be free.” The last decade has added some important qualifiers to that, leading YouTube to pull copyrighted material and some big media providers like The New York Times to swing pendulum-like between paid subscriptions and complete availability.
But HarperCollins Publishers says it has seen strong results from a pilot program that follows that Web-pioneer dictum by throwing selected titles up onto the Internet cover to cover, permitting readers to consume them in toto on their PCs. more…
Scion, Toyota’s youth-oriented brand within a brand, does marketing differently, to say the least. The car maker has opted for the road less traveled in most of its online promotion, favoring independent film and music festivals, presence in virtual worlds, and hip-hop-flavored video as ways to promote its vehicles. more…
In the world of video games, Rockstar Games’ upcoming April 28 release of “Grand Theft Auto IV: Liberty City” is generating as much buzz as the next Batman movie. And electronic game retailer GameStop has capitalized on that interest with a pre-launch GTA4 promotional game that integrated online, mobile and in-store activities. more…
