What's in Store

This Picture sums up the shopping experience I had at Best Buy when looking for wearable fitness technology---empty shelves and no help. I was back in the market for a wearable fitness device and decided to go to Best Buy and pick one up. Previously, I had three Jawbone Up wrist bands and the batteries wouldn't hold a charge. Jawbone replaced the bands for me but when the third one died after a couple of months I gave up. The company said you could wear them continuously, even in the shower, but think the waterproof aspect wasn't up to par. I then switched to a cheaper Fitbit that clipped to my clothes. I put it in the laundry and washed it. That one was now dead and I decided to give up on it. Fast forward about a year, and I decided to dip my toes back in the market. I went to the wearable technology aisle at Best Buy and was greeted with a number of really nice point-of-purchase displays from the various manufacturers. Clearly, a lot of money had gone...

I was at Target the other day to pick up some staples for the house and I needed laundry detergent. I have been a Tide customer for a long time. I usually get the regular liquid and then I had to switch to HE (high efficiency) formula when we bought a new washer. Later, I opted for the pods because they leave no mess plus I no longer have young children who might mistake them for candy. This last time I went to pick up my usual pods, I also needed some Non-HE pods for my neighbor (I suggested she try pods). I couldn't find any. I started to look at every Tide package on the shelf and became so overwhelmed with the options, I almost switched brands right on the spot. I opted for a Non-HE Liquid because I couldn't find a pod version. This exercise forced me to look at all of the Tide product and it almost caused a brand-loyal customer to jump ship. This is a view from one side of the aisle and all of this is Tide This is a view of the other side of the aisle and 2/3...

When I stumbled upon the Kodak printer at retail back around 2007-2008, I was impressed by the branding work they had done. It was cohesive, engaging and fun. On top of that, they seemed to have solved a major consumer pain point---the cost of ink. But wait a minute, that doesn't make sense. This is supposed to be the business model where you practically give the hardware away so you make money on the consumables. With digital photography on the rise and Kodak's ability to sell film going down, it was a logical product line extension---photo inkjet printers. Don't charge much for the printer, attach the cost of paper and ink. It's the same business model they had for their cameras but they weren't following that model.   It was a great brand name with ties to printing and photography. So why did this product fail? Bottomline, it just wasn't a very good printer. In addition to this, and I'm only making an...

I posted an article about some very interesting interactive advertising for the water enhancement liquid call Mio back in 2012 when this category was fairly new: Totally Interactive Advertising . It is hard to create print advertising that truly stands out so I was eager to share the concept. (Basically, you dip the ad in water and it recreates what the product does when added to a glass of water.) Since then the category has matured. More brands have joined Mio on shelf and Mio has continued to create brand extensions. Here is how many brands there are to choose from now. It is truly overwhelming: Right next to these liquid water enhancers are their forefathers, the powered water enhancers, such as Crystal Light and the original grand daddies of them all Tang and Kool-Aid: We all know why this proliferation of products starts.The Krafts of this world need to be innovative and come up with different product categories to make us consume more. Do we really need this many wa...