Mike Hohnen

Coaching for personal growth, change and development

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Are you providing ONLINE OXYGEN?

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These days, consumers don’t want online access anywhere/anytime, they absolutely CRAVE it! From airports to living rooms to roof gardens to classrooms to city parks, people go to great lengths to get a dose of what TRENDWATCHING.COM has dubbed ONLINE OXYGEN. Seven years after the first web sites started popping up, and email made its way from science labs to office desks and living rooms, 600 million consumers worldwide are beginning to see online access as an absolute necessity, and there are no signs that the pace of integrating online access into daily life is slowing down.

Some global figures: [Read more…] about Are you providing ONLINE OXYGEN?

Amen….

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?These days people want
what?s real. The ?90s were
all about exuberance, but
now it?s authenticity.?

Kid focus…

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Did I miss something or are we not tuned in to kids – yet – in the European hotel business?

Hotels Very Accommodating Toward Kids
This year, as Americans plan their annual summer vacations, they?re
most likely to revert to the vacation they took as kids ? the family road
trip. A recent survey by CoolSavings and Rand McNally found that the
road trip is the top choice for vacationers this year (70%). And there?s
never been a better time to travel as a family because, as Child
magazine recently reported, more and more hotel chains are offering
activities and amenities for kids::
? Embassy Suites ? Offers kids fun premiums from partner Nickelodeon
? Loews ? Features cute kid-size furniture and welcomes family pets
? Four Seasons ? Welcomes kids with a free snack, offers free kid movies
? Wyndham ? Lets parents pre-register favorite activities, toys and snacks
? Holiday Inn ? Provides kids with free rubber frog bath toy and
fun-filled activity room
? Westin ? Pampers kids with holistic skincare items and popular
bedtime stories
? Sheraton ? Has fun activities like lei-making, horseback riding and
movies and s?mores around a bonfire
? Hilton ? Features regional activities such as panning for gold and
salsa-making in the Southwest
? Hyatt ? Free glow-in-the-dark Frisbee, scavenger and sea-shell
hunts and dive-in movies that can be viewed by the pool
? The Ritz-Carlton ? Provides themed kiddie teas, teddy bear
tuck-ins and butler-drawn baths
? Omni ? Free Omni Kids Bag of activities, kid-friendly food and
fun contests

Source: Buzz

Branded Brands…

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Marriot & Bulgari – Smart Car & IPod – Nickelodeon partnering with Holiday Inn Hotelsis all examples of this new trend reported in trendwatch.com

Despite some doom and gloom predictions for brands in general (too expensive, too much media saturation), branded goods remain as hot as ever. Certain focused and well respected brands, often beacons of coolness and quality, are now cashing in by enriching other, more all-encompassing brands. The result: BRANDED BRANDS.

In plain English: BRANDED BRANDS means you will get a pizza from Pizzeria Uno on an American Airlines flight. And onboard perks offered by United Airlines include Starbucks Coffee, Mrs. Fields Cookies and even a McDonald?s ?Friendly Skies Meal?, including the ubiquitous promo-toy.

When you check into your Westin Hotel, expect the beauty products to come from premium brand Aveda. Le Meridien adds to its appeal with luxurious Hermes toiletries. These days, lifestyle magazines even include this kind of information in their hotel reviews.

Cars aren?t immune either: Lexus proudly promotes their Mark Levinson audio systems. And when dining out, don?t be surprised to find Haagen-Dazs ice-cream on the menu of even upscale restaurants. It all points to consumers on the road increasingly wanting to find the brands they trust and enjoy at home (United Airlines? in-board coffee approval shot up to 87% when it introduced Starbucks).

Up to marketers to decide whether they represent a brand that should be branded, or own a brand that puts the ?branded? into others! [Read more…] about Branded Brands…

PLANNED SPONTANEITY:

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What concert to see tonight? Whom to casually meet or date within the next hour? Which Southern European city to fly to for the weekend? Consumers soaking up the entertainment economy are increasingly taking advantage of a burgeoning physical and virtual web of no-frills airlines, always-on phones and PDAs, affordable hotels, last-minute/find-and-seek websites, and so on. TRENDWATCHING.COM has dubbed this trend of acting on a whim PLANNED SPONTANEITY: making spontaneous decisions to go somewhere or do something is becoming the norm; often the only thing consumers are willing to plan is to be… spontaneous!
And whereas these individual acts and purchases are fast becoming commonplace, focusing on the interconnectedness of a much larger web of instant gratification options and services will reveal some interesting insights into future consumer behavior. Sound slightly vague-ish? Then consider these random yet telling numbers:

[Read more…] about PLANNED SPONTANEITY:

Food for thought:

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?The difficulties arise from inherent conflict between the need to control existing operations and the need to create the kind of environment that will permit new ideas to flourish ? and old ones to die a timely death… we believe that most corporations will find it impossible to match or outperform the market without abandoning the assumption of continuity?

from: Creative Destruction by Dick Foster and Sarah Kaplan

Think about that… take a deep breath… what does it mean for your organisation….

Food critic from hell or…

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For one of the most feared men in London these days, the writer A. A. Gill looks incongruously relaxed. Perched at the dining table of his Fulham apartment ? easily found thanks to a Mountain Dew-colored Bentley parked out front ? Mr. Gill, who looks a decade younger than his 50 years, is answering the charge that he is, hands down, London’s most vicious restaurant critic.

“I take issue with `poison pen,’ ” said Mr. Gill, known as Adrian to friends and enemies alike, a devious smile flickering across his face. “I care an enormous amount about restaurants and food, and I get very angry when they’re bad. But I don’t close down restaurants. Bad food closes down restaurants. Rude service closes down restaurants. All I do is notice it.

“Americans got a glimpse of Mr. Gill’s rougher treatment this summer, in the August issue of Vanity Fair, when Mr. Gill eviscerated 66, Jean-Georges Vongerichten’s TriBeCa restaurant. In his review, Mr. Gill likened the shrimp and foie gras dumplings at 66 to “fishy, liver-filled condoms” and called them “properly vile, with a savor that lingered like a lovelorn drunk and tasted as if your mouth had been used as the swab bin in an animal hospital.” While many American readers were stunned by Mr. Gill’s dyspeptic prose, to the English, the writing was as ordinary as pot roast for Sunday dinner.

Read the full article in the NYT: https://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/09/fashion/09LOND.html

Amazon.com launches new gourmet foods store

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Have a craving for Le Cochon dOr smoked ham from Cap-de-la-Madelene in Quebec? How about some Yarmouth Island lobster hors d’oeuvres or Mama Africa’s Zulu lemon, garlic, jalepeno relish?

Those and thousands of other regional specialties are now being offered by online bookstore giant Amazon.com in its latest move to diversify from its core business of selling books and music.

Amazon launched its gourmet food store this week, offering more than 30,000 regional food items from about 300 merchants, including foods from most states and ethnic offerings from many countries. There are more than 700 different cheeses alone.

[Read more…] about Amazon.com launches new gourmet foods store