The original version of this article first appeared in the August 26th 2011 print edition of The Malaysian Reserve. It is not a question of if you will stick your corporate toes in the social media waters, but when. Whether you like it or not, social media is taking the world of business by storm. … Continue reading »
Tagged with asia …
Suggestions to improve a travel website
One of my favourite business sites, Bnet has an interesting case study of a site that offers bespoke or customised trips in China. The site is not doing as well as the owners expected. The article asks the question “Why doesn’t this website draw more visitors” and there is an outline of the situation with … Continue reading »
Why you should start building your Brand today
This article first appeared in the Friday 29th April 2011 edition of The Malaysian Reserve/International Herald Tribune Does this statement sound familiar? “I know I need to start thinking about building my brand but I don’t know where to start so it can wait.” I’ve heard this statement a lot recently and if it is … Continue reading »
How to brand a city like Ipoh
Senior Executive Councillor Datuk Hamidah Osman of The Perak state government in Malaysia announced on a trade and investment mission to China recently that the state government, in an effort to boost its tourism industry, intends to brand Ipoh, the capital of Perak as the “City of White Coffee”. Datuk Hamidah was quoted by Bernama … Continue reading »
Most Asian firms should not consider Positioning to be the right tool for Branding initiatives
Two of the most famous names in marketing – Jack Trout and Al Ries developed the concept of positioning back in the 1970s. Their business/marketing book, Positioning: The battle for your mind was written in the early 1970s and almost forty years later, is a well thumbed addition to the book shelves of respected marketing … Continue reading »
Should destinations brace themselves for a brutal summer?
Grant Thornton has published a report that forecasts 373,000 visitors to the Football World Cup in South Africa in June. That’s a drop of 110,000 from original forecasts. The big question is, are fans waiting to the last minute to book tickets or is this a sign of the recession? Certainly political tensions in the … Continue reading »
Asian companies need to stop following the herd
I’ve said it before, but I feel the need to say it again, according to Ernst & Young, up to 90% of products fail to become brands, despite US$1.5 trillion spent on marketing every year. Despite massive marketing budgets, global brands with extensive reach and high brand recall, numerous brands have died a painful and … Continue reading »
A is for Account executive/manager
Another excerpt of my new book, the A-Z of branding, everything you need to know about how to build a brand. Depending on the size of your account, you will be assigned either an account manager or an account executive as your point of contact with the agency you appoint. There really isn’t much difference … Continue reading »
A is for Advertising
This is a good place to start a compendium of branding terms because unfortunately, it is where many companies start their brand building. And that’s a shame, no tragedy because it is an expensive exercise in futility to try and build a brand using advertising alone. Advertising can be traced back to around the late … Continue reading »
Negative brand association, real world examples
In October of last year, I wrote a piece on my blog about negative brand association. You can read the short post here David Ansett of Storm in Australia approached the subject from a different angle and you can read his piece here Essentially, my attitude is that if the concept of positioning a product … Continue reading »
