Sunday, November 29, 2009
Thursday, November 26, 2009
Friday, November 20, 2009
How to avoid social media burnout - iMediaConnection.com
It's easy to get worn down when trying to evaluate all the latest trends and innovations in social media. Here are some tips for avoiding a marketer meltdown.
Sunday, November 15, 2009
Thursday, November 12, 2009
Walmart set for extremely competitive holiday | U.S. | Reuters
Walmart set for "extremely competitive" holiday
Thu Nov 12, 2009 2:43pm EST
More News
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Wal-Mart Stores Inc expects an "extremely competitive" holiday shopping season, but its treasurer said on Thursday that weekly price cuts are driving consumers to its U.S. stores and Walmart.com is seeing "record hits" after it slashed book prices.
"Heading into ... the holiday season, everybody is gearing up, and it's never not competitive, so it's going to be extremely competitive," Treasurer Charles Holley told reporters on a press call.
Earlier in the day, Wal-Mart reported higher third-quarter profit but forecast earnings during the key holiday quarter that could miss Wall Street estimates.
Holley said what makes this year different is the economy.
"Money and finances continues to be the No. 1 concern among our customer, No. 2 would be cost of living and No. 3 would be jobs," he said.
The retailer is cutting prices every week ahead of Christmas to win the business of the 140 million consumers who shop in its U.S. Walmart stores each week. Walmart has already reduced prices on TVs, toys, ground meat and bananas.
Walmart.com has also slashed prices on highly anticipated books, igniting a price war with Amazon.com, and it is selling its top 10 pre-order DVD movie titles for just under $10 each.
"We've had very good response to the pricing that you've seen out in the market in the last three weeks," Holley said, adding: "We've had record hits on our dot-com site."
When asked if Walmart.com had cut prices on those books and DVDs so low that it was losing money on the sales, Holley said: "I wouldn't call them loss leaders because we don't plan to lose money. But it's kind of like the $4 generic, it's disruptive."
In 2006, the retailer shook up the pharmacy industry when it began selling some generic drugs for $4 per monthly prescription. Since then, Target Corp, Walgreen, CVS Caremark Corp, Rite Aid Corp supermarkets and others have introduced their own low-cost generic drug plans.
Holley said Walmart continues to see a surge in traffic in its stores on the first of the month, when shoppers get paid, and he said fewer consumers are using credit cards to make purchases due to "a credit squeeze with consumers."
When asked about its interest in opening a store in New York City, Holley said he could not discuss specific real estate plans. He said the retailer has identified 15 metropolitan areas that have large potential, although he declined to name those areas.
He also said that while Russia is a "very interesting market" and the company continues to research it, the retailer had nothing to announce in terms of plans to enter that country.
(Reporting by Nicole Maestri; Editing by Phil Berlowitz)
© Thomson Reuters 2009 All rights reserved
Next Article: Walmart set for 'extremely competitive' holiday
via reuters.com
Wednesday, November 4, 2009
Sesame Street intended for grown-ups!
Sent from mobile device from http://www.cnn.com. 'Sesame Street's' been swept, but the magic of show remains [cid:kgepbetbps] In the early days of "Sesame Street" -- that is, B.E. (Before Elmo) -- Sesame Street was a pretty grimy place. The brownstone at 123 Sesame Street looked like it needed a serious power washing, the storefront of Mr. Hooper's shop was intentionally dingy and the Fix-It Shop's window was cluttered with toasters. It was gritty, but gritty in a magical way. When the show started in 1969 ("Sesame Street" will celebrate its 40th anniversary on November 10), the concept of educational television programming was nothing short of revolutionary. "Sesame Street" was originally intended as a learning tool for inner-city children -- not only as a supplement to their lessons in math and the ABCs but to teach them to be good people and show them that learning can be fun. Those early years are now available on DVD; and the discs contain a disclaimer that essentially states that they are intended for nostalgia purposes only. The warning reads as follows: "These early 'Sesame Street' episodes are intended for grown-ups, and may not suit the needs of today's preschool child." Say what!? Never did I ever think I'd see "Sesame Street" and "intended for grown-ups" in the same sentence. iReport: What letter of the alphabet would you like to pay tribute to? On the DVDs, Cookie Monster can be seen as his character of Alistair Cookie in his "Monsterpiece Theatre" segment (a spoof of Alistair Cooke's "Masterpiece Theatre") smoking a pipe. Yep, Cookie Monster smoked. He later eats the pipe because, as he was often prone to doing, he thinks the pipe is a cookie. Cookie Monster used to become so overwhelmed by his desire for cookies that he'd start seeing (hallucinating about?) cookies that weren't actually there. He'd eat (rotary) telephones, typewriters (what are those?), pencils, almost anything. It was funny. Today, Cookie Monster's diet is much more balanced, as he has adopted the philosophy that cookies are a "sometimes food." Cookie coincidentally changed his tune in 2006 amidst reports that childhood obesity had reached epidemic proportions. Early "Sesame Street" had some other elements that would not pass muster today. Oscar the Grouch is just plain nasty, children are seen riding their bikes without helmets, and there's even a sketch where the human character of Gordon can be seen approaching a little girl on the street. He takes her by the hand and brings her into his house for milk and cookies (again with the cookies!). Clearly, that could be misinterpreted by today's standards. Now, some 4,000 episodes later, 123 Sesame Street has gotten that power washing. Peeling paint is nowhere to be found, and the only visible garbage can has a tenant. It's much more sanitized. I'm tempted to make fun of this, but then I notice the bottle of anti-bacterial hand gel on my desk and bite my proverbial tongue. For better or worse, today's preschooler is very different from the 1969 version. And children's television programming simply has to reflect that. But one thing hasn't changed on "Sesame Street": the unflinchingly genuine attitudes of its residents. For 40 years, they have taught us that sometimes we are going to get hurt, cry and be lonely. They've taught us that there'll also be times when we're downright jovial. All the while, those characters have remained sincere. We may never see Cookie Monster eat a pipe again, but luckily the memories are preserved on DVD, and in our hearts.
Tuesday, November 3, 2009
Monday, November 2, 2009
Splenda Mist Facebook Sampling - Results
The article below highlights the results of a Splenda Mist sampling campaign on Facebook. However, beyond the successes described below, I started thinking about the effectiveness & sustainability of building Fan Pages via promotional offers.
According to these results, more than 3,100 users became fans during the two week window (presumably to get the offer) – however, there are now only 2,900 fans a drop of 6.5%. They also gave away 16,000 samples to 3,100 people. If that’s true, it’s more than five samples per fan… seems unnecessary. Finally, the program only lasted a third of the time it was suppose to – not great for media predictability.
I realize the reach of this promotion was minimal (a test). I’d like to see a long-term study measuring why consumers become (& stay) fans of brand pages on Facebook. I expect it has more to do with real engagement & brand affinity than it does with promotional offers. With that said, I think there’s a place for promotions to act as the hook in starting a relationship.
Also – I realize the alternative objective was to create a Splenda focus group which in itself has many positives…
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Facebook Sampling, Research Works For Splenda Mist by Karlene Lukovitz, Yesterday, 3:52 PM
Splenda saw better-than-expected results from using a Facebook page dedicated to its new product, Splenda Mist No Calorie Sweetener, to distribute product samples and gather both feedback and demographics and other information from consumers, according to information supplied to Marketing Daily by Facebook.
In May, Splenda made an exclusive offer to Facebook users: free samples of Splenda Mist -- a portable spray version designed to let users spritz the desired amount of sweetness on foods and in drinks -- to those who signed up as fans of the new product on its page.
"Become a fan" engagement ads were used to drive traffic to the page, where visitors were engaged via viral elements such as recipes and quizzes.
Facebook reports that all 16,000+ of the samples of Splenda Mist were distributed in just two weeks -- one-sixth of the planned program time. In the same two-week period, before the product was widely available in the marketplace, more than 3,100 Facebook users became fans of the new product. Measured purchase intent nearly doubled during the campaign, from 39% to 75%, and brand affiliation also increased.
In addition, more than 1,500 fans responded to a detailed quantitative survey that Splenda deployed to those who signed up as fans. Among other findings, Splenda learned that nine out of 10 people exposed to the product on Facebook had suggested it to a friend.
In an item on Splenda's innovative use of sampling on Facebook to create a "focus group," Matt Holliday of InsideFacebook.com, a site devoted to marketers' uses of the social media network, notes that "most of the prerequisite information that brands want is readily available in users' profile information, and adding information to participants' friend feeds gets the brand name in front of a much larger group of potential customers should the product go to market."
Sunday, November 1, 2009
Invitation to view Chris's Picasa Web Album - Share Worthy Photos
| You are invited to view Chris's photo album: Share Worthy Photos
Message from Chris: Perhaps my favorite sunrise so far in life... If you are having problems viewing this email, copy and paste the following into your browser: http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/sredir?uname=cubbacd1&target=ALBUM&id=5399360802774868113&authkey=Gv1sRgCNrS5LnAjPHmsAE&feat=email To share your photos or receive notification when your friends share photos, get your own free Picasa Web Albums account.  |
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