Promotions and sales are a lever. But if pulled too often they become your brand. (See: JCPenny)
discounting and promotions in general is a place where retailers all too frequently get caught up in the short-term goal of juicing sales, get caught up in the short-term goal of taking advantage of promotional environments by using promotions as a lever, again, to drive conversion and the short-term.
what gets very dangerous there is that you can really erode the value of your brand.
Competing on price is hard.
Compete on something that makes you unique and use sales and promos as sprinkles.
The 2024 holiday shopping season proved splintering is still the trend.
One other thing that I saw was this growing divide between higher and lower, and middle income consumers.
There really is a growing divide between people who feel pretty good, are spending, they’re going out to eat and those who are pinching pennies.
you see a growing split on the haves and have-nots within retailers.
…
It sounds like the haves and have-nots are really maybe going to be the water we’re all swimming in as we enter this new year.
Like when a frozen pond cracks, the splinters are still spreading.
Brand vs. Performance marketing? Trick question.
Brand equity is the foundation—it’s Job #1 for any marketing team.
Brand marketing is now discovery marketing. Discovery leads performance.
Without a brand, there is no performance.
Performance marketing can drive quick sales, but it’s brand-building that gives consumers a reason to buy again and again.
Brand marketing and performance marketing aren’t two different disciplines. They’re just measured on two different timelines.
Advice from the guy behind the Gorillaz videos, Pete Candeland:
You always try to build entertainment almost like a ladder — or steps — going up to a climax. Like a little story. You want to keep people involved by giving them just enough to want to know what’s going to happen next.
In a short video, it’s about what comes in the next 20 seconds, and then the next 20 seconds, and then the next. It’s an escalating ramp-up of interest, and sometimes a ramp-up of activity and richness of imagery.
Research has shown that rhymes are more memorable. But I much prefer this way of saying it from the Weird Studies podcast
Sound—rhyme and meter, or musical measure—whether we’re talking about poetry or whether we’re talking about music is absolutely the handmaid of memory. Of how things get into the heart.
The function of your message is important. The content must be worth the attention.
But the form determines its reach. This is the vehicle of transmission.