Recession Can Be a Marketer's Friend†

From Soap Operas to IPods: History Suggests Slumps Spawn Innovation

Advertising Age, March 25, 2008 — The massive bailout of Bear Stearns from the brink of bankruptcy could be the first of many financial rescues needed. Despite double-digit plunges, U.S. housing is still overpriced by historical yardsticks. Retail sales have gone from slow to declining, and the consumer-spending binge that propped up the U.S. economy for years may not return for a long time.

In short, it's a great time to be in marketing.

Make a Case for Your Brand†

Study Shows Brand Strength Does Have an Impact on Profitability and Risk

Advertising Age, November 26, 2007 — Have you ever needed to make a case for the brand to the CFO?

If you are like most marketing managers, you base your argument on research demonstrating that loyalty and evangelism can accrue from investments to build brand equity. Perhaps you provide your own consumer-based evidence of the power of branding, using psychological concepts such as perceived value, brand preference or brand awareness and recall.

Unfortunately, these are not ideas that persuade a CFO.

IBM: ‘End of Advertising as We Know It’

Marketing Charts, November 12, 2007 — Consumers are more in control than ever and savvier about filtering marketing messages, according to a report partly based on an IBM survey of digital media and entertainment habits. The IBM Global Business Services report, “The End of Advertising as We Know It,” forecasts greater disruption for the advertising industry in the next 5 years than in the previous 50.

IBM Consumer Study: Internet Rivals Declining TV as Primary Media Source

Marketing Charts, August 22, 2007 — Audiences have more control and are increasingly savvier about filtering marketing messages, with serious repercussions for marketers, ad agencies, broadcasters, publishers and cable companies, according to a new IBM survey of consumer digital media and entertainment habits.

Brand Portfolio and Brand Architecture in Single Brand Companies

Prophet, June 27, 2007 — In this article, Sarah Essex of Prophet discusses how single-brand companies can utilize brand portfolio and architecture to maximize business results.

Test Ride†

Marketers are trying out new media with small but effective campaigns

Brandweek, April 2, 2007 — Even highly experienced marketers can be daunted by the current menu of new media options. The glossary of industry terms alone is a hefty course of alphabet soup. There are blogs, vlogs, podcasts, V-casts, WAP sites and RSS feeds. There is user-generated content, open-sourced branding, crowd-sourced branding, mobile marketing, social networking sites, virtual communities. Choosing a media plan and creating a strategy starts to feel like spinning a roulette wheel.

The king of alter egos is surprisingly humble guy

Creator of Second Life's goal? Just to reach people

USA Today, February 6, 2007 — Philip Rosedale didn't create Second Life to be a game or a toy. He thinks he is remaking the Internet — taking it on a giant leap forward, much like the invention of the Mosaic browser or World Wide Web.

She's Got Their Number

Brenda Dietrich revels in theory but lives in the real world--and her team of math geeks is changing the way IBM works.

Fast Company, February 1, 2007 — There's a calculus to knitting. An untamed batch of wool gets twisted and fed into a spinning wheel, a wooden contraption about as high-tech as an abacus, that binds the fibers into a single strand of yarn. That yarn, in turn, is woven into geometric designs comprised of equations: A certain number of rows combined with certain stitches yield something functional and beautiful. In the right hands, knitting produces a precise but almost magical alchemy--chaos into order.

The Best of 2006: Ideas

The concepts that are reshaping the business world -- and all of our lives

BusinessWeek, December 18, 2006 — The year 2006 may well be remembered as the annus mirabilis of free work. Whether it comes from open-source developers, obsessive fans, angry customers, or lonely Web addicts looking to burnish their egos with a little attention online