With all of the talk about how the vast majority of traditional brands are struggling mightily to resonate with a massive cohort of fickle young consumers, it's nice to see one of your grandmother's classic brands emerge as a winner in bridging...

New product development is important. This is an obvious statement to be sure, but until renowned economist Joseph Schumpeter observed that innovation is instrumental to an organization’s success, and that in extreme form new ideas can “creatively”...

There aren't too many iron-clad rules in economics, but indeed there are a few, and one of them concerns pricing. In regards to products that are considered "elastic", an increase in the price of a product results in lowered demand for the...

Once upon a time there were more diet sodas on the market than there are at present, but to most men, drinking any one of them wasn't considered to be very cool. And so Coca-Cola exploited this market opportunity with a major product introduction...

When a product or product line is in the "decline" stage of it's life cycle, an eventuality every marketer must face, it is probable that marketers have already "migrated" consumers to newer models or to a completely different...

Starbucks is not exactly hurting these days, although the brand's growth has slowed, and it has been difficult to find a sustainable solution to get things moving again. Revenue growth of 4% isn't bad, but an equally significant indicator of health...

There has been so much hype in the media lately about electric vehicles, one would think that there has been some sort of new innovation to bring the cost of these vehicles down far enough to become marketable without heavily government intervention....

The global market for alcoholic beverages continues to grow at a moderate pace, and as one might expect, the competition both within and between the three major booze categories is rather stiff. In the U.S., annual sales of beer continue to decline (minus...

The Pirates of the Caribbean movie franchise has enjoyed great success over these many years, led by the very talented Johnny Depp and a crew of crazies operating in a rather impressive "alt-world" reality. The first four films performed very...

Apparently there has been a "retro" shoe craze that has gripped the hip, shoe-sporting element of our culture, and apparently it has peaked. If you blinked and missed it, that's OK. It has been fairly brief and for Adidas as well as Foot...

My, what a nice handbag you have. How much did you pay for it? If you ask handbag marketers, probably not nearly enough. Indeed sales of handbags are slowing in the U.S., as women, especially younger women, have traded down to more compact, less expensive...

With novelty sports like Top Golf surging in popularity among the fun-loving, young adult crowd here in the U.S., the golf industry can only hope that as these folks get older, more of them will adopt the real game. It's kind of like miniature golf...

Video games have been around since the late 1970's, and almost immediately after introducing Space Invaders and Asteroids (two of the pioneering games) in bars, marketers developed home entertainment systems. The first one I had was called Odyssey...

Gillette absolutely dominates the global razor business and is also one of the industry's most premium brands. This is a fact. Success has been fairly easy for this 115-year-old first mover brand, and the winning strategy has been to simply introduce...

Packaged foods brands have been experiencing slowing sales amidst changing consumer attitudes and behaviors and, as a result, many of these brands are up for sale. Many shoppers favor fresher food these days, and food prices have been falling for several...

With so many legislative proposals at state and local levels to tax controversial ingredients such as salt and sugar, it is instructive to investigate an example of what can happen as a result of such a law in action. We know that when an elastic good...

The global market for smartphones has matured, since just about everyone with both the ability and the desire for such a device (what marketers call "market potential) already has one. In 2016, six of the top 10 smartphone brands actually reported...

Soda is losing favor among consumers, and this is no secret. The market has been declining for years, as sugar-conscious consumers have switched to lower-calorie substitutes and beverages that satisfy our vastly-enhanced zest for variety. Coke's Smartwater...

Florida has always been known for warm weather, sunshine, beaches, spring break, COPS episodes, tacky attire, tourists, professional sports teams no one cares about, elderly Northeastern transplants, hurricanes, and of course, oranges. But still reeling...

Intel, the high tech company that has come to represent "the power behind the computer" over the years (at least in the minds of the average consumer), isn't about to exit the chip business any time soon. But the segment's growth rate...

Wearable fitness tracking devices have been all the rage for the past couple of years if you pay attention to the mainstream media (and you should), but just like tablets, the high growth phase of the Product Life Cycle was very short. And if high profile...

It doesn't take much to make this professional cynic roll his eyes, especially when it comes to new product introductions that clearly have underwhelming long-term revenue potential. All of the marketing dollars in the world won't sustain a product...

After convincing the world over the past three decades to dump the Folgers and the Sanka and instead habitually spend four bucks or more for a souped-up cup of coffee, and having become even more ubiquitous than McDonald's in that period of time,...

Nicotine is not yet dead, yet the number of smokers/vapers/chewers of tobacco products continues to drop year after year. In fact, only 15% of young adults use these kinds of products, and, to the vast majority of society, this is certainly a very good...

The Arena Football League (AFL) has been around for 30 years. When it debuted with four teams in 1987 I was a senior in high school, and the "novelty" sport was seen as football's answer to indoor soccer or indoor lacrosse that is, indoor...