High street retailers are losing ground to online sales, and this is clear now.  It doesn’t matter whether you are looking at clothes or entertainment (movies and music), the picture is the same. But the key question is whether these initiatives will be enough to stem the decline in their traditional businesses. It will clearly be a struggle. Last week’s trading statement from HMV, which also owns Waterstone’s, showed that sales were down 3.7 per cent over the last 12 months. Others are suffering too: while Next could boast a 15.3 per cent rise in sales of its Directory mail … Continue reading The Observer | Internet’s new wave threatens to wash the high street away

Located this article from Celent, at Aqubanc and the first thing that strikes you is the lack of differentiation in strategy amongst banks. In North American Bank Priorities: Convention or Innovation, Celent examines & analyzes — through the eyes of bank CIO’s — bank IT & business priorities.    …. Finally, the report focuses on the area banks consider core to their entire operation — customer-centricity. ‘In order for banks to succeed, they must learn to innovate while working within regulatory & budgetary constraints,’ says Jacob Jegher, Celent. Source:  Aqubanc Customer centric has got to be the most overused, misunderstood, and … Continue reading "North American Bank Priorities" don’t provide competitive differentiation

 McKinsey have released a book (registration required) that digs into the challenges facing marketing today. Marketers are struggling to keep up with an explosion of new customer segments, sales and service channels, media, marketing approaches, products, and brands. Many have responded to fragmenting opportunities by bolting on new brands, channels, and marketing programs, but doing so increases costs and complexity while reducing organizational agility. To deal with proliferation companies must instead become more sophisticated at prioritizing opportunities and allocating resources while increasing the consistency and coordination of their marketing execution. Source: The McKinsey Quarterly: Profiting from Proliferation One chapter that … Continue reading McKinsey: New thinking in customer segmentation

Jenny from the Webby Awards pointed out that there is a bank category in the annual awards for interactive advertising.  The Webby Awards recognizes outstanding Interactive Advertising in 15+ single and campaign categories. An entry may be entered into multiple categories if appropriate. Entries in multiple categories will be reviewed separately for each category entered and may win multiple awards. Source: Webby Awards The awards are quite well known now and here are last years winners.  The awards, hailed by the New York Times as “the online equivalent of an Oscar”, officially launched their Call For Entries last week. Bank of America … Continue reading Webby Awards nominations are being sought