Our thinking appears in marketing articles and publications around the world

JCPenney will be the retailer to watch this year. The company has launched a major rebranding effort with a full overhaul of its merchandising strategy, and Forbes is already touting it as the most interesting retailer in 2012.

In this article Roland and Tobias talk about the impact of social media on companies' marketing strategy and show how customers should be at the center of communication in this new networked era.
* Please note this article is in German.

In the environment where you can reach your customers 24/7, success at building a brand—at solidifying and growing your relationship with customers—is really all about being selective. You need to pick the right time and place or, better yet, let the customer pick for you.

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.

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.

This book provides a clear and well-defined structure of the relationship between a brand and its symbol and slogan, as well as each of the five underlying assets.

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.

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, 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.

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.

This article was co-authored with our client, UBS, and has been translated into English from the original German text. It illustrates how active touchpoint management can help in converting prospects to clients, extending relationships to existing clients and therefore driving business results.

In this article, Fred and Chiaki outline the concept of Signature Touchpoints, the third dimension of marketing, which is just as important as new product development or campaign development to achieve breakthrough in both B2B and B2C markets.

Almost everything about marketing is sexy and exciting, spanning, as it does, so many interesting areas that are highly visible to the entire organization and public. Marketers manage the brand (or brands), its position, communications, and lead such popular trends as digital strategies, social media, and guerilla marketing. 

And then there’s pricing, decidedly not sexy despite being one of the most critical aspects of marketing. This is where margins are made, cash flow is generated, and businesses grow. It’s the profitability backbone of an organization. It is also the most measurable aspect of a brand, and lends itself to a plethora of analytics opportunities to make these challenges surmountable.

One of the strongest retail brands in the world is Muji. BrandJapan has measured brand strength for 1,100 brands in Japan for eight years. Muji always has ranked in the top 30—and usually in the top 20—a consistency shared by only three other retail brands. Few brands deliver more emotional and self-expressive benefits than does Muji. Yet, the Muji brand vision is not to be a brand. It is the no-brand brand.

The growth in minority markets is substantial and their potential buying power is even greater. Marketers who map out the most customer-centric approaches to establish their relevance to these diverse populations will be rewarded with the kind of strong and enduring brand loyalty that drives sustainable business growth. 

Winning the brand-relevance war involves engaging in substantial or transformational innovation to change what customers buy, to manage perceptions of the resulting new subcategory, and to build barriers to prevent competitors from overcoming their visibility and credibility barriers.