industry thoughts from Clarteza

When I travel, I try to stay at #Kimpton Hotels as much as possible. It’s fair to say they’ve won my brand loyalty—but not because their pillows are great or the room service is quick and tasty (though they are). It’s because they take advantage of every opportunity to customize my hotel experience specifically for me.

Kimpton takes a few basic data points about me, such as my preferences and other important dates and milestones, and uses them as opportunities to provide a variety of small surprises and delights to enhance my experience.

For example, during my recent stay with my two … Continue Reading

Being a dancer has always been a passion of mine, but it was little more than an unfulfilled childhood dream until I finally decided to take up ballroom dancing – as an amateur – almost two years ago.

Now, when it comes to my professional career, I generally understand what’s required of me and what I’m capable of; I’m aware of the steps I must take to get things done and the skills I must master to ensure success.

Ballroom dancing on the other hand, has been a whole new challenge. It’s always exciting … Continue Reading

Let’s talk chocolate.

Think about that first bite of dark, creamy chocolate. Your mouth relaxes as the chocolate melts – your eyes might even close so you can focus on just the taste and feel of the chocolate. The corners of your mouth turn up.

(Is your mouth watering yet?)

We have all heard by now that chocolate releases endorphins, elevates our mood, and can even be healthy in moderation. (Keep those positive studies coming, science!) But exquisite, mouth-watering chocolate also reminds us of the real goal: to create an experience. To get the … Continue Reading

Perhaps one of the more damaging myths we live by is the one that claims that creativity is a gift. You either have it or you don’t, many believe. Some are born with some kind of special talent bestowed on them, they say, or, poor souls, they must lumber in the regular, plain world with the rest of us.

This myth must be busted.

At Clarteza, we know that creativity is not some magic manna from above – it is a skill, and a collaborative one at that. We have to do away with the … Continue Reading

This is one of my favorites: You look at the billboard and the boy is saying “Look!” then he stands up and shows an actual airplane in the sky flying over. Then you learn the actual flight number of that aircraft and its destination. Pretty cool, right?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GtJx_pZjvzc

Another amazing interactive advertising with augmented reality. As you can see the excitement is palatable!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MZcwCMV9UEs

A retail giant also found an interesting way of engaging people and creating the buzz. Take a look:

http://vimeo.com/82271564

Oh and this one: “Drag him away”. A great awareness creation campaign for an important cause: “Don’t just stand there, … Continue Reading

People look for relationships. They are essential to us, and to our well-being. Interestingly, people also long for  brand connections…or relationships, which share a lot of similarities of those, with people.  They identify  themselves with those brands.

Like with regular relationships, brand relationships can have their ups and downs. Ultimately though, if you do      have the bonding, you will be more likely to “forgive” if things don’t go right.

People want to be understood by brands. (Not literally, at least yet!)They like to have products and services that are tailored to … Continue Reading

It is wonderful to feel important; who doesn’t want to feel that his or her needs are being heard and met?  It’s the basis of any strong relationship.  And good marketers know this and use it as they carefully target individual consumer groups with relevant products, messages, and mediums.  But when it comes to women in particular, there is a fine line between getting it right… and going about it all wrong.

Take for example, the BIC Cristal for Her Ball Pen. Its description on Amazon emphasizes its sleek, elegant design (“just for her”) and a thin barrel to fit a … Continue Reading

In a recent study, Millward Brown and The Jim Stengel Company compiled a list of the 50 fastest-growing brands, both consumer and business, over a ten year period.  Brands were analyzed in terms of both customer relationships as well as financial value.  The common link between the 50 brands, which cut across categories and segments, including both products and services, was that all of the brands were based on ideals.  The study defined an ideal as a higher order purpose or benefit that the company or brand … Continue Reading

Last year Clarteza was approached to provide a point of view on Return on Investment (a.k.a. ROI) as it relates to restaurants. We believe, that  ROI is an important issue for any business so we decided to write this piece.

Marketing ROI continues to be one of the most complicated and difficult things to measure, giving those who know how to effectively do it a major competitive advantage. Technology and sophisticated statistical tools play an important and costly role in the ability to effectively measure and predict the ROI but the fundamentals of a marketing mix remain the same. And a … Continue Reading

In our recent post on qual vs. quant research, we touched on one of the critical issues facing market researchers today, the question of how we use, store and re-use data we obtain from the investments we make in research and information.  The amount of data available to us continues to grow in magnitude and scope.  We have qual data, quant data, syndicated data, social media data, competitive intelligence data, all coming at us all the time in … Continue Reading