It happens at this time every year, and it’s inevitable. I call it “Christmas Creep.” It’s when sparkly garland, lights, toys, and other festive holiday offerings start creeping into the aisles of my regular retail stops. And just in the nick of time (St. Nick…of time?), the National Retail Federation has released a holiday survey, taking a pulse on consumers’ holiday spending plans for this year.
This is important because it gives us an uber-snapshot of today’s consumer profile. When faced with a must-spend occasion, we know what they’re thinking and doing.
Today’s consumer is:
1. Showing optimism
- Expected to spend $688.87 on the holidays this year, up a tiny bit from last year ($681.83), but nowhere near years past (e.g., 2007 = $755.13).
- Translating that feel-good into looking good with jewelry! Asking for jewelry has made a 10% jump up from last year—demonstrating a higher comfort level in discretionary spending. (more…)
It has over 2.9 million fans that “Like” it on Facebook.
In August this year it hit the 1 million subscriber mark for its YouTube channel, with individual videos receiving view tallies well over 20 million each.
It made the current Bloomberg Business Week “Popularity Issue” as the Top Web Series. And it was recently discovered by my family during our annual beach vacation. Ugh! Why the ugh? It’s the Annoying Orange.
And it’s exactly that. Annoying Orange is the wisecracking, purposely irritating punster who stars in his own YouTube web series.
What scares you? What keeps you up at night, and nags at the back of your consciousness? There are few things that frighten me, one of them being that I have stopped learning and, like old bread, have gotten stale.
Can you imagine waking up one day to discover that your capacity to take in new knowledge has ended? That everything you are going to learn has already happened and that your brain, now filled to capacity, was blinking “hard drive full”? It can happen. I have experienced it.
One thing that occurs when you are the custodian of a marketing budget is that everyone wants to meet with you. If you allowed every new vendor to come in for a pitch, you could literally spend every day watching Power Point slides. To better manage your time you set up protocols and processes–your staff and agencies screen new opportunities and vendors and only highlight those that they feel are right and likely to interest you. This frees you up to focus on running your marketing programs, driving your business, and managing your time. (more…)
Last week, marketers from all around the tri-state area converged in New Jersey at our Fuel for Thought conference to learn, share experiences and develop ideas to get a handle on social media marketing. There’s a lot we covered/learned from each session and we’ll be sharing key highlights and materials here on our blog.
We’ll kick-off the first conference recap with John Battelle’s (CEO/Founder, Federated Media) keynote on “All Media is Social. Now What?” John’s keynote was brilliantly right-on-topic to get us all kindling new ideas. Here are four key areas he covered:
1. The Rise of Conversational Marketing: First we declared our intentions (what we want) through search. Then we declared our relations (social graph — who we are as defined by how we are connected to other people) on sites like Facebook. Finally, during the past year we declared our utterances (what we are doing, what we are interested in, etc.) on sites like Twitter. When you put all these declarations together — intention, relations and utterances, you have an economy of conversations. (more…)
A year ago, we launched the Fuel for Thought Series with the goal to create a forum for marketers where we could share the most relevant trends, insights and smart practices that would fuel growth and innovation for their brands. We made a promise to keep all content unbiased and free of sales pitches to ensure an authentic, no-strings-attached environment for marketers to engage.
Our first event last year focused on finding the optimum digital marketing solutions. Geoff Ramsey, CEO/Founder of eMarketer shared his Seven Strategies for Surviving the Downturn and it sure got our attendees engaged in various discussions to help them jump-start planning in the right direction for the coming year. Today, we’re thrilled to see that many of the attendees have implemented steps built from those insights/conversations into their marketing programs. We as an agency also applied those insights and it helped us innovate and grow during the downturn. (more…)
Oscar Wilde said that “to expect the unexpected shows a thoroughly modern intellect.” He was right.
The reality is that things never go as planned. But when you think about it, is that a bad thing? Those shaping the world make a difference by going beyond the expected. They figure out ways to capitalize on the unexpected twists and turns that come their way. They relish in the opportunities that are presented when unexpected things happen and as a result make great strides in the economy, environment, society, etc.
Business owners and entrepreneurs…the best bubble up when they expect the unexpected. They plan for the unexpected. They know that nothing should be taken at face value. And even further, it’s their ability to capitalize on unexpected opportunities that really makes them superstars. (more…)
What kind of person would think about using a tree as a musical instrument? I was amazed by what Diego Stocco was able to compose using an ordinary tree in his garden. Shuffling leaves, tapping bark and strumming and bowing on twigs. By considering the tree from a different perspective, Diego transformed it into something completely different.
Discovering new and unique ways to create something different from a common object or idea is a challenge for all creatives. We often set our own boundaries and expectations of what something “should” be, defined either by the project parameters or personal preferences. Overcoming these limitations opens up a world of new experiences and fresh inspiration for our work. (more…)
In our line of business, we interact with many different businesses, from start-ups to Fortune 500 international conglomerates. It’s always interesting to hear them apologize for not being as educated as they should in the area of emerging media. They often tend to get disjointed or siloed. The truth is that as we get deeper into the diverse, converging landscape between digital media and marketing, many of the old rules of marketing no longer apply. Whether you are big or small, deep in resources or entrepreneurial in spirit, the landscape can be intimidating.
During a roundtable at our Fuel for Thought event, we discussed on a topic we often get asked by clients.
How can marketers incorporate the consumer’s point-of-view as a regular part of strategy sessions, extending beyond consumer-generated content, consumer-created advertising, corporate blogs and focus groups? (more…)
We launched the Fuel for Thought Series last week, a morning event hosted by Sigma Group, our trusted partners eMarketer and IncBizNet to present an overview of the current digital media landscape and provide clarity and insights on best practices for optimizing interactive programs.
It was a pleasure to meet and greet our distinguished guests. The dynamic Round Table Discussions could have extended well into the afternoon if time permitted. (more…)
It happens at this time every year, and it’s inevitable. I call it “Christmas Creep.” It’s when sparkly garland, lights, toys, and other festive holiday offerings start creeping into the aisles of my regular retail stops. And just in the nick of time (St. Nick…of time?), the National Retail Federation has released a holiday survey, taking a pulse on consumers’ holiday spending plans for this year.
Last week, marketers from all around the tri-state area converged in New Jersey at our Fuel for Thought conference to learn, share experiences and develop ideas to get a handle on social media marketing. There’s a lot we covered/learned from each session and we’ll be sharing key highlights and materials here on our blog.
Fuel for Thought LinkedIn Group
