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Lessons from the Best Global Brands 2010: Building trust and stability in the age of transparency

This year, Interbrand’s annual Best Global Brands 2010 ranking of the top 100 brands was notable for showing a remarkable shift in consumers’ spending habits. Public scandals like the BP oil spill and Goldman Sachs’ mortgage securities fraud compromised consumers’ trust in brands, and as a result, consumer loyalty was at an all-time low. At the same time, the stops and starts of the recession have created savvier, more budget-conscious consumers who are just as likely to cut spending by choosing private label toothpaste, as they are to match a Zara skirt with a pair of Christian Louboutin shoes. And not only are brands more vulnerable to shoppers’ unpredictable whims, but tools like social media mean that consumers also have more control. Today’s consumers now have the ability to watch and respond to every brand’s move – positive or negative.


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About the Author

Jez Frampton is Interbrand’s Global CEO responsible for managing the firm’s worldwide interests and enhancing its strategic and creative offerings. Jez is a member of the Marketing Society, the Chartered Institute of Marketing, the Market Research Society, the Design Business Association, and the Institute of Directors. He is a frequent lecturer on the subject of branding.

Tap into Your Think Tank: Twenty Ways to Generate Ideas That Will Boost Your Business

In today’s business world, your ideas are what set you apart from your competition. Here’s how to get your creative juices flowing so that you can out-think and out-earn your competition.

The lightbulb. Bubble wrap. The Post-It. The iPod. The Snuggie. Facebook. Twitter. These inventions, products, and businesses all started with an idea. An idea that to anyone other than its creator(s) may have seemed like an insane thing to invest much time, money, or effort in bringing to fruition. But for the masterminds behind these great ideas, the risk paid off and so too can your next great idea.

Now, you might be thinking, I am not going to come up with today’s equivalent of the lightbulb. That’s fine. You don’t have to. Great ideas come in many shapes and sizes – whether it’s something as small as a new logo for your business or something as big as rolling out a brand new product. What’s important is that you give your best ideas a shot at life.


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About the Author

Jim Kukral is the author of Attention! This Book Will Make You Money: How to Use Attention-Getting Online Marketing to Increase Your Revenue. For over 15 years, Jim has helped small businesses and large companies like FedEx, Sherwin-Williams, Ernst & Young, and Progressive Auto Insurance understand how to find success on the Web. Jim is also a professional speaker, blogger, and Web business consultant. Jim teaches thousands of students around the globe as an adjunct professor for The University of San Francisco’s Internet Marketing Program. He has been quoted or featured in some way in online and offline print publications such as Forbes, Brandweek, Entrepreneur, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, BusinessWeek, Inc., Small Business Trends, FeedFront, Revenue Today, Marketing Sherpa, and Duct Tape Marketing Network. Find out more by visiting www.JimKukral.com and www.AttentionTheBook.com.

Make Your Business 1st Choice at Four Decisive Customer Moments

Throughout the history of buying and selling, purchase has been a challenging experience for both buyers and sellers because purchase is a lengthy progression with three phases: consideration, negotiation, and transaction.

Buyers have always been in control of their consideration phase and sellers have always been in control of negotiation and transaction because they “owned” every bit of valuable information relevant to the purchase. Today’s buyers, no longer dependent on sellers’ information, have taken control of the entire selling progression including negotiation and transaction.


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About the Author

Robert H. Bloom is the author of The New Experts: Win Today’s Newly Empowered Customers at Their 4 Decisive Moments (Greenleaf). For more information or to contact Robert Bloom, please visit www.TheNewExperts.com.

Conquering the Communication Challenge with a Whiteboard

One of the greatest challenges managers and CEOs face is effectively communicating with their employees, clients and stakeholders. Whether by email, phone call or conference room presentation, the corporate world is inundated with more communication input than ever before. We’ve all become complacent to the noise. We’ve all heard it before, but it bears repeating: a key player in the communications challenge is the PowerPoint presentation. This presentation go-to is often a crutch that leads to glazed eyes, big yawns and undeniable apathy. Let’s look at how we got to this point.


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About the Author

Corey Sommers is Co-Founder and Chief Marketing Officer of WhiteboardSelling, a provider of tools, best practices and technologies that enable field personnel to communicate and demonstrate core business value propositions to C-level buyers in a confident, compelling and consistent fashion… all without slides. Corey has more than 15 years experience in sales and channel enablement, account manager certification and training, and competitive intelligence. He is passionate about bridging the gap between marketing and sales within large organizations. Prior to founding WhiteboardSelling, he developed and executed VMware’s channel enablement strategy globally, across VARs, OEMs, Distributors, ISVs, and Corporate Reseller channel segments. He had shared responsibility for sales enablement and training for BMC Software’s world-wide direct sales organization. Corey also founded Ventaso, a leading provider of sales-ready messaging software and tools. To read Corey’s complete biography, click here.

Leveraging “Fifth Screen” Affordability To Improve Customer Engagement

It started with the silver screen, over a century ago. And while the advent of TV, personal computers and mobile devices as the second, third and fourth major screen technologies have clearly changed life as we know it, Digital Out Of Home (DOOH) technology – the “fifth screen”, as it’s known – has created amazingly influential opportunities of its own.

Today’s digital networks are easier to design, present and deploy than ever before, in part because of the price drop in flat panel displays and Content Management Systems (CMS). We’re also seeing an increase in education and technology advancements, as well as manufacturers and suppliers taking a more holistic approach in supporting those who want to get into the DOOH business.


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About the Author

Steve Acquista – CTS ([email protected]) is a 20-year industry veteran and the Director of Digital Signage at Black Box, a world leader and provider of comprehensive communications and data infrastructure solutions. In addition to designing, installing and maintaining unified communications networks throughout the world, the company offers more than 118,000 networking and infrastructure products. To learn more about Black Box, visit: www.blackbox.com/go/icompel.