“There is nothing so terrible as activity without insight”

By Chris Hayes, EVP Brand Strategy This 18th Century quote from my high school lit class got me thinking about a conversation I had with a marketing director from a well-known cross-channel brand a few weeks ago. He mentioned his company would like to do comparison research on their catalog covers to determine which ones […]

What Is a Chief Marketing Technologist?

“Marketing is rapidly becoming one of the most technology-dependent functions in business.” In 2012, consulting firm Gartner predicted that by 2017, a company’s chief marketing officer will be spending more on technology than its chief information officer.” (Harvard Business Review, July-August 2014) Wow, technology expense as a variable marketing cost is quite a concept! It […]

He said YES!

Who said “yes” to what? I’ll get to that in a minute. First, let me share a story. Decades ago, we heard the following from almost every food retailer we worked with: “We want our catalog to look like Harry & David’s.” Why Harry & David? Because at one time, they set the standard for […]

7 Creative Resolutions

Forget going to the gym more often or eating better or any other resolutions you’ll abandon by mid-February. I’ve made a list of New Year’s resolutions for 2017 … and they’re all about catalogs. Ignore any proclamations of catalogs going away. They’re still here. They’re still relevant. And they can be better than ever. Because […]

“A joke is a very serious thing”

-Sir Winston Churchill Marketers are always looking for an edge – something that will grab and hold their customers’ attention, help their brand stand out from the competition and most importantly, drive the customer to purchase. So how does a marketer break through the clutter of the estimated 3,000+ ad exposures consumers receive every day? […]

Nostalgia Marketing: Two Do’s and a Don’t

Are you jumping on the Nostalgia Marketing bandwagon? Do you know how to execute effectively and how to avoid the pitfalls? If you are interested in understanding how you can incorporate Nostalgia Marketing with your brand, email our Web Content Specialist, Lauren Ackerman, or call 913-236-2418.

Catalog Circulation – A New Frontier

Twenty years ago, we discovered the power of transactional data. Lo and behold, it turned out that certain aspects of human behavior were very predictable. Once a consumer’s wallet was opened and purchases were made, certain details of those transactions, known as RFM, turned out to be very trustworthy indicators of future purchases. Fast forward […]

DEMOCRACY IS REVOLTING

Catalog heroes rise up against democratic oppression One voice, one vote? Equality for all? Democratic rule? No more! Not here. Not now. Not ever. Before you report me to Homeland Security or flood the comments decrying my fascist propaganda, let me explain. I’m not proposing a violent overthrow of the government. No, my revolutionary screed […]