Having caught you up on all things foursquare, you’ve now got a pretty good handle on how marketers are handling the rise of this location-based social network. Of course, foursquare’s not the only game in town. While the world figures out what to make of Facebook Places, Gowalla continues to be the best LBS alternative [...]

Who would’ve thought all this talk of buns and thighs would turn so ugly? Yes, there appears to be a bit of a battle going on about toning shoes, the sneakers that claim to – among other things – help you shape up your abs, thighs, and glutes just by altering the way you walk. [...]

It’s been a while since we’ve dipped into the lovely landscape of logos. Fortunately, Flavorwire was kind enough to share a few selections from Bill Gardner’s (subscribers only) annual report on logo trends. Check out their excerpt here. Where else can pixels, spores, and hexahedra coexist harmoniously?

Right before our break, we took a deeper look into how corporate social responsibility looks in the world of the Reputation Economy, where a brand’s (or a house of brands’) seemingly disparate actions are judged by consumers as a single experience. In the post, we pointed out that Pepsi’s notable efforts as part of their [...]

We all knew that Pepsi’s Refresh project was a risky proposition. Their decision to ditch their million-dollar Superbowl ads opened the door for their rivals at Coke to advertise essentially unopposed during the country’s biggest broadcast. Furthermore, while many have commended Pepsi’s authentic, interactive approach to corporate social responsibility, there’s still no guarantee that this [...]

In last week’s look at how Consumer Controlled Conversations are impacting the hospitality industry, we mentioned that it’s a great idea to monitor and respond to the social media conversations of current guests. Of course, the only thing better than monitoring and responding is proactively influencing these conversations. To do this, you could follow the [...]

When we introduced the idea of Down-to-Earth-ism in our 10 Trends for 2010, we described this trend as an evolution of the New Austerity. We argued that consumers were stressed, strained, and suspicious, and that pie-in-the-sky promises seemed inconsistent with what consumers really wanted: real, reliable solutions from brands. We weren’t being literal about the [...]

Well, it looks like someone took the words right out of our mouths. Or, more accurately, right out of our 10 Trends for 2010. Yes, a recent study assessed over 3,000 brands to see how they measure up on down-to-earth-ism. Not surprisingly, many brands at the top of this list are dependable, traditional, long-running staples [...]

As the Cannes winners continue to trickle out, we’ll have plenty more to say about the implications for marketing trends at large. But, we felt like we had to say something about the winner of the Cannes Direct Lion, shown in the video above. The award went to New Zealand’s Special Group, for their work [...]

Hopefully you’ve been enjoying the first stage of the World Cup – we wouldn’t want you to have dropped the ball on that USA-England game. Either way, we figure you must be enjoying the slew of great marketing efforts that have surrounded the games. If you haven’t seen it already, you should definitely spend three [...]