What Happens When Facebook Trumps Your Brand Site?
Written by Webmaster
Tuesday, 24 August 2010
While the tech world obsessed about when Facebook would turn on location and morph into a "Foursquare killer," the social network has quietly become something else: the biggest relationship-marketing provider for many brands. For many marketers, their Facebook fan bases have become their largest web presence, outstripping brand sites or e-mail programs either because a brand's traditional web-based "owned media" is atrophying or because more consumers are migrating to social media. Coca-Cola, with its 10.7 million Facebook fans, has three to four times the Facebook fan base as MyTown and Foursquare have registered users.
Antivirus software maker McAfee isn't just going to Intel for a cool $7 billion-plus in cash. It's also warning Web users about the dangers of celebrity-seeking online. Let's say you're interested in Eat, Pray, Love and searching for the latest on Julia Roberts. Simply searching for her name—or that of a raft of other celebs—attracts phishing attempts and all manner of dastardly Internet scams. But it's not Roberts who's causing all the mayhem online. That honor goes to Cameron Diaz, who Intuit named as 2010's "most dangerous celebrity in cyberspace" for her personal brand's online allure to fans and criminals alike.
As a U.S. Army paratrooper, Robert McDonald trained to fight enemies in jungles, deserts and the Arctic. Now, going into his second year as chief executive of Procter & Gamble Co., the former military man is mounting a two-pronged attack on a very different battlefield—the global consumer-products industry. His missions: To win back ground lost as frugal shoppers have opted for cheaper alternatives to P&G's goods, and to conquer countries now dominated by rivals like Unilever PLC and Colgate-Palmolive Co. Marching down the aisles of a giant discounter in Brazil recently, Mr. McDonald assessed the competition—powdered detergent from Unilever—and
Are Marketers Hiking Ad Spend at Expense of Product Quality?
Written by Webmaster
Tuesday, 10 August 2010
For decades, the focus of many companies has been taking cost out of their products, often to invest in marketing and always to increase profit. But a series of high-profile quality failures and accidents this year at titans like BP, Toyota and Johnson & Johnson, along with a growing number of lower-profile recalls, shows crises can destroy brand equity in days that takes years to build. It all raises the question of whether efforts to cut production costs have gone too far and whether marketers would be better off putting more money back into quality control -- even if it means spending less on marketing.
While the tech world obsessed about when Facebook would turn on location and morph into a "Foursquare killer," the social network has quietly become something else: the biggest relationship-marketing provider for many brands. For many marketers, their Facebook fan bases have become their largest web presence, outstripping brand sites or e-mail programs either because a brand's traditional web-based "owned media" is atrophying or because more consumers are migrating to social media. Coca-Cola, with its 10.7 million Facebook fans, has three to four times the Facebook fan base as MyTown and Foursquare have registered users. 
As a U.S. Army paratrooper, Robert McDonald trained to fight enemies in jungles, deserts and the Arctic. Now, going into his second year as chief executive of Procter & Gamble Co., the former military man is mounting a two-pronged attack on a very different battlefield—the global consumer-products industry. His missions: To win back ground lost as frugal shoppers have opted for cheaper alternatives to P&G's goods, and to conquer countries now dominated by rivals like Unilever PLC and Colgate-Palmolive Co. Marching down the aisles of a giant discounter in Brazil recently, Mr. McDonald assessed the competition—powdered detergent from Unilever—and 
For decades, the focus of many companies has been taking cost out of their products, often to invest in marketing and always to increase profit. But a series of high-profile quality failures and accidents this year at titans like BP, Toyota and Johnson & Johnson, along with a growing number of lower-profile recalls, shows crises can destroy brand equity in days that takes years to build. It all raises the question of whether efforts to cut production costs have gone too far and whether marketers would be better off putting more money back into quality control -- even if it means spending less on marketing. 
