The world's strongest brands have proven their resilience to recession: When most key financial indicators plummeted last year, the value of the BrandZ* Top 100 brands, led by technology brands, rose 4% to more than $2 trillion, according to Millward Brown. more

MarketingProfs blogger Ann Handley begin_of_the_skype_highlighting     end_of_the_skype_highlighting begin_of_the_skype_highlighting     end_of_the_skype_highlighting shares 30 lessons for B2B marketers at the B2B Forum 2010. more

This post was written while sitting around the old horseshoe, waiting for Interactive Discussion Strategies for Making the Most of Your Tradeshow to begin. The session was led Bob president of marketing consultancy for The Cool Beans . Bob also is part of the MPB2B "pit crew" and is collecting ... more

Driven by the need to save money during the economic downturn, consumers have been revoking their allegiance to brands in the past two years, and many have opted for cheaper brands across a variety of product categories, according to a new study from comScore. more

The Blackeyed Peas' will.i.am recently raised eyebrows during a concert in Florida when he freestyled, in real-time, anything users sent to his BlackBerry. You're thinking, "Whoa, that's a lot of people with will.i.am's number." Thankfully, he still reserves that for his friends. The messages were sent to him via the instant-messaging ... more

OK. Time to clear your mind and consider some findings from Tremor, a subsidiary of Procter & Gamble that focuses on word-of-mouth (WOM). Tremor is populated by cognitive scientists whose job is to study the brain, then apply their knowledge to marketing. Some sample Tremor tips: The brain isn't actually wired ... more

In March, MarketingProfs ran an article about brand flubs in social media, starring Southwest Airlines and Heinz. Read the tale. Now we discuss a third brand's stormy social life: Nestle. Recently, Greenpeace, which raises awareness for ecological issues in provocative ways, released a video of a guy snacking on a Kit ... more

MarketingProfs blogger Ted Mininni shares the latest data of a national brand vs. store brand report. more

You know you've been successful in building your brand when your constituents have taken ownership of it. Achieving that happy state of affairs requires working through an entire process. But even then you're not there yet. You have to engage your organization first. more

In a recent post at the Online Marketing Blog, Lee Odden explains how a better understanding of search-engine optimization can help PR and communications professionals boost their results in a digital world by making it easier for various search engines to find, index and rank their content. "If content can ... more

Dipping your brand into unfamiliar territory (like marketing a mobile app to the masses) isn't just a matter of learning new terrain, it's a matter of rethinking what you think you know. A good place to start? Other companies' success stories. Enter Vogue Stylist ("Your closet. Styled by Vogue."), an iPhone app ... more

Analytics is a messy and complicated business. Even if you're monitoring data, you probably get more than you know what to do with—and once you have it all, you still have to decide what it means. Ugh. As a result, you may seek professional help (of the data-monitoring kind). And ... more

MarketingProfs blogger Ted Mininni discusses MillersCoors new product packaging. more

A brand's presence on a social media site not only engenders consumer loyalty but also affects consumers' likelihood to buy, according to a study conducted by Psychster Inc. for Allrecipes.com. Branded profiles on social sites tend to increase intent to purchase, especially when consumers can become fans of brands and add ... more

After hitting rock bottom during the height of corporate bailouts and the economic crisis, the public's perception of corporate America is bouncing back: The percentage of Americans who say the state of reputation of corporate America is "good" increased to 18% in 2009, up 6 percentage points from the 12% ... more

Creating your visual brand mosaic requires a toolkit different from the one used by earlier corporate ID practitioners––one based more on shared thinking and approaches and less around rules, one that allows you to tune communications for different initiatives and constituencies, and one that can be taught and shared. more

One has only to scan news reports from the beginning and the end of the past decade to see how much our language has changed in the interim. The usual suspects—technology, consumer culture, politics—were joined by new agents of lexical change: think terrorism, economic instability, and social networking. Here are ... more

Big insight: Content creation, pumped exclusively and relentlessly out by You, Inc., isn't the only way to leverage the power of social media. These days, you don't have to go it alone! Sometimes a strategic partnership with a site with a built-in, enthusiastic user base can take half the legwork out ... more

How can you articulate your ideas, qualities, and capabilities in ways that connect to, and engage, your communities? Messaging, or communicating with a rigorous focus on a system of key ideas, is a fundamental activity of strategic brand development and management. Disciplined messaging helps organizations engage in productive dialogues, especially ... more

MarketingProfs blogger Tim McAtee shares his thoughts about the ARF's 56th annual conference about rethinking normal. more

Age-old marketing How do you take a heritage brand and make it fresh, new and relevant for new generations of Campbell’s Soup Co. was founded in 1869. Few consumer brands have a longer heritage than Campbell’s condensed soups. Given its long history, Campbell’s has obviously done many things from developing ... more

The recent recalls of Toyota automobiles have undermined the carmakers' reputation: Consumers who have a positive perception of Toyota's commitment to building quality cars fell to 21.8% in March 2010, down 58.2 percentage points from the 80.0% recorded in 2008, according to America's Research Group. more

More companies seem to be realizing these days that they can use their power in the marketplace to aim for goals bigger than just bottom-line-related ones. That may be because more consumers, when buying similar products, are opting to choose ones that "give back" to a charitable cause. It's an easy way to ... more

Think of your brand as a mosaic where you can select and place most, but not all, of the tiles: You can control the communications you make, your offerings, and how your organization behaves. But some of the tiles in your brand mosaic are placed by others––the media, bloggers, tweets, ... more

I you are a marketing vendor, agency rep, or consultant, here's a Bill of Rights just for you. And if you hire vendors, agencies or consultants, read this with your own brand in mind. Negative word-of-mouth works both ways. more