Your brain decides where a product ranks before you even look at it. Over the past year, the trade war turned grocery shopping into something a little … different. A loyalty test. Here in Canada, Canadian flags started appearing beside products on store shelves. Consumers started scrutinizing labels for the country of origin. Social media filled with lists of products to buy and ones to avoid, and apps emerged to help scan and filter in the aisles. And then some oddball situations emerged....
2 days ago • 2 min read
Customers don’t build loyalty around free stuff nearly as much as brands THINK they do. Most loyalty programs still operate like corporate junk drawers. Collect enough points and eventually you can redeem them for a branded coffee mug (Hooray!), tote bag, discount coupon, or some blandly upgraded version of the thing you already bought. And then companies wonder why engagement sucks. A new study analyzing experiential versus material rewards found that experiences consistently drove stronger...
3 days ago • 1 min read
Connecting comes from understanding who your customers actually are IRL, rather than who they dream of being for thirty seconds. If you’ve never shopped at Aldi, it’s one of Europe’s most successful grocery chains, famous for delivering surprisingly good products at surprisingly low prices. Think of it as a supermarket built around the idea that value is a customer advantage, instead of a compromise. Knowing that helps understand their latest campaign, launched yesterday. The ad promotes a...
4 days ago • 2 min read
The strongest brand rivalries turn products into exciting cultural stories. A fascinating new marketing study proves something many of us see instinctively: consumers pay far more attention when brands publicly challenge their rivals. Not just competitors … Bitter rivals. The researchers analyzed more than 1.5 million social media posts and found that messages directed at rivals generated significantly more engagement than posts aimed at ordinary competitors or posts that ignored competitors...
5 days ago • 2 min read
A crafty marketing move is making people briefly say: “Wait… what???” Heinz and Heineken just launched one of the strangest li’l brand collaborations I’ve seen in … maybe ever. A six-pack of Heineken beer where one bottle has weirdly been swapped out for a bottle of Heinz ketchup. That’s it. No amazing new product or big, bright promotion. No complicated loyalty program or celebrity partnership. No intriguing flavor profile called “Tomato Hangover Remedy.” Just five beers and a classic...
6 days ago • 1 min read
What if the market changes faster than the customer you built your whole business around? As a Canadian, I remember feeling really proud of BlackBerry. Back when it was called Research In Motion (or RIM), the company felt unstoppable. Business leaders flaunted BlackBerrys everywhere. Governments depended on them. And executives treated the keyboard like an extension of their hand. They LOVED it. My colleagues Andreas kept using his BlackBerry long after most people had moved on. He refused to...
7 days ago • 2 min read
Reddit may be the most powerful ad platform Shopify merchants ignore. That may be about to change. Last week Reddit rolled out its Shopify integration worldwide, making it much easier for merchants to sync product catalogs, install tracking, and run Dynamic Product Ads directly from their stores. The setup is super easy: Install the app. Connect your accounts. Your catalog, pricing, inventory, and product images automatically stay synced. Reddit then serves shoppable ads in feeds and even...
8 days ago • 2 min read
Repetition, rhythm, and annoyingness can encode messages far deeper than we expect. Yesterday a commercial from 1979 popped into in my head. Not a tagline or fragment, but the full script for a Milk Mate chocolate syrup ad, word for word. I wondered if I could possibly be remembering it as well as I felt I was. So I looked it up and watched it, saying the words just ahead of the blond-headed boy on the screen. My memory matched, 100%. Forty-seven years living rent-free somewhere in my head,...
9 days ago • 2 min read
Research shows social media outrage is more about posturing than purchasing. Every week, the internet declares a brand dead. The new Ferrari Luce? Ruined! The Jaguar rebrand … Catastrophic. The McDonald’s CEO taking a minuscule burger bite? Apparently dynasty-ending. Or NOT? And yet the people buying six-figure Ferraris, luxury EVs, or even Quarter Pounders rarely overlap with the bold commenters making all this noise. A new marketing study examined how social media advocacy and criticism...
10 days ago • 1 min read
