Blog

Author: neilbendle

  • US Individualism And A US Collective Identity

    When I first moved to the US I couldn’t get over the flags. (It was summer of 2002 and flags were at their apex.) There were all sorts of flags, small flags, big flags, really big flags and blocks out the sun size. This very visible adherence to the country, the collective group, was startling.…

  • Value of a Like

    Valuing social media likes is an enormous challenge. We should be somewhat forgiving of problems in the methods. It is surely better to be addressing difficult challenges than ignoring them entirely. It is, however, also important to be explicit about what we are claiming and not claiming. This is a problem with Value of a…

  • Marketing ROI, Heartbeats And Breaths

    Clarity is important to effective language use. If our words all mean different things it is hard to communicate. It is often surprising that marketers, who often claim to be communication experts, are sometimes terribly imprecise about what they mean. We need to be clear about marketing ROI, heartbeats, and breaths. Marketing ROI James Lenskold…

  • Razorblades In Apples: Halloween Sadism Isn’t Real

    One of my favorite academic articles is “The Razor Blade In The Apple” by Joel Best and Gerald T. Horiuchi. This fascinating piece investigates the idea of Halloween Sadism. Did the authors find extensive evidence of random strangers sadistically harming children? At the risk of spoiling the story; no of course they didn’t. Searching For…

  • Voters And Consumers

    I recently read an interesting article in the Globe and Mail (a major Canadian paper). This talked about the political marketing techniques used by Canadian parties. The journalist asserted that “Canadian politics have moved into an era where voters no longer think of themselves as citizens, with duties and obligations and longer-term perspectives….” (Simpson 2013).…

  • Revenue And Valuing Likes

    Dan Zarrella, from HubSpot, has given a formula for valuing social media “likes”. There are several interesting parts. For instance, he has tried to incorporate churn. Compared to most pieces of advice in the social media marketing world it is transparent. You can see what he was trying to do. His formula (although it looks…

  • The Top and Bottom Line

    Preparing for class recently I came across a media report which illustrates the confusion and sloppiness that surrounds marketing metrics. I realized the problem we often have talking about the top and bottom line. Impact Of Social Media An important question is the bottom line impact of social media. How can you persuade the CFO…

  • Confusopoly

    In the UK the agency responsible for promoting competition and generally getting consumers a good deal was the Office of Fair Trading, the OFT. (Written a few years ago this UK regulators have since changed). Interestingly this government agency used a concept from Scott Adams (of Dilbert fame) to illustrate a major problem in competition.…

  • Bold And Full Of Hope

    Business academics sometimes aren’t very bold. Too often we concentrate on achieving something doable rather than trying something that is a stretch. I always think that if no one thinks you’ll fail there isn’t much point in what you are doing. So I appreciate it when plans are bold and full of hope. Even if…

  • Accounting For Profits And Decisions

    Marketers, and business people more broadly, often use accounting profit to measure success. This isn’t too surprising. Often firms claim to be profit maximizing. Report something as profit and this sounds like something that should be maximized. That said, profits using in accounting and managerial decision-making are not really the same thing. Decisions taken to…

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