Category Archives: What’s Going On

May 17, 2011 · 8:38 am

Whose Brand Is It Anyway

Her’s a question to start the day:  Does a brand belong to the company or to the customer?  Before you give me a knee-jerk reaction, think about it for a second.  Does “New Coke” ring a bell?  The company put out what it believed to be a better product and customers demanded that they restore the product to its former state.  That’s the best example in my mind but I’m sure you can think of others.

The reason I bring it up this morning is a video I watched from Shore Communications in which John Blossom and Peter Propp discuss the Microsoft acquisition of Skype and how it might affect both brands.  I’ve embedded the video below and you might want to spend 10 minutes to watch.  In the interim, here’s my take. Continue reading →

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May 3, 2011 · 9:13 am

The Shrinking Universe

Image representing Nielsen as depicted in Crun...

Image via CrunchBase

I know I sometimes get a bit “out there” with some of these posts.  Today might be one of those but hopefully you find the tidbit I’m about to discuss as interesting as I do.

Those of you who are outside of the media business might not be aware that Nielsen, the ratings company, updates what are called “universe estimates” every year.  This is to reflect the growth in households and of the numbers of people who live in them.  Those ratings you see reported are percentages of a universe – a 10 rating means 10% of what’s being measured – homes, Men, Women 18-34 – was watching.  Percentages are constant; universes aren’t, and this is where it gets interesting.  Let’s see what you think. Continue reading →

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April 26, 2011 · 11:55 am

The Budget

U.S. Federal Spending FY 2008

Image via Wikipedia

I think we all know by now that politics is not a topic of conversation in this space.  However, sometimes things going on  in politics lead us to insights about business and hopefully that’s the case today.

You’re probably aware that there’s a “discussion” of sorts going on with respect to the Federal Budget (I use quotes because it often seems to be less of a discussion than a topic about which to issue press releases stressing one’s unwavering position as if that’s helping us all).    I’m kind of amused that all we seem to hear about is how we need to cut spending (we do) and not a lot about how to grow revenues.  Which of course got me thinking about it in business terms. Continue reading →

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