For the technically savvy crowd with iPhones/iPod Touch’s, what a great way to add some fun to the Starbucks experience. Combined with this feature you’ll be sure to see me ordering a Tazo Chai latte on my iPod Touch in the near future.
My fiancee doesn’t get why i maintain this website. I guess the reasons have changed for me over the years for me. 5 years ago when i was just out of school my main purpose was to show my portfolio, in hopes of finding work. Over the past year & after having sat through a life changing Seth Godin keynote i’ve really become immersed in how selling a brand (whether it be a product or yourself) has changed and i thought it would be good to start a blog myself and just talk about things that interest me and see where it leads. I think i’m learning to write more succinctly, which has helped with my web copywriting - but more importantly i’m establishing a hub for my brand online, and my search engine placement & feedburner stats seem to confirm this.
Here is a post on Marketing Profs that talks about this in more detail.
This guy is so f’ing right.
LONDON, England (AP) — British music giant EMI Group is preparing to cut up to 2,000 jobs, or about one-third of its work force…most of the cuts would be made in marketing…the Telegraph said Coldplay also was threatening to withhold new records unless it received assurances about marketing.
Quick - I think Coldplay is onto something here! Lets get billboards up all over town!!
This made me laugh pretty hard, i could relate to so much of this.
10 reasons we’re doomed, CES Edition
I first discovered Radiohead many years ago when they released OK Computer (you know - Karma Police, Paranoid Android etc…). I loved that album so much. Then they changed their sound and i lost interest in the band. Fast forward to today, about 10 years later. I’d be hearing lots of positive reviews for the latest album “In Rainbows” (both word of mouth & online) and thought i’d give it a shot so i picked it up. Let me tell you the last 2 days it’s all i’ve been listening to walking to work in the morning! It really is a great album. Or is it?
Have you ever tried to watch a comedy album when you were feeling depressed or in a bad mood? Ever try to introduce a friend or family member to something you thought was incredible, but they thought was garbage? Why does this happen?
It’s almost as if for every thing a person can choose to like or dislike, there is a massively complex combination lock protecting that decision. If you can find a way to ‘pick the lock’ & tap into these external variables & influence human emotion as a marketer, you could really see some big wins.
Most industries innovate from both ends:
- The outsiders go first because they have nothing to lose.
- The winners go next because they can afford to and they want to stay winners.
- It’s the mediocre middle that sits and waits and watches.
The mediocre record companies, mediocre A&R guys and the mediocre acts are struggling to stay in place. They’re nervous that it all might fall apart. So they wait. They wait for ‘proof’ that this new idea is going to work, or at least won’t prove fatal. (It’s the impulse to wait that made them mediocre in the first place, of course).
I think this applies to marketing products & services as well. Source.
Does your product/service satisfy a need or a want?
Next Friday is my last day at ‘a company’ in a online marketing / web developer role and some of the senior folks here think i’m immature or naive because i want to take a new approach with marketing. Since nobody in a position of power ‘gets it’, or has any interest in attempting to get it (or sell products for that matter apparently) i have to move on. The whole thing reminds me of this great scene from Back to the Future, which i think actually sums up my time at ‘the company’:
El oh el. Seriously though, for a real list of reasons why i’m leaving, read this post.
How does Apple continue to gain momentum? Is it because they have better advertising than Dell? Is it because their email marketing is more compelling? Damn unlikely. Apple makes remarkable products, and as a result most of their sales come from the incredible word of mouth marketing they get from existing customers. Is your company doing anything remarkable? If not, why not take that advertising budget and put it into developing something worth talking about?
CUPERTINO, California—October 22, 2007—Apple® today announced financial results for its fiscal 2007 fourth quarter ended September 29, 2007. The Company posted revenue of $6.22 billion and net quarterly profit of $904 million, or $1.01 per diluted share. These results compare to revenue of $4.84 billion and net quarterly profit of $542 million, or $.62 per diluted share, in the year-ago quarter. Gross margin was 33.6 percent, up from 29.2 percent in the year-ago quarter. International sales accounted for 40 percent of the quarter’s revenue.
Apple shipped 2,164,000 Macintosh® computers, representing 34 percent growth over the year-ago quarter and exceeding the previous quarterly record for Mac® shipments by 400,000. The Company sold 10,200,000 iPods during the quarter, representing 17 percent growth over the year-ago quarter. Quarterly iPhone™ sales were 1,119,000, bringing cumulative fiscal 2007 sales to 1,389,000.
“We are very pleased to have generated over $24 billion in revenue and $3.5 billion in net income in fiscal 2007,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO. “We’re looking forward to a strong December quarter as we enter the holiday season with Apple’s best products ever.”
“Apple ended the fiscal year with $15.4 billion in cash and no debt,” said Peter Oppenheimer, Apple’s CFO. “Looking ahead to the first quarter of fiscal 2008, we expect revenue of about $9.2 billion and earnings per diluted share of about $1.42.”
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