High-Tech Marketing May Confuse Customers
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Euphemism and allegory have always been common in business &#151; where few get fired, but plenty get "downsized" &#151; but some say the tongue-twisting technology industry has gone too far.
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A Unisys survey reveals that deployment of innovative technology can enhance revenues and productivity, but you have to target customer-touching employees.
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The always provocative Brad Templeton, who hung out with a large cadre of geeks at the Internet Identity Workshop (IIW, or IIW2007) last week, has some cautions about new identity systems, even if they are all &quot;user-centric&quot;. These cautions lie in a paradox: &quot;The easier it is to give somebody ID information, the more often it will be done. And the easier it is to give ID information, the more palatable it is to ask for, or demand it.&quot; The italics are his.  Here he hits on the problem of market power asymmetries (vendors strong, customers weak) that have been with us for the whole Industrial Age, and are with us still. I think we have a way to overcome those, and that Brad's Paradox may provide exactly the conceptual hurdle we need to see before we can make progress. \
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Top marketers are going digital to track the delivery of commercials into U.S. homes with a system some advocates say will revolutionize advertising the way product codes changed the selling of sliced bread.
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A new word-of-mouth research firm is attempting to demystify chatter about brands in the offline world.
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A startup claims to read people's minds while they view ads.
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As Web advertising heats up, is everything old new again?
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Blog: Don't tell mainstream marketers this, but text-messaging promotions can work.
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Conversations I've had this week at TechEd with attendees have made me rethink an opinion I stated early on, about how nice it was to see Microsoft toning down the marketing message and getting down to brass, technical tacks.  Some IT managers who want their employers to get the message of Windows Server 2008, would appreciate it if that message were easier to be "got."
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An online marketing strategy offers free good now, but consumers will have to buy something later.
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As more and more retailers try to cash in on the online music scene, things are becoming increasingly befuddling for consumers -- especially for consumers who stray from the Apple iPod fold.
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The lesson from foot fungus: sometimes your target market isn't really your target market.
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People once bought just-on-the-market gadgets because they wanted the innovative functionality those gadgets provided. Now, it&#8217;s common to buy a device and then immediately try to figure out how to change or enhance its capabilities.
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Giving customers handheld price scanners is not the next big thing. Radio frequency identification chips are.
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Big media brands latch onto mobile advertising while cell phone operators are more cautious. Is tension between the two inevitable?
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By Simms, Jane  Despite what the analysts say, technology companies should learn to play by the same rules of business we all adhere to-and don't forget the customer  I wrote two articles recently which, technophobe that I am, fell well outside my comfort zone.
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The battle between two hyped formats for  high-definition DVD will confuse shoppers and turn many of them  off the whole technology, a London-based research firm  predicted on Friday.