With 35 varieties of bagels, 66 subbrands of GM cars, and more than 13,000 mutual funds, American consumers are suffering a severe case of brand overload. Marketing guru Peter Sealey has a tough-love cure: "simplicity marketing."
John Toner runs Belfast's Europa Hotel, which has been the target of so many terrorist attacks that he stopped counting long ago. Who has time? Everyone is too busy getting back to work.
Ireland's "Pope of Customer Service" dominates his market -- and continues to beat bigger rivals -- with a leadership philosophy that is at once folksy and radical. Behind all his success is one big question: How do we convince our customers to come back?
A few years ago, experts thought a new pricing model would sweep the Internet in which users would gladly pay a few cents a page for the content that they liked. It was a costly misjudgment.
Mobil launched Speedpass to help customers guzzle gas faster. Now, 5 million users later, the tiny device has become a huge asset -- a classic case of a network effect.
Who would have guessed that the most buzz-generating story of our September issue would be about Lego? We pause from our reflections on September 11 to listen to what some die-hard Lego fans had to say about the company's recent products ... and problems.
The FBI is turning to a small Boston software firm for help in transforming surveillance video into high-resolution images -- and then using the pictures to help track terrorists. Call it the ultimate killer app.
