Straight Talk | Ted Rubin

We want to believe that with a careful multi-faceted marketing strategy, we can protect our brand message and keep it from getting diluted or changed as it gets further from our reach.  The truth is, there are many things you cannot control about your brand… especially now that consumers have the power of social media [...]

“If you figure out how to harness the power of female customers, you can rock the world,” says Aileen Lee in her recent TechCrunch guest post, “Why Women Rule the Internet.” This declaration is music to my ears and one of the primary reasons I have joined organizations that truly prioritize building relationships with female [...]

Market research can be tricky because people have a tendency toward giving you the answers they think you want.  It is simply human nature, and something we marketers must pay attention to. In the past, the solution to avoiding this skewed feedback has been to provide ways for current and potential customers to give anonymous feedback.  [...]

Originally posted at SheSpeaks The recent Yahoo study suggesting that Dads rule the grocery shopping cart is causing a stir in the marketing community with article headlines like “Time to Rethink Your Message: Now the Cart Belongs to Daddy.” The study shows that out of 2,400 US men (ages 18-64), 51% of them report they [...]

Originally posted at SheSpeaks In the past, marketing owned the brand, using a tightly controlled set of messages piped through carefully selected channels to ensure brand “ownership” through control….but that’s no longer the case.  The increasing integration of social media into our consumers’ lives has shifted brand ownership away from marketers and into the hands of the consumer. [...]