17 February 09
Last week Microsoft announced that they will be launching a retail store experience. This move is no doubt drawing comparisons to Apple’s successful efforts in this area. Nobody, including myself, can venture to guess what this experience might look like. With its tightly controlled marriage of hardware and software Apple has a complete package. Microsoft doesn’t.
Not to worry! Microsoft has brought on David Porter (pictured), a 25 year Wal*Mart veteran to head up creating this retail experience. Um ... what?
These guys really should have paired this announcement with more information on the (hopefully) innovative partner that they’ve chosen to design these stores ... say IDEO or Rem Koolhaas.
For some reason “cool” never sticks to Microsoft. I’ve tinkered around with a Zune in a store and think it’s pretty cool — but have never seen one in the wild. The XBox was successful in gaining market share over Sony’s PS3 — but I don’t think that the Microsoft brand has really gotten the halo effect (no pun intended).
Who knows, maybe we’ll all be surprised just like we were when we saw Surface. I won’t be holding my breath though.
06 February 09
Looking to sound smart in front of clients or at cocktail parties? No problem. The books that can help you are easy to spot at your local bookstore. The serif typefaces give them the a scholarly look. The no-nonsense white canvas says “I mean business” and makes the buzz-word titles easy to spot. The sound bite on the cover gives you the immediate satisfaction of feeling smarter before you’ve even opened the book.
We laugh and we cringe when someone quotes from one of the white books. Yet we can’t stop buying them.
05 February 09
This past Tuesday Microsoft confirmed that it has no intention of making the purchase of the highly anticipated Windows 7 any less confusing that purchasing Vista.
The product SKU’s are as follows:
- Windows 7 Starter
- Windows 7 Home Basic
- Windows 7 Home Premium
- Windows 7 Professional
- Windows 7 Enterprise
- Windows 7 Ultimate
The only thing you can intuit from this list is that the Enterprise edition is clearly for enterprises. But, what’s the difference between Starter, Home Basic, and Home Premium? And what’s the difference between Professional and Ultimate?
While retailers will mostly be carrying Home Premium and Professional, online retailers carry more. And a lot of us are purchasing software online where the abundance of product selection and bundles can be quite daunting.
Why does Microsoft seem determined to require consumers to spend hours of research to understand feature sets? This move firmly keeps Microsoft’s brand in the “we don’t get it” camp.
The Internet is afire with negativity at this announcement, which is an unfortunate backlash to all the much needed positive buzz Microsoft had around the beta release of Windows 7 these past few months.
Engadget has a breakout of the feature sets.
31 January 09
Buy ten sandwiches, get the eleventh free. Earn one point for every mile. Spend $100 and get a $5 rewards certificate. Ten percent off the first Tuesday of every month. Three percent cash back.
Loyalty programs have a variety of structures. When they work, they work great. When they don’t, they can damage your affinity for a brand. In certain highly-competitive markets business and brands are going above and beyond to forge a loyal relationship with their customers.
According to Consumer Reports “about 85 percent of of U.S. households participate in at least one rewards program.” My wife and I have participated in several over the years with varying results. Here’s a look at a few of them — the good and the bad.
30 January 09
SALT Branding recently released a report on trends in branding for 2009. I’d be surprised if there was anything in here a competent brand manager or marketer wouldn’t already know. But nonetheless, they’ve done a good job refining into a nice, easy to read package. And smarter still is the timely tie in to branding in a recession.
Eight years later though, I’m still waiting for someone to reference something besides Nike-iD. Sheesh.