Category: Marketing in everyday life

What Big Data experts thought the world would look like in 2020

In the past, the year 2020 has been presented as the point in time when many technological innovations would come to fruition. For instance, it was the year when we would have self-driving cars routinely roaming down our roads and streets; and, even, flying cars. It was also the year when we would have conscious … Continue reading What Big Data experts thought the world would look like in 2020

The benefits of service recovery on Social Media

Many customers see social media as a quick way of solving problems that they experienced with their purchases. Yet, research in the airline industry shows that companies are reluctant to handle complaints on that channel.   This is a very short-sighted reaction, because many of those customers that complained on social media, and didn’t get … Continue reading The benefits of service recovery on Social Media

Sentiment analysis of baseball stadium reviews

I was cleaning my inbox over the Christmas break, and saw a 2017 message from someone working at company called reviewtrackers. He wanted to draw my attention to some interesting work that he had done at the company, analysing 130,000 online reviews of major league baseball stadiums (since the message, he seems to have left … Continue reading Sentiment analysis of baseball stadium reviews

Why referral programmes work so well (but can also backfire)

Companies have several ways of acquiring new customers. One approach is to open a shop or place a sales executive where they know that customers are likely to be. Another approach is to invest in advertising, telling customers about the product and where they may find it. Yet another approach is to incentivise existing customers … Continue reading Why referral programmes work so well (but can also backfire)

[Miscellany] Star Wars in Fortnite, the Simpsons, and a maths book

Star Wars on Fortnite Are you a Star Wars fan? And do you play Fortnite? If you answered yes to these two questions you were in for a treat, last week, when the Star Wars franchise teamed up with Epic Games for a special feature in the very popular multi-player game, Fortnite.   Fortnite players … Continue reading [Miscellany] Star Wars in Fortnite, the Simpsons, and a maths book

[Miscellany] Automated news, Deepfake Christmas video, and Innocent newsletter

Automated news It has emerged that, last week, the BBC used computers to compose nearly 700 news articles relating to the election’s results. The news corporation is describing it as "machine-generated journalism", and justifying it as thus: "Using machine assistance, we generated a story for every single constituency that declared last night with the exception … Continue reading [Miscellany] Automated news, Deepfake Christmas video, and Innocent newsletter

Peloton’s growth plan will annoy its loyal customers

Twenty-three years ago, Fred Reichheld wrote in the book “The Loyalty Effect: The Hidden Force Behind Growth, Profits, and Lasting Value” (no affiliate link) that firms should be wary of aggressive customer acquisition initiatives. He warned firms that: “Winning more and more new customers could slowly put you out of business” (page 89). This is … Continue reading Peloton’s growth plan will annoy its loyal customers

The suspected use of AI makes people trust others less

With Artificial Intelligence (AI) promising to bring analytical power and cost savings to many customer facing functions, it is pertinent to ask how the deployment of AI impacts on the image of people / brands. For instance, if consumers believe that your online profile was developed by AI, does that impact on how they see … Continue reading The suspected use of AI makes people trust others less