Zynga’s Success Inspiring for Entrepreneurs

It wasn’t so long ago that Sergey Brin and Larry Page were scrapping together servers from spare parts to build what would become the most successful search engine in the world. Nor, was it so long that Mark Zuckerberg dropped out of Harvard to…

Luxury’s Love Affair with High-Tech

Robot housemaids, electric cars, personal commuter airplanes and all the insanely impossible kitchen gadgetry imaginable. For nearly a century, the World’s Fair has illustrated American’s strong association between luxury and technology. Tech enhances our ability to connect with the world and how the world connects with us. It maximizes our time and extends our pleasure. [...]

Amazon Mobile Sales Eclipse $1 Billion

Amazon customers spent more than $1 billion via mobile devices in the past 12 months, including sales by Kindle and other mobile devices. The deeper story here is how Amazon was able to engage and monetize users to amass $1 billion in sales and how you, in…

The Golden Wall of China

China’s nouveau riche are experiencing a Rumspringa of their own, but careful to not swing too far. The Chinese market is trying to find its prestigious identity among established luxury brands in Europe and America. In fact, many affluent Chinese reject…

The State of Luxury Today

In 2009, the Great Recession brought great panic to the luxury industry. Lower-rung affluents tightened their budgets, slowed luxury spending, causing many prestige brands to consider the sinful thought of: discounting. Coach and Nordstroms bit the…

Microsoft Rallies Team With 90,000+ Free Windows Phone 7

Microsoft recently announced its attempts to turn employees into evangelists by giving away 90,000+ of its latest mobile device, Windows Phone 7. Microsoft’s brand advocacy strategy might not help generate revenues in the short-term (90,000+ phones…

Apple iPhone 4 vs. Motorola Droid X: The Aftermath

I’ll save you 10 minutes of your life: after playing around with the phones, the reviewers state the winner comes down to personal preferences. The technical specs and pricing comparisons of the iPhone 4 and Droid X are simply too close to call. However, now that both phones are in the hands of consumers, has a clear winner appeared?

2010 Luxury Trend Report

Indiana Jones-inspired, five-figure vacations, the Chinese economic boom, social network-themed martini lounges, the perceived value of discounted prestige brands. The 2010 luxury market is all over the map after a year of budget-tightening and nervous…

Playboy’s Internet Strategy: The Smoking Jacket

Playboy’s unveiled its Internet strategy in the form of TheSmokingJacket last week. The headlines read: “Playboy launches nudity-free website aimed at bored office workers seeking laughs.” What is the goal, and will this internet property succeed?

Playboy, an iconic brand that peaked many years ago, faces many of the same “challenges as its peers in the media industry: increased competition for consumer attention in the face of shrinking overall spending in the television and print businesses, the migration of advertisers to other platforms, higher manufacturing costs and the uncertainty created by the current state of the global economy…

Marketing Analysis Builds Market Intelligence

“An investment in knowledge pays the best interest,” writes Benjamin Franklin. For marketers, marketing research and analysis is an investment that pays off. Build your market intelligence from the basics (market scan and brand audit), to more advanced research (customer and product analysis). Once you’ve implemented a marketing campaign it, too, requires analysis to…

Interactive Brand Marketing Strategies

Brand marketers are often asked, what is the difference between a company and a brand? An overly simple answer is: companies do while brands feel. Companies are tactical and functional with a goal of profits while brands are aspirational and make an…

Internet Marketing Trends

Internet marketing and online branding continues their rapid growth as evidenced by the recent announcement by Unilever that they are doubling internet advertising spend in 2010…

Clients Seek Winning Digital Marketing Agency

Digital marketing was the number one (69 percent) ranked marketing tactic most sought by clients, according to an AdWeek survey of 184 marketing clients from companies including AT&T, Dunkin’ Brands, Merck, MetLife and Revlon. In fact, digital marketing is…

Effective Social Media Strategies To Generate Sales Leads

To reach 50 million users, it took Radio 38 years, TV 13 years, the Internet 4 years, Apple’s iPod 3 years while Facebook added 100 million users in just nine months. Social media is a cross-cultural, political, gender and generation phenomenon and…