The much-beleaguered U.S. Postal Service has a rare chance to show leadership now if it can seize the moment.
This past week, the USPS Office of the Inspector General came out with a report saying the postal service could save as much as $342 million a year if it would replace some of its vehicles instead of continuing to repair them when they break down. To read the report, click here http://www.uspsoig.gov/foia_files/DA-AR-10-005.PDF
Anything the postal service can do to save a few bucks is good.
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The sky is falling! E-mail is dying! Or so says Chicken Little, aka Facebook’s chief operating officer, Sheryl Sandberg.
In a much-quoted presentation at the Nielsen Consumer 360 conference yesterday, Sandberg declared that e-mail is going the way of the pterodactyl and the Betamax. Only 11% of teens use e-mail, she noted, and “if you want to know what you’ll be doing tomorrow, look at what teens are doing today.”
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Last month I caught some flack for a blog post in which I noted that while the recent L.L. Bean catalogs were damn-near perfect, they risked being a bit dull. Having just seen the Summer 2010 edition of the L.L. Bean Women catalog, I’d like to say that it’s damn-near perfect, and not dull at all. It manages to inject a sense of newness without diluting its much-loved brand in the least.
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Six Flags Entertainment and Walmart Stores, Inc. have just partnered to offer customers discounts to Six Flags when shopping at Walmart.
The two companies couldn’t be in more different circumstances financially. But even with the dramatic differences, the distinctions meld away when it comes to the benefits, a true testament to working hard to seek out a compatible partnership.
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Having been a practicing direct response marketing professional for nearly 25 years, I have discovered a few truisms.
One that stands out these days is that strong opinions in direct marketing can prove to be detrimental to success.
By way of example, I had a client that was doing the same type of direct mail packages, the same type of outer teaser, the same thing over and over. more
Heh. Every once in a while, you just gotta admire a bit of inspired marketing silliness. To promote their new album, Devo is holding an online listening party—for cats.
Head on over to Ustream and you can watch a bunch of cats listening to the new Devo disc “Something for Everybody” stream.
I think what I like best is how—despite the best efforts of someone wielding a laser pointer—the cats are just sitting around, doing a whole lot of nothing.
