http://www.santinasullivan.com General Thoughts for fun. Tue, 11 May 2010 20:12:58 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en Barbie turned fifty and is  losing market share.  Doesn't that happen even to the best of us?  Except in her case, a team of experts spent two days in some hip LA hotel where they examined her past, reviewed where and how the decline happened and then designed a course for her reintroduction. Basically ... http://www.santinasullivan.com/barbie-gets-a-facelift/ The magazine industry is in a flux and wondering if people will pay for digital content after they have been giving much of it away. Circulations are down and e-newsletters are everywhere. The advertising opportunities are confusing. There are Web pages, e-newsletters, e-blasts, classifieds, directories and finally the actual printed publication. Most ... http://www.santinasullivan.com/what-will-happen-to-magazines/ Susan Boyle has established herself as a simple woman with an angelic voice.  She is religious, volunteers and loves animals. You won't see her doing much of a makeover. She has already it appears, thinned her eyebrows some and tidied up her hair. Too much though would ruin her image. ... http://www.santinasullivan.com/susan-boyles-brand-promise/ These direct response technologies deliver digital content to your phone, but is sounds like a lot of steps to me. You have to take photos of bar codes and then have either downloaded an application or send a text and forward the bar code. Scanlife must use a web-enabled phone. ... http://www.santinasullivan.com/jagtag-and-scanlife-are-we-making-people-work-too-hard/ My cousin from Italy came recently for the first time to the US with her new husband on their honeymoon. They had been to New York and Las Vegas among other places. Her husband proudly showed us her new necklace. It was a simple chain with a small tag that read Tiffany's. When ... http://www.santinasullivan.com/product-placements-and-breakfast-at-tiffanys/ Jim Stengel, outgoing global marketing chief at P&G is promoting purposed-based marketing. What do you do beyond making money that makes your customer's lives better? He uses the example of the Pampers brand and helping mom's develop healthy happy babies, beyond keeping them dry. To do that they offered parenting advice ... http://www.santinasullivan.com/purpose-based-marketing/ The Audit Bureau of Circulations as of March 31st showed most of the biggest city newspapers declining in readership. This includes the New York Times, LA Times, New York Daily News, Washington Post, Chicago Tribune, etc.  National papers such as the Wall Street Journal and USA Today had slight increases...less than ... http://www.santinasullivan.com/city-newspapers-continue-decline-while-national-have-slight-increase/ The beer market is depressed and they are counting on your depression to help save them. Usually when the economy is down...beer consumption is up. Sadly though, hops prices are driving margins down and beer drinkers are discovering smaller brands and drinking more imports . All of this is hurting the traditional ... http://www.santinasullivan.com/depressed-drink-a-beer/ Just when you thought you had heard enough bad economic news we get hit with another indication we are in big trouble. The Wallstreet Journal today (April 22) tells us that domestic Barbie sales declined as foreign sales increased.  Poor Barbie is fighting for her reputation once again, and it is not because ... http://www.santinasullivan.com/barbies-in-trouble/ Savvy marketers have folks monitoring blogs and conversations. At a recent workshop I attended, I found out that IndyMoms has people that are hired to keep conversations going.  At this same workshop I  met someone who to promote an expo had some four people she had hired to create twelve personas. Each person had ... http://www.santinasullivan.com/the-truth-in-blogging-and-conversations/