Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow

With Thanksgiving 2 days away, we can be sure of the flood of advertising and deals that merchants are going to broadcast. Early trips to the Mall (by my Wife) indicate that traffic is low and they are giving stuff away to clear room for the next season of merchandise.
While it is a tough environment I think it magnifies the need for creative marketing and not just fire sales.

The small 3

I really hope that the government does not bailout the small 3 car makers. The mess they are in is of their own doing and the unions. Let them go bankrupt, rewrite the contracts so they can be more competitive and which ever company survives after that so be it. Does anyone miss the air traffic control union?
bad branding, bad product development, bad channels, etc. Classic case in what NOT to do. Jim Manzi has an article and interesting article and chart comparing the foreign car makers economics to the small 3 here.

Which one is not like the other?

I had a conversation with a sales rep today about a competitor of our firm. She made the observation that a member of her team that worked at said competitor was not calling on the same level person (higher now) than she did with the other firm. This made sense given the competitors product line, but poses a challenge on how to best reach our audience and not get confused with this competitor as they are well known and the market share leader.
Our target buyer is the higher end executive and our brand/product offering match this criteria. It is a little like selling a BMW 7 series vs. a Toyota Highlander, both cars but not aimed at the same market. The challenge now is to craft this higher end message to reach the correct audience and bnot get pulled down stream to a market where the message will not resonate as well.

Back to posting

I changed jobs and took a few weeks off so no posting. Now that my brain is turned back on I will start posting some new materials.