Product Management:

Nestle Takes Legal Action on Sara Lee Coffee Capsules (BusinessWeek) When developing new products, marketers often seek to make things difficult for their competitors by applying for intellectual property ...

Cellphone in New Role: Loyalty Card (New York Times) What do people believe is more valuable, their cellphone or their wallet?  Of course, most people say it is their wallet.  Yet, that may be changing ...

Many marketers believe one of the worst competitive positions to be in is being a late entry with a new product or service.  That is, competitors have gotten a head start entering a market giving these ...

U.S. Food Giants Tailor Products, Marketing to International Palates (Los Angeles Times) When it comes to marketing globally, all companies should clearly understand this truism:  just because a marketing ...

Textbooks That Professors Can Rewrite Digitally (New York Times) When most marketers think about product decisions they generally focus on developing products with a specific set of features intended ...

Comcast's New Name: Rated X? (Time) As we note in our Product Decisions tutorial, branding “involves decisions that establish an identity for a product with the goal of distinguishing it from competitors.”  ...

Functionall (Trendwatching) The people running the Trendwatching website do a real nice job finding different ways to look at things. As their name implies, they focus mostly on finding trends that ...

Don't Use the R-Word: Hotels Find Trick to Business Bookings (Wall Street Journal) For several years KnowThis.com's Stories section has included many stories from The Wall Street Journal, which we view ...

At Sundance, New Routes to Finding an Audience (New York Times) Gaining distribution for a product is often viewed as only a problem for marketers of products sold in retail stores.  But this issue ...

It has been nearly sixty years since organizations began to understand the real importance of marketing strategy and planning.  Prior to the 1950s most companies did not have marketing departments, but ...

Chex, Already a Ubiquitous Holiday Party Snack, Trots Out New Recipes (New York Times) According to product life cycle strategy, once a product reaches the maturity stage, where sales from its originally ...

Kellogg Warns: Brace for an Eggo Shortage (MSNBC) Marketers can't do much if a product is not available to sell and that is exactly what is happening at Kellogg where production problems have all but ...

Godiva Rides in a New Direction (New York Times) Higher-end products don’t always suffer during a recession.  Some do fine as their key target market often remains relatively unaffected by a slowing ...

Kellogg Pulls Immunity Claim From Rice Krispies (USA Today) Breakfast cereal maker Kellogg had what it thought was a good idea for promoting cereals as being healthy for children since these contain ...

Take a Chance on Experimenting (BusinessWeek) Products that break new ground, especially in the high-tech field, are very difficult to find but if a company is lucky enough the results can be the difference ...

Brand Aid Think Search Before You Name Your Next Product (Search Engine Land) The message presented in this story is one that I reinforce all the time when discussing names of products or companies.  ...

Reader's Digest Looks To Web To Revive Storied But Staid Brand (brandchannel) Once a mainstay in the list of leading magazines, Reader's Digest went bankrupt last month but as it exits bankruptcy it ...

Private Label Growing Rapidly (BrandWeek) We just posted a story discussing Amazon's private label push and this story gives even more support to the growing penetration of private labels in retail outlets.  ...

Highlighted Marketing Stories: If College Dorm Students Need It, Retailers Have It (NPR) - Here is another college-themed story (see Monday's posts for more).  A major factor in being successful in  ...

Highlighted Marketing Stories: Bud Light Fan Can Draws Criticism (NPR) - With many colleges in the U.S. starting their fall terms this week, this story seems quite timely.  Anheuser Busch's decision ...