For nearly 25 years, I was a partner in an ad agency that had a great roster of national and international clients including the 1994 Winter Olympics in Lillehammer, Norway, the Chilean Image Campaign, celebrating Chile’s return to democracy, and domestically, companies like L.L.Bean, Sebago and many food and beverage companies in Europe and the […]
Separating winners from losers in the wine industry
If you read Mike Veseth’s “Theories of the Global Wine Glut “in last week’s Wine Economist and his followup to that article this week or looked at a lot of the recent sales data, you know there’s a problem. “The world is swimming wine” As Veseth points out, “Wine consumption fell during the COVID-19 pandemic […]
Customer Knowledge Is Not Valuable Unless It’s Actionable
Last week, Knowledge at Wharton (their business school’s newsletter) sent out a promotion for a book titled “The Customer Base Audit” by three esteemed college professors. The authors believe an audit is “the first step on the journey to customer centricity”. I can’t argue with that or many of the other points they make about how […]
The answers to 3 simple questions determine success
There is a lot that you would like to learn from your customers and there’s no shortage of data or ways to get it. But what you really need to know in order to succeed are the answers to the three questions above. In the past, I’ve asked many CEOs , “Why do your customers […]
Lessons We Can All Take From The Decline In DTC Wine Sales
5 Questions To Ask Consumers are buying more wine than a year ago. That’s the good news and if you don’t look past that, everything looks rosy. DTC sales are still well above pre-pandemic levels but scratch the surface a bit and there are some reasons to ask questions on how the industry is encouraging […]
A look back at Direct to Consumer for the wine industry but others take note
I published a blog post titled “DTC Wine Shipments are growing at a record pace. How long will it last?” in April of 2017. In it, I wrote about the euphoria around a 17% increase for DTC shipments the previous year. Several years before the pandemic, DTC was growing rapidly and Covid-19 gave it additional […]
How smart is AI? Not smart enough.
The world is abuzz about AI and how it’s going to revolutionize our future in both good and bad ways. Hardly a day goes by when we don’t see an article in a major publication about it. Truth be told, we’ve been fascinated by it and have been looking at various AI tools to help […]
Why are you spending so much on social media when engagement is so low?
According to Statista, 2021 will see social network spending in the U.S. rise to nearly $50 billion. Research conducted by The Content Factory indicates that “the average organization spends between $200 and $350 per day on social media marketing. This works out to be between $6,000 $10,500 per month or between $72,000 and $126,000 per […]
Big Changes in Digital Marketing Are on the Way
This is the year to invest in and revise your digital marketing plan. Why? Two big changes are coming in 2022: These two changes will revolutionize how we interact with consumers over email, text and on the Internet. If you didn’t know, first take a breath. Then, download this excellent article and overview of the changes from McKinsey […]
Is your customer data just a rearview mirror?
Over the past five years, the amount of data being acquired by marketers has risen steadily but here are three key questions: If you’re like most companies, you’ve acquired information on where your customers live, their gender, age and transactional history with your company. If you’re using a email marketing platform, you may also know […]