Jim Hertzfeld – Area Vice President, Strategy

Rough news for iconic Toys “R” Us this week as they declare bankruptcy – right on the cusp of the holiday shopping season. Another casualty in this year’s string of retail setbacks, disruptions, and (optimistically) transformations. Analysts cite an over-investment in stores and perhaps too many years of letting the website wither on the vine. […]

Nordstrom just announced that they are opening Nordstrom Local, a new concept store with zero inventory and plenty of one-on-one attention. The store opens in West Hollywood on Oct. 3 — one week after this year’s shop.org event in L.A. (maybe we’ll get a sneak peek when we’re out there.) The format is an experiment […]

Way back in 2008, Garret Camp pitched a little idea called UberCab, which eventually became Uber and went on to almost single-handedly create the so-called Sharing Economy. To say that Uber was a disruptive innovation might be one of the biggest understatements of the last 20 years. It’s disrupted the taxi business, put the auto […]

In the course of getting to know many of our clients and their aspirations, we often work with them to get a better understanding of the competitors and companies they admire and are inspired by. Of course, companies are always trying to keep up with and outwit their competitors, but more often we find clients […]

We often work with clients that have varying degrees and varieties of a “digital strategy:” something that sort of sets the direction on what, why, and how they are becoming or improving their digital footprint. Sometimes it’s just an idea in someone’s head. Other times it’s the product of painstaking research and planning that thought […]

Earlier this week I was flying through LAX, and, due to construction in the terminals, I needed to leave the terminal I arrived in, wait in a line, board a bus, and find my way into another terminal to make my connecting flight. On top of all that extra effort, delay, and confusion, it then […]

Personalization has been on the radar for years, but so far this year, it has been front and center of 100% of the client projects I’ve worked with. One hundred percent. In a world full of spam, pop-up ads, and in-your-face marketing, customers are still willing to trade their privacy for a good deal (that […]

Back in 1999 (the year that Whole Foods opened its 100th store), Amazon invested heavily in a grocery delivery startup called HomeGrocer. Sales peaked at $1.5 million per day, but unfortunately HomeGrocer couldn’t stay fresh past the dot-com expiration date. Eighteen years later, two of the most iconic brands in the modern era may join […]

“A lifetime is too long to find out what your customer’s lifetime value is” For some companies, it seems to be taking a lifetime to figure out how and where marketing and technology leadership will be sorted out in the digital age. I attended a great session at IRCE today, led by Jason Roussos of […]

I was talking with a customer recently and asked them a fairly standard question about which competitors they admire. They are in the auto financing business and we had done some homework on the usual suspects: other auto financers, lenders, and banks. To our surprise, they weren’t satisfied simply leapfrogging the competition. Instead, they want […]

Companies and brands are building loyal customers the way real people are building loyal relationships with each other: one interaction at a time. Each and every interaction is a new opportunity to prove ourselves, build credibility and trust, and leave customers with a memorable experience.  The true measure of loyalty is not how many points […]

Today, your brand is what your audience says it is. Despite your best branding efforts, consumers have greater and greater access to information – not just to understand what’s good for them, to find the best price, or to learn where to get the products they want, but also to determine how brands and products […]