05.04.2009
Many years ago I worked in the broadcasting industry, spanning media to include both radio and television. A good friend of mine was and is the sole regional source for a smokin’ hot local market retail promotion call the 69 cent dollar. The basic concept is that a group of local retailers sells scrip in the form of a copyright protected scrip ($.069 cent dollar) for which they pay $0.69 but which is worth a full dollar at any participating retailer. In this case a focused marketing effort with creative use of radio, television and/or other guerilla media opportunities. The 69 Cent Dollar promotion is wildly successful in the right kind of market and yet sometimes delivers less benefit than expected in others. There is much science, with liberal doses of marketing voodoo that can be used to define a good target city from a bad one.
Therefore, in the category of “I’ve now almost seen it all” comes a story first passed to me by a mentoring muse and thought-provoking bon-vivant at “big-bank”. Given my past experience I can tell you with some modest amount of confidence that this “promotion” is hardly that and yet has a huge amount of potential for short-term benefit to certain communities that are faced with sector-related economic strife.
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04.27.2009
Financial services giant Fiserv received a nasty surprise last week – well one would hope it was a surprise. A lesser part of their smorgasbord of offerings to financial services companies is an investment advisory unit simply called Fiserv Investment Services and it would appear they just got tainted by the Bernie Madoff ponzi scheme.
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