After living overseas in Germany and England and now coming back to the United States, I have a completely different perspective on Football (or Soccer as we call it in the United States).With the World Cup in full swing, I thought I would tackle the subject of Football and why it is the most popular sport in the world.Reason #1: No commercial breaksWatching a televised American Football game in person, it is clearly evident how much advertising slows down the pace of play. At university I always hated going to a televised game, because just when the game was getting intense and the crowd was getting into it, they forced the other team to turn the ball over. Then nothing happens for two or three minutes while someone peddles wart remover or deodorant spray.Watching a soccer match, even a professional match, play never stops for advertising. Advertising is ever present … Continue reading →

It must be great to be in the credit card business in the United States. Demand is relatively inelastic and regulation is lax, so you can charge whatever you want for an interest rate, increase your fees once or twice a year, and make additional money off cash withdrawals and foreign exchange transactions.I nearly fell out of my chair after paying my American Express bill through their automated phone system, to find that Citibank wanted to charge me $14.95 for the “privilege” of doing all the work for them of setting up a payment. Let me get this straight you Citibank greedy bastards, you are going to charge me more to use a process that you set up to save you money. Thank you very much, but I hope you have fun leaking profits by processing my check, the phone calls I’m going to make, the negative word of mouth … Continue reading →

As people become ever more immune to traditional advertising and marketing, branding will become more important.Branding is all about building an emotional connection with customers. Making the decision to follow a strategy focused on building a brand is not without peril, however, as it means that you will have to choose to not do certain things, like pursue a low price strategy.Choosing to build a brand means that you will have to invest more in your stores, your website, and possibly even your traditional marketing and advertising to precisely reinforce your brand values with a level of quality.Branding only takes you part of the way towards building a lasting emotional connection with customers. The pinnacle of that emotional connection is reached by ensuring that your interactions with customers are characterized more by the overall product, service, and the shopping experience you provide, than by the transaction or request you …