If you want to know which direction the stock price of a company rolling out a new product is headed, there's no need to wait for sales figures. Just check out user-generated product reviews on the web. They're as good an early warning system as any that share prices may be headed for trouble.
Recent research suggests an alternative cause for the American obsession with super-sizing which could have broad implications for both marketers trying to sell ginormous portions and do-gooders hoping to wean the United States of Obesity off them: Many people may subconsciously buy giant packages and servings because doing so makes them feel more important.
Everywhere you look, there’s a hip new vodka here, a rich and hoppy craft beer there, and big, bold tastes on every shelf. The classic American pale light beer, however, is best known for being smooth, which is another way to say tasteless. So … who out there still drinks light beer?
Roughly 1 in 4 emails did not get through to you, me or anyone else from July through December 0f 2011.
In honor of Ikea’s recent foray into prefab housing, we took a look at some of the most famous brand-stretching in corporate history. Many, if not most, of these exercises fall flat on their faces, but when they pan out, brand extensions sometimes surpass their parent company’s wildest expectations. Got your own favorites? Let us know in the comments.
If the gap between the “stock” cars on the track and those driven on regular streets has never been wider, NASCAR and the auto industry are now intent on shifting that trend into reverse.
My grandparents had two criteria for buying a car: It had to be blue, and it had to be American. The last time they purchased a car was in the ’90s, when American car companies didn’t have the best reputations for quality or reliability. When a few members of the family’s younger generation brought up the possibility of my grandparents considering Asian and European makers, it was as if we were suggesting that they commit treason. “We have to buy American,” they said. End of conversation.
Living through the Great Depression, World War II, and the Cold War ingrained upon my grandparents and their generation that buying American was just a way of life. You brush your teeth in the morning, and you buy American. That sentiment has slipped in succeeding generations, but there appear to be signs that, to some extent, it is returning.
