All Posts
Everyone Needs A Fit
date: 03/22/2013 by: bill field
category: Marketing Strategy
CrossFit has to be one of the most unique and interesting marketing and branding stories of the past decade. The beauty is in the simplicity of the business model - an affiliate strategy that works with the ability to mold and tailor the CrossFit brand on an individual basis where everyone fits in and is welcome.
It’s A Steep Fall
date: 03/12/2013 by: bill field
category: Marketing Strategy
Don Draper falling off a building in the “Mad Men” opening credits may be a creative metaphor, or is it? In some ways it’s an accurate depiction of what many products face in today’s game changing, product life cycle world. The product life cycle curve that’s been taught and followed for years is rapidly becoming irrelevant. Today brands get introduced, mature, grow and decline in a blink of the eye.
In the Spirit of Total Domination
date: 02/25/2013 by: bill field
category: Channel Marketing
The story of big boxes invading a market category and obliterating every small retailer that stands in their way has been covered and played out extensively and exhaustively. You would think that by now every category has seen its own equivalent of “super-sized” competitors. Although the liquor industry has seen their share of big-box lite liquor warehouses, nothing comes close to Total Wine which opened recently in Norwalk, Connecticut. Their shopping experience blew me away – 8,000 different wine selections, 3,000 spirit types and 2,500 different kinds of beer spread out across an expansive 30,000 square foot retail landscape featuring smart design and hardwood floors.
Jobs – The First Order of Business
date: 02/04/2013 by: bill field
category: Brand Strategy
For well over four years now, we’ve constantly heard the never ending unemployment reports that continually drum beat the latest jobless stats. Unlike during previous economic recessions, for the first time more college-educated professionals find themselves unemployed than those in traditional blue collar trades. It’s changed the accepted recession paradigm and has ratcheted up the argument about the value of a college education.With young professionals saddled with mountains of college loan debt and unable to pay it back, you’d think colleges would take notice.
Tanning Salons – Not Taking it Lying Down
date: 01/28/2013 by: bill field
category: Business Challenges
Mom and Pop stores are a thing of the past in today’s franchise laden world. It wasn’t too long ago that you could walk into a stand-alone video store or frequent a locally owned McDonald’s. That doesn’t happen often anymore as brands require franchise owners with significant assets that enable owning multiple store locations. Mom and Pops need not inquire. It’s far too cost prohibitive.
The Doctor Is In
date: 01/04/2013 by: bill field
category: Marketing Strategy
There is usually opportunity if you look hard enough for it. Every category and channel has undiscovered and untapped white spaces. The challenge is finding them. No industry segment is going through more unprecedented upheaval than the medical category. All the unknowns of the Affordable Care Act loom large. How do doctors remain relevant and survive in the new medical world order that’s coming down the track?
Your Table is Ready
date: 12/21/2012 by: bill field
category: Business Challenges
In the technology brand game, success is fleeting. It very much mirrors the restaurant business – here today, gone tomorrow. Blazing hot one day, ice cold the next as users search out the trendy product or place. It’s interesting to see the battle shaping up between a niche technology player in Open Table and the restaurant communities they serve – accounting for over half of the full-service restaurants.
See Dick's Brand. See Dick's Sell.
date: 12/18/2012 by: bill field
category: Brand Strategy
The big box game of retail is certainly not for the faint of heart. Today's dominant market position is tomorrow's brand laggard. The product life cycle is not kind to brands that refuse to innovate. You're either distinct or you're extinct.
