brands, retailers: not surprisingly, even in a recession the middle is death!

Its been years since BCG wrote Trading Up followed by the emergence of the corrolary: trading down – a pair of trends where consumers were essentially willing to sacrifice in one category that they purchase in to splurge in another. For example, when my wife and I were setting up our deck, we bought a [...]

Three things that social media marketers can learn from email marketers (direct mail marketers and telemarketers too)

As social media becomes the new “it thing” for marketers to think about, we’ve stopped talking about the previous “it thing” – email marketing and its other direct marketing cousins: direct mail and telemarketing. But, traditional direct marketing is still highly effective and remains the preferred choice of many consumers when it comes to hearing [...]