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If we all don’t die falling off the fiscal cliff, 2013 will prove to be an interesting year for brands and businesses. The following are five (well, actually six) brands I’ll be keeping my eye on next year.  Importantly, these are not necessarily brands that I think will fare well (predicting the future is not […]

Unlike a Thanksgiving dinner, this buffet isn’t going to weigh you down or put you to sleep.  It’s a sampling of my best bits of content  this past month.  Check out: what great brands do — a recap by Annette Franz Gleneicki of the talk I gave at the SoCal Customer Experience Professionals Association event why windows 8? — a […]

brand-as-business bit:  last week Best Buy‘s new CEO Hubert Joly met with analysts and journalists to share his plan to turnaround the struggling electronics chain (you can check out a debrief of his presentation from Businessweek). His plan features several smart moves — the highlights: expanding Best Buy’s private-label business, which includes the Insignia and Rocketfish brands […]

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brand-as-business bit:  In a recent feature, Bloomberg Businessweek detailed “The Battle for Best Buy, the Incredible Shrinking Big Box.”  It was an informative piece about the retailer’s challenges but what caught my eye were the stats outlining key retail metrics: first, real estate — Costco leads the pack of featured retailers at $1,031 and GameStop […]

brand-as-business bit:  Hindsight is 20/20. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the history books of failed brands.  Julian Day, RadioShack’s former Chairman-CEO, probably has a few regrets.  Although Day has been out of RadioShack’s hot seat for a year, his leadership marked the beginning of the brand’s demise. With Best Buy fighting for its […]

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Super Bowl advertisers could learn a thing or two from Eli Manning. The Giants’ quarterback threw some crisp, clean passes in Sunday’s Super Bowl because he was crystal clear about who the intended receiver was.  Moreover he used his insights about the receiver – how fast he could run, how well he could outmaneuver the […]

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Hi folks!  Trying a new feature this year — a monthly round-up of my published content. It’s a mental buffet of ideas that may seem schizophrenic at times (I do work on fast food restaurants as well as fitness brands, after all!), but it’s all in the service of helping companies understand and apply the […]

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The sessions at eTail, the conference for multi-channel and online retailers, were chock full of new perspectives and new technologies. The title for this year’s event, held last month in Palm Springs, was:  “The Future Is Now: Managing ‘What’s Next’ While Remaining Focused on Today’s Brand Experience.” […]

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Coming off the heels of what appears to have been a successful holiday sales season, optimism about how business will fare in the New Year is understandable.  But I don’t feel comfortable making any specific predictions, so I think I’ll keep this my first post of 2011 a neutral one and simply outline five of […]