Blog by S.Swaminathan

P&G website makes this point on consumer driven innovation(CDI):

We’re also changing the way we innovate. Big ideas are no longer the exclusive domain of big Research & Development departments – up to 30% of patents are now filed by small companies and entrepreneurs. Today’s ideas are widely ...

Jack Trout in Forbes writes:

First of all, don't panic. The digital, non-traditional media world remains more hype than reality. Marketers still invest over 95% of their budgets in traditional media. There's lots of chatter, but show me the money.

Next, you must realize that a lot of these new media f...

The Hindu writes :

An ingenious electronic gadget that allows the owner to transfer the entire entertainment content available at home — all the television channels, as well as movies on CD or DVD — to a desktop or laptop computer screen anywhere in the world has become one of the biggest sellers in ...

Dave Young writes:

1. Don't expect your customers to provide referrals or word of mouth unless your employees and your products are exceeding expectations. Give them the pure oxygen of delight.
2. Don't expect your employees to provide delight to your customers unless their own needs are being met. Give th...

According to a study by Big Search, the 10 top list of most influential media, across all age groups:

1. Word of mouth
2. TV
3. Coupons
4. Newspaper inserts
5. Read article
6. Direct mail
7. Magazines
8. In-store promotion
9. Cable TV
10. Internet advertising

Robing Good writes:

• Traditional marketing methods are losing their grip
• Consumers themselves have changed beyond recognition
• The term Mass-Media threatens to become an oxymoron.

• In a survey conducted by the Financial Times Creative Business the findings were that:

         &...

Ad Age has an interesting article( registration required) on how US consumers spend their time.

I was quite intrigued to check if there is any similar data for consumers in other economies and see if there are different trends one can spot across countries.

Here are some topline trends:

• The average A...

The Economist has a very nice article on changing trends in consumption of luxury goods and how consumers are changing their consumption habits wrt luxury brands. Also, it talks about the "new wealthy" and their motivation towards buying luxury brands.

Here are some excerpts:

Being a million...

I read this absolutely shocking article in Wired where it talks about India's poor consumers and how she is a low cost destination for doing clinical trials. It also goes on to mention  how Indian legal systems are lax and that pharma companies even take advantage, if tests fail(read people dyi...

Ad Age reports:

Every week MediaWorks’ Media Morph looks at how emerging technology is changing the way consumers get their information and media companies and advertisers present their messages.

Digital Living Room - What it is: Call it the ultimate couch potato creator. The theory goes that as cons...