Viewpoint

After yet another weekend of spotty internet performance, my eyes were drawn to an article with a wonderfully direct headline: “How can I make my home Wi-Fi faster?” The site being Recode.net, I braced for techno-speak about mesh routers, GHz bands and CAT 6 cabling.

It’s official: Consumers now have as many options for subscription-based razor blade replenishment services as they do product options on the retail shelf.

In half a decade, if things go according to plan, Aldi will be the #3 supermarket chain in the U.S. behind Walmart and Kroger. 

The sales and marketing activities that for decades have been treated as two separate functions must align for consumer product manufacturers to succeed in a changing marketplace.

May marks my fifth month as executive director of the Path to Purchase Institute, and I don’t mind saying the experience has been an eye opener.

One of my many “mini-jobs” at the Institute is to help hand out media credentials at our events. ... I’m on guard against certain types of reporters who, whenever they bother to peek into our little corner of marketing, always opt for the “How stores get you to buy things you don’t want” angle.

Oh, so now you want to measure in-store behavior?A holiday season in which online-sales growth again convincingly outpaced brick-and-mortar increases – while store traffic fell by double digits – has kept discussions about the future of traditional retail hot and heavy so far in 2017.

I’ll confess that we did indeed peek at the 2016 Kantar Retail PoweRankings when finalizing our choices for the 2017 Hall of Fame class.

Famed American philosopher Homer Simpson once called alcohol “the cause of, and solution to, all of life’s problems.” I sometimes feel the same way about marketing technology.

Now that the unusual, arguably frustrating and certainly interminable election of 2016 is over, perhaps it's safe to make a few path-to-purchase-related observations about it without igniting a firestorm from partisan flame warriors.

In spite of myself, I’m becoming a lot smarter about shopping these days.

… a spot in the Shopper Marketing Hall of Fame. Her father did; he was part of the 22nd annual class of honorees back in 2015.