My “brands to watch” post was such a hit last year, I thought I’d share who I will be keeping my eye on in 2014. Some of these brands are sure to grow in the coming year, the future of others is less certain – but I’m pretty sure we’ll be hearing a lot about […]
Ron Johnson’s departure from J.C. Penney last week can be attributed to his low CQ, that is, Customer Quotient. Just as some leaders have been accused of low EQ, emotional quotient (defined as the ability to identify, assess, and control the emotions of oneself and of others), Johnson lacked the ability to identify, assess, and […]
If you’re looking for hot topics and insights on brands, businesses, and the people who work on them, here’s a digest of my content from the past month: brand experience: McDonald’s Metro: Lipstick on a Pig – a post about how McDonald’s new Metro concept only looks better, when it needs to actually be better […]
brand-as-business bit: A couple of sound bites connected for me recently. In a recent Bloomberg BusinessWeek piece entitled, “Has CNN’s All-News Strategy Become Old News?,” Alex Sherman writes about the cable networks’ reliance on “the story” to drive its audiences, unlike other networks that balance breaking news with opinions and personalities. Phil Grffin, president of […]
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 […]
New York Times’ Stephanie Clifford asked me for reactions to J. C. Penney’s recent presentation about the vision and path forward for the venerable chain. […]