by Stephen Denny on January 9, 2012
(This is the second in a two-part blog-exchange on brand decision-making I’m doing with Denise Lee Yohn. I kicked things off last week with a post called “Killing Retail Giants” and today Denise answers the questions I posed to her about retail small businesses. We’re both teaching sessions in the Marketing Profs University course, Marketing Your Small [...]
Email This Post
by Stephen Denny on December 14, 2009
Coke won. I don’t care about the specifics, the back room negotiations or whatever happened in Kirkland. Coca Cola has won a resounding victory, not just in retail distribution but in branding, brand power and market muscle. Of the three players in this comic drama, Costco is cast as the petulant child who reluctantly is forced [...]
Email This Post
by Stephen Denny on July 7, 2008
Dear CMO: I hate it when retailers tell me what I can’t do. I hate hearing that they’ve got a “clean floor policy” and that my signage doesn’t match their color scheme. I hate hearing that they won’t accept value-added promotions because they’d rather have us pass the savings on to them. I’d rather play [...]
Email This Post
by Stephen Denny on November 11, 2007
Dear CMO: Seth Godin’s Sunday post discusses (non) branding in an unbranded world, which he illustrates with a vignette from the mattress business. His point is that while many marketers are excited about entering an unbranded marketplace and attempting to create one, usually by outspending the field, they rarely succeed because their product — like [...]
Email This Post
by Stephen Denny on October 18, 2007
Dear CMO: Forgive the blurry picture, above. This is about as clear as I usually see when I get my obligatory Tall Latte at my local Starbucks. I came across this the other morning and wanted to drop a note extolling the virtues of whoever put this together. Did you know that Starbucks is just [...]
Email This Post