That was sleasy

Staples Advantage arrogance

30 Mar 10
As most readers know, we are huge admirers of Staplesand its super marketing abilities in CRM, the recent TV ads and the ‘Easy’ campaigns.

We feel the recently launched Staples Advantage ‘superhero’ campaign falls well short of its high standards.

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Proficiency Post

Rates & Guidance Notes

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Whitewash in
Washington?

Have officials checked Depot’s pricing performance in California?

28 Mar 10
Office Depotconfirmed last week that the State of Washingtonhas extended its office supplies contract with the company. Given Depot’s history of fraudulent systematic overcharging in at least ten other states what due diligence took place?

Chrysler v BMW Case Study

The Joy of experience

The uncanny parallels in car and office marketing

27 Mar 10
We criticised thelatest sexy Chryslercar ads on 10 March. We now highlight the latest BMW ad campaign as a model in how to appeal to the majority decision maker… women. A similar approach would be highly effective in office marketing campaigns.

United extends
sustainability offers

More personality… magalog style

26 Mar 10

United Stationers has renewed its commitment to bring sustainable solutions to the marketplace with the release of its new 2010 Green Catalog.

We have reviewed at least 50 different ‘green’ catalogs over the past 5 years and this is up there with the best in terms of design and user friendliness

Best Buy’s big

bounceback

Sales surge in notebooks.
TV’s and home office supply

25 Mar 10

Best Buy, the world’s #1 consumer electronics retailer announced impressive gains in same store sales and operating profits for Q4’10. The connected world strategy is go…go…go!

Unemployment Unplugged

Are jobless statistics missing
burgeoning start-ups?

Goodbye OP dealer tag. Hello to the 

Personalised productivity
services future

Progressive resellers invest 
in the new PROPS model

21 Mar 10

Many dealers copy the bigboxes and compete by expanding sales geographically and trying to increase buying power. This is a “product based” strategy which will end in tears. Read here about the future winners, the new ‘providers of productivity services’ (PROPS).

The One Source services street

Will Managed Print contracts dominate the IT supplies market?

19 Mar 10

We’ve profiled some really progressive dealers in the past few months and we continue in 2010 with another example of a productivity services provider with a clear customer driven focus and a relentless measurement ethic.

Wholesaler Warfare:

Exclusive Latest News

ExSPRess attack

northeast market

Review and update of SPRichards’ backed offensives... 6 months on

19 Mar 10 (Completed 1800 ET; 2300 UK time)

Six months ago (16 Oct 2009) we broke the news exclusively aboutUS #2 OP wholesaler SPRichards’ backed triple attack on the huge northeast US marketplace dominated by United Stationers’ backed dealers.

We have reviewed the latest position and bring you our take on the latest SP fuelled moves re TriMega; Ex-Alliedchief Howard Brown;and the rise of certain northeast office dealers.

Sorry is the 
hardest word

Why can’t errant OP CEO’s just say we screwed up and vow to clean house?

20 Mar 10
We just read a great article in Fortunemagazine by Becky Quick the CNBC co-anchor of Squawk Box about  two recent cases where major companies’ e.g. Toyota,have chosen to deny rather than admit mistakes with potentially tragic consequences.

BREAKTHROUGH’10

Marketing Conference

Your new decade agenda:

Provide personalised

productivity services!

Wednesday 21 April 2010 at Kempton Park

Conference Centre, Sunbury on Thames, UK

18 March ‘10

What a terrific line up we’ve assembled for the 5^th Annual BREAKTHROUGH Marketing Conference to be held on Wednesday 21 April 2010. After 3 years in the Midlands we’ve moved the venue closer to London and Heathrow Airport.

How the mighty fall

Depot’s death wish; Max’s minimisation

How far have these bigbox players moved down the 5 stages of decline?

15 Mar 10

Last May Jim Collins, the acclaimed author of best sellers ‘Built to Last’and ‘Good to great’ published a new book entitled ‘How the mighty fall’…the 5 stages of decline. We were reminded of a number of companies in our industry who were experiencing similar stages of decline, notably Office Depotand OfficeMax and 7 June 2009 we published our review.

9 months later  we review Collins’ 5 stage thinking, against the current performances of Depot and Max and comment as follows:

OfficeMax Investor Day Report

Sam old, Sam old, Duncan delusion

New mantra: ‘An office effectiveness and efficiency solutions company’. What?

12 Mar 10 (Completed 2000 ET)

Corporate cliches eat your heart out! The OfficeMaxinvestors webcast last week was riddled with strategic BS: specifics-free and full of ‘differentiated’ delusion.

OfficeMax is a decade behind Staplesand maybe years behind Office Depot. The webcast started with a video entitled ‘work with us’…the new slogan. “Your ideas… your energy… your dreams… OfficeMax is here to help you realise those dreams…2010 is going to be the best year ever” continued the sugary female voice over, Dream on….

How to keep loyal customers satisfied

Communicate real value convincingly and consistently to customers

8 Mar 10

Customer loyalty, multiple sales channels and social media are just three challenges facing the retail sector. We pick up on a recent Marketing Week article and explore how advice from marketing experts may apply in the OP marketplace. 

OPI in Clover

with Depot

What’s next? Will magazine change its name to ODI?

2 Mar 10

Yesterday we read the OPI News report of Clover Technology’s reaction to Nukote’s claim for damages relating to the Office Depotink and toner contract it held for 20 years.

Is this another example of OPI’s unbalanced reporting in favour of Depot with not a word sought from the plaintiff? We contacted Nukote to get their reaction.

Outrage at OPI’s
Depot deference

Why is OPI blind to Depot’s frequent fraud and unethical incompetency?

1 March 10

OPI was once the industry’s leading international magazine, deserving of its  self proclaimed ‘definitive guide’reputation.  Of course, there were always suspicions from independent dealers that it was not only biased in favour of manufacturers who advertised, but also favoured bigbox players who used their publishing services.

That ‘unbalanced’ suspicion has escalated over the past year givenOPI’s double-feature of CEOSteve Odland and one sided non-coverage of Office Depot’s serial and systematic overcharging of its largest customers.