So much content, so little time...

A weekly round-up of the themes and posts I found particularly interesting or useful.

Conversations around loyalty made a welcome return this week, together with a look at the rising importance of creativity, and the need for marketers to get in tune with the connected consumer.

Loyalty matters...
In a world of ever-increasing competition, building strong relationships with customers matters more than ever.

Customer Loyalty: Is it a Behavior? Or an Attitude? highlighted the need to build positive customer attitudes that drive positive customer behavior, rather than being seduced into buying customer loyalty.
A simple approach to creating Loyal Brands... provided a powerful framework for building brands centered on earning customer loyalty.
Amazon Earns Customer Loyalty With Integrity, Not Rewards used a simple example to demonstrate that the only way to achieve loyalty is by running businesses honestly, fairly, and transparently.
Surprise Is Still the Most Powerful Marketing Tool urged marketers to use surprise to strengthen their relationships with existing customers.
While How Smart Data Boosts Customer Lifetime Value explored how technology can enable brands to create meaningful relationships with customers, by providing personalized and timely content.

Creativity rules...
With the forces of disruption swirling all around, several posts explored the need for a more creative and flexible approach.

The Rising Value Of Brands In The Digital Age highlighted how digital media needs to learn from the creativity of the advertising pioneers, to build the consumer brands of the future.
What Value Creation Will Look Like in the Future showed how value is increasingly based on creativity, rather than industrial scale, and examined the implications for a more fluid form of organization.
Competitive Advantage Is Dead. Here's What To Do About It argued that the days of creating a sustainable competitive advantage are over, and success may well lay in knowing when it's time to quit or adapt.
5 Ways Big Companies Can Pivot Like Lean Startups offered some useful advice on how to unlock creativity and innovation in a corporate giant.
While Why marketing professionals should look to data for their next big idea looked at how data itself can be a source of inspiration, to unlock creative ideas.

Getting jiggy with it...
In an ever more connected world, marketers need to loosen up, and embrace it.

New Digital Influencers: The Coming Youthquake outlined how both Millenials and Generation Z are different through growing up in a digital age, and urged us all to understand their behavior, expectations, and preferences.
Baby-Boomer Marketers Are Misreading Millenials' Media Behavior argued that senior marketers are still too wedded to the methods and media that have worked over the past 30 years, and just don't understand millenials' vastly different media habits.
Now You Tweet Me, Now You Don't urged companies to intentionally invite and reward customers for sharing positive experiences and accolades, to help shape the conversation about them.
The 10 Second Rule explored how, in an environment where two-thirds of the conversations about a brand are generated from outside the company, brand strategy and experience must be considered every 10 seconds, not every 10 years.
While Why Digital Influencers Can Explode Your Company's Bottom Line simply made the case for connecting your content marketing strategy with digital influencers.

Finally, in a world where mash-ups are increasingly the norm, Everyone in marketing should be a marketer scientist provided a great profile for a modern marketer.

Enjoy...