Branding

What โ€˜High School Musicalโ€™ Taught Me About Direct Marketing
August 21, 2007

By now, most of you know that the Disney Channel juggernaut โ€œHigh School Musical,โ€ is perhaps the most powerful brand in America right now. Witness the premiere on Aug. 17 of the highly anticipated sequel, โ€œHigh School Musical 2,โ€ which whipped Americaโ€™s โ€œtweenersโ€ (kids ages 6 to 14) into a frenzy โ€” and their parents into buying action.
As of this writing, the sequelโ€™s soundtrack has taken over the No. 1 position on iTunes. And of course, my 7-year-old had to have his soundtrack immediately after the movie aired. That means that for the next few months there will be only one CD playing

How to Use Customer Service as a Branding Tool
July 24, 2007

In his new book, โ€œThe Brand Who Cried Wolf: Deliver on Your Companyโ€™s Promise and Create Customers for Lifeโ€ (Wiley, April $24.95), author Scott Deming outlines several ways to effectively brand your business through customer service. Here are a few of his tips. 1. Deliver on your promises. When individuals and your company fail to deliver on your brand promises, you wonโ€™t create or maintain uniqueness in your brand categories, Deming says. It causes a lack of brand loyalty among customers, making them just more likely to go for someone elseโ€™s product over yours. Conversely, if a company over-delivers on its promises, itโ€™s able

Replogle Globes Rebrands With New Catalog and Binder System
June 1, 2007

Replogle Globes, a cataloger of globes and other classroom tools, encountered several problems when it came to its 24-page catalog. The book wasnโ€™t updated frequently โ€” the last issue was dated 2004-2005 โ€” and the layout made it difficult for buyers to find what they were seeking. โ€œThe products went from most expensive to least expensive in the catalog,โ€ says Maureen Kehoe, Replogleโ€™s direct market manager. โ€œBy the time educational purchasers got to the back of the book where there were products on an entry level, theyโ€™d probably lost interest.โ€ Replogle, a B-to-B cataloger that only sells to dealers, hired Madison, Wisc.-based Planet Propaganda, which had

Re-examining the Industryโ€™s Conferences and How to Cover Them
May 18, 2007

This is my 21st go-round attending ACCM, the Annual Conference for Catalog and Multichannel Merchants (did I get that whole thing right?), being held May 21-23 in Boston. For my first 18, I was part of the assorted parent companies that co-sponsored the event with the DMA. But for the past two, as a press attendee and not a part-host, Iโ€™ve picked up a different perspective on this event as well as on some other conferences. Actually, I take that back: This year, Iโ€™m sort of a part-host again on the other side of the partnership since I was recently named chairman/editor of the

Catalog Marketing: Michael Tiernan Details Boston Properโ€™s โ€˜Sexyโ€™ Evolution
April 24, 2007

The Boston Proper catalog has come a long way since it was liquidated back in 1991. So, too, has the company that bought its name and list for a song at that time ($100,000) and propelled it to greater heights ever since. That firm โ€” once known as The Mark Group, so named after its former flagship catalog, Mark, Fore & Strike โ€” renamed itself Boston Proper three years ago, based on the success of the catalog and divestiture of the country club apparel title, Mark, Fore & Strike, as well as the gifts and home furnishings catalog, Charles Keith. Through it all has been

Marketing Partnerships: How You Can Play Nice-Nice, Just Like Hanover and Sears
April 17, 2007

In a roundtable discussion held on April 11 during a Hudson Valley DMA luncheon in Greenwich, Conn., Hanover Direct Vice President of Corporate Marketing Amy Schilder led a group on the best practices involved in partnership marketing. Specifically, she pointed out that partnerships with other marketing companies require several key components in order for them to work for both parties. Below are several take-away pointers from the discussion in which she focused primarily on Hanoverโ€™s own partnership with Sears, in which Sears offers a line of clothing from Hanoverโ€™s Silhouettes catalog. * Make sure both partnersโ€™ goals are in line with one another. In the Sears-Silhouettes

Prepare Your Reps
April 1, 2007

Before you work out an upsell pitch, resolve the original reason for the customerโ€™s call. If possible, use this original impetus or the specifics of your resolution to craft your customized approach. Find out if customers would rather place their orders online. Then the rep will need to get them to clickthrough to the right links. (Or, would customers rather the rep take care of that for them?) Also decide which screens you want customers to see while reps are handling the processing end. Your reps should have experience viewing different browsersโ€™ characteristics and should know what the different browser screens and screen sizes

Cataloger Spotlight: Lillian Vernon
April 1, 2007

Having topped out at $287 million nearly six years ago, Lillian Vernonโ€™s sales have been falling ever since; itโ€™s expected to finish out its fiscal year at about $170 million. But the bleeding could stop soon. A public company until 2003, the general mer-chandise cataloger was sold to investment conglomerate Direct Holdings, led by media company Zelnick Media. But despite an aggressive game plan to broaden Lillian Vernonโ€™s reach, Direct Holdingsโ€™ initiatives largely backfired. Direct Holdings bailed out in May 2006 and sold Lillian Vernon to investment firm Sun Capital Partners, which installed former Miles Kimball CEO Mike Muoio to turn the company

B-to-B Cataloging: Cast a Powerful Net
March 1, 2007

Finding and retaining good employees tops the list of major concerns for catalogers. Often catalog companies are located in less populated areas, where finding qualified staff is a challenge. If youโ€™re located in a larger city, you face the challenge of losing your trained staff to other companies. Salary, benefits and work environment are important for employees. But an overlooked aspect of employee retention is brand. Brand not only helps attract and retain customers, but itโ€™s also essential for attracting and retaining good employees. A good gauge of whether customers will want to shop at your company is whether employees want to work there.

B-to-B Cataloging: Whoโ€™s Buying? Whoโ€™s Working?
March 1, 2007

A crucial point of your brand inventory is to take a look at the most important element of your business: your customers. Who are your customers and why do they buy from you? Why do your customers identify with your company? Are your customers high end, wanting the best? Are they unpretentious with solid reputations? Your customers are identifying with your company. Discover more about them, and youโ€™ll discover more about where your business should focus its efforts. Next ask, who are your employees? Are they highly trained wanting to continue their professional development? Are they innovators looking for new ideas to improve the company?