Distributed marketing sounds simple in theory. Corporate builds the strategy. Local teams execute. Everyone grows. In reality, it rarely works that cleanly. As organizations expand across dealers, franchisees, agents, or partner networks, marketing becomes fragmented. Brand standards unintentionally drift, Co-op funds get misused or lost, Campaigns launch without a consistent voice, and reporting becomes unreliable. […]
Recent articles and events re-inforce the narrative started a few years ago: the retail shake-down cruise is nowhere near over. Issues with once mighty giants like Sears Holdings filing for Chapter 11 – on life support waiting for last minute funding, JCPenny becoming a penny stock for the first time since the 70’s, and others […]
A week doesn’t seem go by without some high profile CEO, Hollywood A-lister, or politician getting roasted for an ill-advised tweet. In the last week I can recall Elon Musk firing off a tweet about the possibility of taking Tesla private and catching his Board and financial staff off-guard. Weeks before it was for insulting […]
I recently attended the 2018 Notre Dame Chief Marketing Officer Summit sponsored by the Mendoza College of Business. The theme was “The Future of Customer Engagement in a Digital World”. Top marketing officers from Kellogg Co, TD Ameritrade, Intuit, Keds, Constellation Brands, American Eagle Outfitters, Ally Financial, Edward Jones, and USAA shared thoughts among others.
We are well into 2018 and we’ve seen our share of stories reinforcing the narrative that large retailers continue to shrink their footprint, (Toys R Us, Foot Locker, Best Buy cell phone stores), while Walmart, Amazon and even several Chinese retailers test larger automation. This new testing is well beyond the adoption of simple tablets at casual dining restaurants like Applebee’s and Chili’s, so we’ll focus on what’s new.
Recent news of multiple store closings has sparked a hot discussion on whether retail as we know it is dead. – Payless Shoes to file Chapter 11 and close 400 – Macy’s to close 68 – J.C. Penny to close 140 – Sears to close 42 – Kmart to close 108 – The Limited […]
A recent dealer survey from Outdoor Power Equipment1 exposed some interesting facts about the current online presence of US Outdoor Power (i.e. lawn & garden equipment) dealers. The 2016 survey of more than 100 dealers revealed that 77% of dealers had a website. This was up dramatically from 2001 when only 48.7% had an online […]
Video continues to overtake the web with Facebook appearing to lead the way. With Cisco forecasting that 80% of all internet traffic will be video by 2019 it’s not hard to see that Facebook will be a major player. A few recent news items to drive home the point: Last week Facebook announced […]
It’s Decision Day across the United States. Billions of dollars and countless hours have been spent to get us to a decision. No matter what your politics, you have to admit it’s a tremendous undertaking. Those of us in channel marketing and marketing automation work for decisions too. For us every day is Decision Day. […]
We received a letter in the mail recently at our home. It was from AT&T (and full disclosure is a client) addressed to my family who has multiple cell phone plans with the company. Upon opening I found a simple thank you letter from the Vice President and General Manager with responsibility over our local […]