Our thinking appears in marketing articles and publications around the world

Loyalty programs have become all about earn and burn: customers spend money, earn points and then redeem them. It's time to rethink this concept.

Luxury brands face no small dilemma these days as they try to deliver growth without compromising cachet—all against the backdrop of a severe global recession that’s sure to challenge their fabled resistance to downturns.

I’m as fond of Mrs. Butterworth and her syrup as the next person. Splashed on pancakes or waffles? Delicious. As a special sauce to make my insurance bills a bit more palatable? Maybe not so much.

Given the ever increasing scrutiny of marketing spending, this article discusses various approaches for measuring effectiveness of sponsorships.

Despite marketing's lingering reputation in some senior management circles as the function that is more interested in spending money than bringing it in, top-level marketers increasingly understand they share the same mandate as their peers in the executive suite: To help drive profitable business growth.

The troubled economy is forcing corporate leaders to re-evaluate their spending plans across the board and marketing is not exempt. In fact, marketing is often first in line for cuts as corporate leaders attempt to identify immediate cost reductions that may take longer to achieve in other areas.

Michael Dunn blogs about concepts from his latest book, "The Marketing Accountability Imperative," and discusses five tough questions in guiding how best to reduce and reallocate budgets.

Roger Sinclair outlines that Portfolio management is a key ingredient in enterprise value in and that inefficient portfolio units drag down the rest. The Prophet Brand Valuation Tool offers sensitive and unique facilities for this management function.

Marianne Caponnetto is a case in point: Change agents can come from anywhere in the organization. At Scholastic, the leading children’s book publisher and education technology company, she’s enabling change from the boardroom after having earned her stripes driving the change imperative in sales and marketing leadership positions at DoubleClick, IBM, and Dow Jones &Co. 

Better-informed consumers are changing the nature of the customer-brand relationship as well as the nature of branding building. As the importance of non-marketing touchpoints such as customer service and the actual in-store experience continues to increase, marketing is challenged to step beyond its traditional role to prove its value in generating business growth.

Marketers aiming to better position themselves and the marketing function to add real value to the organization have their work cut out for them. A new year makes the timing right to recap three of the most critical prescriptions for change.

Marketing is increasingly under pressure to make the most of its brands, its investments, and its organization. Although this pressure is particularly intense in tough economic times, the topic is increasingly relevant even in good times.

In this article, Roger argues that accountants and marketers are more similar than we think.  

Too many marketers are unable or unwilling to leap beyond the data to figure out how data-driven insights can be used to drive innovation and address unmet customer needs.

Joseph Gelman exposes the notion of Marketing Effectiveness in times of recession, placing particular emphasis on Test and Learn. *Please note, this article is in Spanish.

In this article, David Aaker examines how silo barriers within organizations can be reduced or eliminated, leading to stronger offerings and brands and effective synergistic marketing strategies and programs.  *Please note, there is a fee to obtain a copy of this article.

From financial services to pharma to energy, B2B companies are embracing marketing. With intense competitive pressures, they have to identify sources of profitable growth, promise a better solution to customers, and ensure efficient and effective delivery on that promise.

In this article Jeff Gourdji and Jeff Smith explain how to better connect business strategy and marketing execution.

Short CMO tenure has become a widely accepted fact of life. The arguments for this state are quite familiar: poor cultural fit, overly ambitious agenda, lack of productivity, change in business strategy, and no budget, to name just a few.

More often than not, there’s a more fundamental issue at play, and it’s one that is systemic across organizations. There’s a missing piece of what we call marketing middleware — the “Intel Inside” of marketing.

A look at the top 10 things that are different about marketing mix modeling in 2013, and why it is a more effective business tool than ever before.