Customer Service as a Growth Engine†

Companies Shift More Resources to Help Staffers Who Deal With Public to Reduce Frustrations and Improve Loyalty

Wall Street Journal, June 7, 2010 — Executives are paying more attention to customer service in an effort to increase sales and gain market share in the economic recovery.

Drug-store chain Walgreen Co. is training pharmacists to spend more time helping patients with chronic illnesses. Comcast Corp. is putting call-center agents through new training and instructing supervisors to coach their agents more. American Express Co. is expanding a program aimed at getting agents to build better relationships with customers.

P&G Plots Growth Path Through Services†

In Brand-Saturation Age, Major Marketers Turn to Franchising and Other Models

Advertising Age, March 22, 2010 — Procter & Gamble Co. got to be an $80 billion company and the world's-largest marketer almost entirely by selling goods, but it's increasingly looking to services ranging from concierge physicians to car washes and dry cleaners to fuel its thirst for growth.

P&G CEO Bob McDonald on Why Size Doesn't Matter†

Lafley Successor Says World's Biggest Spender Under-Leverages Its Scale

Advertising Age, January 18, 2010 — The last decade at the world's biggest marketing spender belonged to A.G. Lafley, but this one belongs to Bob McDonald. In an interview with Advertising Age, the Procter & Gamble Chairman-CEO explains how he's different from his longtime mentor — and it's more than being an Army guy trained in jungle and desert warfare vs. a Navy guy who operated a store.

The Father of Social Networking

With Facebook, 25 year-old Mark Zuckerberg, turned a dorm-room diversion into a cultural phenomenon. His next goal? To finally turn the company profitable

Newsweek, July 22, 2009 — It's the stuff of dotcom legend. Harvard undergrad Mark Zuckerberg and a few friends hack into the university's photo ID database and create a site for students to rate and/or berate their classmates' pictures. Since Facebook's launch in 2004, it's become a cultural phenomenon that's outgrown its Ivy League origins, into middle America and started to expand into countries around the world. NEWSWEEK's Dan Lyons spoke with Zuckerberg about Facebook's rapid growth, how it's reshaped how we think about privacy and whether the site can get too big for its own good.

CMOs Still Say They Can Grow Post-Recession

Spencer Stuart Survey: Focus Is on Cost Cutting Rather Than Long-Term Biz Building

CMO Strategy by AdAge, May 4, 2009 — In these tough economic times, chief marketing officers are keeping their heads down, focused on meeting the short-term demands of the job. But are they kidding themselves by thinking that when the recession subsides, they'll be able to jump right back in the game after having shelved long-term plans?

Is Facebook Growing Up Too Fast?

New York Times, March 29, 2009 — WHEN Facebook signed up its 100 millionth member last August, its employees spread out in two parks in Palo Alto, Calif., for a huge barbecue. Sometime this week, this five-year-old start-up, born in a dorm room at Harvard, expects to register its 200 millionth user.

That staggering growth rate — doubling in size in just eight months — suggests Facebook is rapidly becoming the Web’s dominant social ecosystem and an essential personal and business networking tool in much of the wired world.

MasterCard's keys to survival

The credit card underdog is taking on rival Visa with smart technology, memorable marketing, and global ambition. But what happens when consumers put their cards away?

FORTUNE, October 23, 2008 — On the desktop screens at MasterCard Worldwide, you can see the economic pulse of the globe in real time. In the suburban St. Louis control center of MasterCard's global-payments network, rows of analysts keep watch over the flow of nearly 20 billion transactions a year in 210 countries, more than the United Nations has members. When the matrix of green lights flashes a red spot, the money traffic controllers immediately reroute the transactions to keep commerce flowing.

Meanwhile, in suburban New York City, the staff at MasterCard Advisors monitors the payment network, plus surveys and other outside data, to produce bulletins on America's retail health. In early October, days before retailers released their monthly results, Advisors noted sharply... continue reading

General Mills CMO Talks Growth, Sustainability†

Brandweek, October 17, 2008 — In today's tough economy, when food companies are battling escalating ingredient costs, heavily scrutinized marketing practices and fluctuating stocks, General Mills is driving growth with a business model that includes marketing at its core.

Mark Addicks, CMO and svp of General Mills, revealed what those strategies were during a speech this morning at the Association of National Advertisers' conference in Orlando, Fla. Addicks credited "leadership, scale and leverage" as the three factors fueling General Mill's brand portfolio in an unstable food business.

From Silos to Synergy†

The new CMO imperative to growth

The Advertiser, October 1, 2008 — The existence of functional silos is the most serious challenge in planning and executing integrated marketing campaigns to drive growth, according to ANA research conducted earlier this year. Fifty-nine percent of respondents listed it as a major challenge. With that in mind, we’re pleased to present this excerpt of a new book aimed at CMOs looking to solve the silo problem.

What's New at MySpace

With Facebook surging, cofounders Chris DeWolfe and Tom Anderson have gone back to their roots -- music, pop culture, and a proven cash-flow ad model -- to spur a next phase of growth. Will that be en

Fast Company, August 27, 2008 — Chris Dewolfe, the lanky, shaggily hip CEO of Myspace, is holding his last meeting of the day from a prone position, a collection of long limbs stacked on a tiny red love seat. The early evening powwow, taking place in the cramped office of his senior communications director, is interrupted when I come crashing in to say good-bye.