In its August 2 issue, Business Week publishes its annual ranking of the world’s most valuable brands, in conjunction with Interbrand. The ranking includes the top ten brands worldwide (top 3: Coca Cola, Microsoft, IBM) with the collective brand value of the ten amounting to more than US$380 billion. It’s a well-written article with some […]
Category: Marketing
Porn blogs ahead of the curve
When I had my blog on BlogSpot, one thing I noticed each time I posted an article and checked in the listing of updated blogs (yep, I used to do that after every post!) was the amazing numbers of blogs with names like ‘sexy Zeta-Jones pics’ or ‘Britney’s secret honeymoon blog’ and similar. Just loads […]
Webinar on blogging: what every marketer needs to know
If you want to know ‘Blogging 101’ from the business perspective, a free one-hour webinar presented by business intelligence firm Intelliseek may be just what you need. Here’s what Intelliseek say about the webinar: In a short time, a new form of Internet content — the blog, short for “web log” — has become a […]
Liechtenstein re-branded
The tiny European country of Liechtenstein is just about to relaunch itself on the world having had a makeover session from the brand consultants. — report today from Reuters. View video report (2m 13 secs): Reuters.com | Liechtenstein Rebranded (If the link above doesn’t work, go to tv.reuters.com and navigate from there.)
RSS: Real advantage for marketing and PR
Internetnews.com published a pretty sharp analysis on 13 August of the threat to traditional marketing and PR activity that business blogs present. What’s especially interesting about the article is its commentary on RSS, which gives clear advantages to marketing and PR departments in how they can change their communication models. RSS (concise definition) is a […]
An artful start from ChangeThis
I read through The Art of the Start last night, a manifesto I downloaded from the ChangeThis website. ChangeThis, driven by Seth Godin and launched on 13 August, is an interesting concept: a form of media that uses existing tools (like PDF files, blogs and the web) to challenge the way ideas are created and […]
A Real music battle
Real Networks mounts a big challenge to Apple’s iTunes in an effort to win market share at Apple’s expense, according to a BBC News report yesterday: BBC NEWS | Business | Real in online music price war Then, one post by Steve Rubel on his Micro Persuasion blog reported that Real had set up a […]
Viral marketing ‘backfire’
The Register reported yesterday on a marketing campaign to promote the latest version of the Resident Evil PlayStation 2 game which provoked a panic about the spread of a non-existent mobile phone virus. Phone users have received unsolicited SMS text messages on their mobile phones telling them they are infected by the so-called T-Virus. The […]
Microsoft localization traps
You think selling software in multiple countries is easy? You have localized your product, your distribution infrastructure is set, support systems ready, all the elements in place, and off you go, right? Take a look at some of Microsoft’s experiences over the past 10 years, presented at a conference to address why multi-national corporations must […]
Advertorials by another name
Just a matter of time, I suppose, and it’s happened sooner rather than later. Marketing VOX has a brief news item about a US company called Blogversations who offer to match bloggers with sponsors (advertisers); the bloggers would write about the sponsor’s product or service and get paid for it. Hmm. A natural development in […]
ChangeThis adds new manifestos
Ten days after ChangeThis launched (see my post), five new manifestos have been added to the library for viewing and download from today. Two in particular caught my attention: This I Believe! – Tom’s 60 TIBs. Tom Peters is back with more Big Ideas for your job, your company, and your life. The marketing and […]
FT on business blogs as key influencers
The Financial Times published a piece last weekend on business blogging. Originally published by the Irish Times, the article is the latest big-media reporting on this topic. Overall, the article discusses the importance blogs have gained in their role as influencers of opinion. Excerpts: They were once seen as the preserve of the geek, but […]
The search engine belt buckle
The search engine belt buckle is a PDA which shows 24 hours of all the bizarre and banal things people are looking for on the web. Art project or pointless hack? That’s for you to decide, but all we know is that people are searching for some pretty freaky stuff out there, so why not […]
Best times to send marketing emails
Research from Return Path, an email performance management company, shows that delivery date and delivery time are critical to the success of email marketing campaigns, reports Internet Week. In Internet Week’s article, Return Path recommends the following guidelines to improve deliverability rates of permission-based email marketing campaigns: – Send e-mails on weekdays rather than weekends. […]
Deutsche Welle BOBs: Global blog awards
DW-World, the online portal of German international broadcaster Deutsche Welle, has launched “The BOBs – Best of the Blogs” awards. DW plans to honour the best blogs in 11 different categories, including Best Weblog, Best Topic, Best Design, Best Weblog Innovation and Best Journalistic Weblog. A total of seven of the Best Journalism prizes will […]
Their perception is your reality
If the single most important thing to any business is its reputation, then Oracle Corporation is in deep trouble. From a report published this week by market research firm Techtel: In 2Q04, opinion of Oracle by US IT professionals reached the lowest level in twelve years. This declining opinion, even against a background of declining […]
RSS complements email marketing
There’s been quite a bit of discussion recently on RSS taking over the job that email traditionally has done in marketing. Rick Bruner made a good case last month for why you shouldn’t just switch to RSS with One (Percent) Reason Why Not to Switch From Email to RSS. His post generated some good comments. […]
Blog awards contest opens
The Best of the Blogs awards contest – the BOBS – promoted by German broadcaster Deutsche Welle opens today (see earlier post for details). One of the sponsors is TypePad, host for my blog. Good to see their ad on the BOBS site in 5 languages, not just English. The BOBS – Best of The […]
More fuel for RSS and marketing debate
More articles and comments continue to appear about RSS and whether or when it could replace email as a primary marketing communication channel. I’ve also posted about this subject recently as I believe it’s a topic that is of distinct interest to all communicators, not only those concerned with email and marketing. Robin Good published […]
Brand extension best practice
The creator of one of the world’s most famous guns, the AK-47 assault rifle, launched another weapon in the UK today – Kalashnikov vodka. Lieutenant General Mikhail Kalashnikov, who invented the AK-47 after being shot by German soldiers during World War II, said he wanted to continue “the good name” of his gun. Reuters | […]