Consumer Behavior / Markets Archives
Here you’ll find a collection of blog entries published under the Consumer Behavior / Markets category.
Evil Business Models: AT&T
By Bruce LaFetra on March 17, 2010
If you follow Nilofer or Mike, you know Nilofer got hit with a $10,000 mobile data bill from AT&T for a recent trip to Canada. Not only do the rates go up once you cross the border, the billing increment changes from MB to Kb! The net-net is mobile data service in while roaming Canada is 3000% the domestic rate. Yikes!
What’s a person to do? The charges are legitimate; albeit unconscionable no matter how one measures these things.
Canon Gets It
By Bruce LaFetra on November 16, 2009
I was looking at digital cameras on the web the other day, and Canon stopped me in my tracks. They have user reviews just like many resellers, but very few manufacturers. Reviews are prominently featured just below the fold on the initial page for each camera model. More than that, they collect the most common comments at the top and list them under “Pro” and “Con” sections. You read that correctly—Canon prominently lists top consumer complaints on their web site. Things like “poor low light performance,” “complicated to use controls/menu,” and “difficult to use.” Were the marketing people completely cut out of the loop?
Quantifying Collaboration
By Bruce LaFetra on September 9, 2009
One of the challenges with a qualitative process framework like the LOVE model is that it is hard quantify all the benefits, especially during the initial stages of adoption. The latest McKinsey Global Survey looks at the business benefits from Web 2.0. Operationalizing the LOVE model in practice leverages many aspects of Web 2.0, so the McKinsey data is perhaps the most relevant data we currently have for this type of approach.
Filling Your Company with LOVE: A new framework for understanding consumer relationships
By Bruce LaFetra on July 28, 2009
As companies see increasing value in social media campaigns, it is becoming apparent that the transactional-centric models currently used for tracking and measuring marketing campaigns are not up to the social media challenge. With social media campaigns often focused on brand building and driving engagement, the tools used to measure the impact on sales and brand are ill-suited to accurately measuring the full impact and value of social media campaigns.
The buying or sales funnel that has served marketers well for many years no longer works in an environment now centered on two-way and unstructured communications. A new framework developed at Rubicon Consulting, Inc., building on ideas originally conceived by Harry Max, offers the relationship-centric LOVE model as a replacement—and enhancement—for the transaction-based buying funnel.
Smartphones as appliances: Different phones for different usages
By Michael Mace on April 24, 2009
The growth of the mobile data marketplace is one of the bright spots for business in the current recession. Mobile carriers report increasing demand for data services, and Apple and Research in Motion both reported strong earnings aided by sales of their smartphone products.
Ars Technica: Pew Internet Report - Only half of US Netizens use search engine daily
By Marsha Keeffer on August 7, 2008
Ars Technica assistant editor Jacqui Cheng wakes us up to the fact that many Americans may be on the Internet, but they’re not surfing with the style we use in Silicon Valley. That smacking sound you just heard? It’s the…
Pricing as a Head Trip
By Bruce LaFetra on February 6, 2008
Can prices be set too low for consumers? A recent study by Dr. Antonio Rangel of CalTech says yes. Dr. Rangel observed the brain activity of subjects and found they exhibited more pleasure drinking wines when they thought they cost more. For those of us that study the finer points of pricing, this is a very interesting result. We all know that there is a sense to “you get what you pay for” that acts as a negative factor when evaluating the lowest priced alternatives. What Dr. Rangel has established is that there is more than the fear of getting stuck with an inferior product at work; people actually get more enjoyment from certain products if they think they cost more. The data communicated by the price is working not just at a rational level, but at an emotional level as well. That is, from the brain’s standpoint, these products are objectively better in a post-purchase environment.
The Man Behind Google’s Open Handset Alliance
By Marsha Keeffer on November 12, 2007
If there’s one thing users want, it’s open use of the technology they buy. Hacked iPhones bear testimony to the desire for open cellphone use that is free of carrier restrictions.
Google’s November 5th announcement of their mobile phone software…
Some good reads …
By Nilofer Merchant on July 8, 2007
I’d like to simply point you to some good articles with little commentary that I think are worth noting. Here, a great visual of every product Apple ever made since 1976. I became a customer in 1984, worked there from…
The guides
By Nilofer Merchant on March 22, 2007
I met last week with this incredibly zany guy named Nick Hayes of Influencer 50. His firm understands influencer marketing at a very deep level and he’s now in the Bay Area establishing a presence here. In doing so, he’s…
Google is your UI
By Nilofer Merchant on March 20, 2007
Let me paint a picture of the world today as a company sees it and then again as a customer experiences it. Company View: A company, say yours, has a “home page” where they organize the user experience so users…
3,000 marketing messages per day
By Nilofer Merchant on March 2, 2007
Today’s consumer receives over 3,000 marketing messages per day. That’s what Maritz Dialogue Marketing group says. Start counting and see how many you come up with in 1 hour. I think it holds true. Now the question I want to…
Mobile Users non Loyal … Explained
By Nilofer Merchant on March 2, 2007
Is anyone surprised by this content: Loyalty To Wireless Carriers Is Hard To Come By. By Antone Gonsalves TechWeb.com Two-thirds of U.S. adult mobile phone users comparison shop for wireless carriers, with more than two out of five doing so…
Top 10 Trends for 2007
By Nilofer Merchant on January 27, 2007
For work this month, I wrote some “top 10 trends” for what my team and I think should matter to those high-tech firms that want to win… details of all of these are available here. Top 10 Trends for 2007…
Power of the Influencer — Who is Yours?
By Nilofer Merchant on December 6, 2006
When you want to buy a new bbq, who do you ask? If you want to know which smartphone to buy, what blog do you go to? And if you’re looking for a school to enroll your kid, whose advice…
Symbiotic Relationships in Play
By Nilofer Merchant on November 30, 2006
One of the fundamental truths about the high technology market today, is that consumers have tremendous power. Market power used to be much like a big castle surrounded by high walls and a moat to control access — Dell, Intel,…
Web 3.0 & the Real Market Requirement
By Nilofer Merchant on November 12, 2006
You know the really cool thing about a summit full of smart people is that it causes a dialogue in the room and online. So what’s next on the consumer market front? Check out this article and the related Carr…
Blurred at Web 2.0 Summit
By Nilofer Merchant on November 11, 2006
Mary Meeker of Morgan Stanley is the only speaker I know that can get away with delivering slide content in such a fast pace that not only can you barely follow, but you can barely connect notes. But she is…
Go-to-market Mix in the Web 2.0 Era
By Nilofer Merchant on August 24, 2006
It’s been 40+ years since E. Jerome McCarthy published Basic Marketing, the business book that introduced the “4 Ps” (product, price, place/distribution and promotion) to the world. While the categories still hold true, what was once considered the leading edge…
Consumer technology matters but only to a few…
By Nilofer Merchant on August 21, 2006
Consumer technology matters, sure. But remember that most of consumer technology stuff is something people made up and then found someone willing to buy. I profess to have done this with web authoring software, and countless other tools. Consumer marketing…
Do you know what drives purchase?
By Nilofer Merchant on August 17, 2006
Consumer goods like P&G have always invested in knowing how their sales and marketing activities drive purchase. See this article from July 10th, by Ellen Byron featuring James Stengel who is the Global Marketing Officer for P&G. In it, Mr….
Give me that thing called [customer] Love
By Nilofer Merchant on July 26, 2006
Just got published on MarketingProfs for what will be a six-part series or “Summer Bootcamp for Business”. For those of you that aren’t familiar yet with MarketingProfs.com, it’s a great source for content and real-know from people in the field….
Solutions Drive Sales
By Nilofer Merchant on June 21, 2006
Check out this video. It was made using a Logitech webcam, and uses visual effects that come with the camera. Supposedly, it has triggered a big run on Logitech cameras. It shows that the solution (even if it’s silly —…
Sparked!
By Nilofer Merchant on May 10, 2006
Last night, a little venue called Spark was held. The notion was to connect really smart people - who are down-to-earth good leaders in high-tech - to learn from our firm the latest on transforming business and marketing models,…
Talk with, not At
By Nilofer Merchant on May 8, 2006
An industry commentary on how marketing in high-tech is changing. I think there’s way more ahead than banner ads and search word optimization when it comes to high-tech consumer marketing. I think that we will move from non-personal ways of advertising to customer engaged ways of connecting. I have provided some examples as illustrations and then provided what I think it means.
Video, video — oh how you’ve changed
By Nilofer Merchant on May 3, 2006
A brainiac Rubicon teammate, Bruce LaFetra did a commentary in our last newsletter on the changing drivers of digital video capture. The premise is that the 15 second shots of video capture on digital cameras made more sense to…
The Customer Experience: The Design Moment of Truth
By Nilofer Merchant on April 9, 2006
Business 2.0 ran an article this month on their ‘2nd annual bottom line design awards’. The article promised to “go beyond surface beauty to single out objects that look good not just in pictures, but also on their makers’ income…
Why company blogging really makes sense
By Nilofer Merchant on March 30, 2006
In these days where execs get so far removed from consumers that the only time they see them is when they are behind the glass walls of a focus group forum, I think blogging really makes sense. With it,…
Genuine vs. Canned Customer Nurturing
By Nilofer Merchant on March 26, 2006
Ever see those banners that say ‘we love our customers’. Do you ever believe them? Customer relationships are more than good intentions. It means setting the intention to pamper good customers and investing in the technology and processes to make…
Community is what we all seek
By Nilofer Merchant on March 25, 2006
Just finished a book, Plainsong, that my stepdaughter lent me. It’s an interesting story of 2 brother farmers, a pregnant high-schooler, two young boys deserted by their mother, and so on. Good book and well written. The richness of the…
B2C Marketing Has Its Nuances
By Nilofer Merchant on March 8, 2006
Last weekend I wrote about Cisco entering multiple, disparate markets at the same time. While I thought that vertical strategy appears to be a good fit with the strengths and their customer needs, I thought their consumer play would challenge…