Thursday, April 24, 2008

Google: The world’s most powerful brand

Google tops the list of the BrandZ Ranking with a brand value of US$86.1-billion followed by GE (General Electric) at US$71.4-billion and Microsoft at US$70.8-billion. The third annual BrandZ Ranking, which identifies the world’s most powerful brands as measured by their dollar value, was conducted by global market research and consulting firm Millward Brown. “This year’s brand ranking demonstrates the importance of investing in brands, especially in times of market turmoil. Strong brands generate superior returns and protect businesses from risk,” said Joanna Seddon, CEO of Millward Brown Optimor in a statement. “Our data shows that strong brands continue to outperform weak ones in terms of market share and share price during recessions.” Top 20 Brands and their values in US $ 1. Google — 86.057-billion 2. GE (General Electric) — 71,379-billion 3. Microsoft — 70,887-billion 4. Coca-Cola (includes Diet Coke) — 58,208-billion 5. China Mobile — 57,225-billion 6. IBM — 55,335-billion 7. Apple — 55,206-billion 8. McDonald’s — 49,499-billion 9. Nokia — 43,975-billion 10. Marlboro — 37,324-billion 11. Vodafone — 36,962-billion 12. Toyota — 35,134-billion 13. Wal-Mart — 34,547-billion 14. Bank of America — 33,092-billion 15. Citi — 30,318-billion 16. HP — 29,278-billion 17. BMW — 28,015-billion 18. ICBC — 28,004-billion 19. Louis Vuitton — 25,739-billion 20. American Express — 24,816-billion From: http://4cousins.blat.co.za

Tuesday, April 22, 2008

Interest rate hikes: How will it affect South African Marketers?

South African interest rates are going up with the effect that consumers spending will go down. In US consumer spending is also dropping and it is hurting both US and global brands. How is marketing managers reacting to the economic downturn? Forrester Research has conducted research and on the marketing implications of economic (spending) downturn.

Forrester asked its CMO Panel how the downturn would affect their budgets. More than one hundred panel members, with an average marketing budget of $83 million, responded that they expect their CFOs to demand an average cut by 3%. They said they would save on branding, advertising, and traditional media, while keeping budgets for loyalty programs, marketing technology, and new media mostly untouched.

Jaap Favier the Vice President and Research Director of Forrester suggest the following strategies to survive the downturn.

1) Employ agencies that connect with consumers. Traditional agencies excel at above-the-line mass marketing -- the line items you want to cut. Forrester believes that the agency of the future will excel at understanding your consumers, involving them in defining the brand and spreading the message, and in making them loyal brand advocates -- supporting those budget items you are keeping strong. Some agencies are on the path to connecting with consumers via social networks.

2) Start experimenting with online video. Traditional media is getting into the perfect storm: Consumer attention and trust is at an all-time low, and advertisers are cutting both ad budgets and old media budgets. To survive, they need to target ads and content to individual households and consumers. By experimenting with Web video, to understand which processes, content, and customer intelligence you will need when television offers the same functions.

3) Invest in intelligence. The name of the new marketing game: targeting. Marketing leaders have voted with their wallets to reduce the two large budget items that show the biggest waste. To get the most from their reduced budgets, they need to understand their clients better - their (media) behaviors, attitudes, needs, and social connections.

From Hemingway to Homer Simpson, everyone has the opinion on wine

 

Wine has fascinated people over the centuries. Here is few wine quotes form prominent persons. From Hemingway to Homer Simpson, everyone has the opinion on wine.

Wine is one of the most civilized things in the world and one of the most natural things of the world that has been brought to the greatest perfection, and it offers a greater range for enjoyment and appreciation than, possibly, any other purely sensory thing.
Ernest Hemingway

Wino Forever
Johnny Depp
(The tattoo once read 'Winona Forever'!)

What is man, when you come to think upon him, but a minutely set, ingenious machine for turning with infinite artfulness, the red wine of Shiraz into urine?
Isak Dinesen

Wine is bottled poetry.
Robert Louis Stevenson

Wine is the most healthful and most hygienic of beverages.
Louis Pasteur

"Alcohol - the cause of and solution to all of life's problems"
Homer Simpson

 

 

Monday, April 14, 2008

We salute Trevor Immelman, a true champion

Trevor Immelman has made all of South Africans proud and we salute a true champion for his courage, temperament and nerves of steel.

Lorne Rubenstein wrote in his column titled “Immelman masters one challenge after another” that the South African has established himself as on of the worlds finest young players.

The full column follows:

Last December, Trevor Immelman won the Nedbank Golf Challenge, a tournament many of his fellow South Africans call “Africa’s major.”

Yesterday, he won the Masters, one of the world’s four majors.

From the Nedbank Golf Challenge to the Masters in four months: Surely everybody will now realize that Immelman, 28, is one of the game’s finest young players.

His win yesterday didn’t come without high anxiety, something he’s faced before. Call it nerves, or simply the fright that can overcome any player for whom much has been promised but who had yet to deliver in the biggest tournaments.

It was early evening, and Immelman was on the 16th tee with a five-stroke lead over Tiger Woods, who had finished his round, and Brandt Snedeker, with whom Immelman was playing. Sure thing for the green jacket, right?

Not quite. Immelman dunked his tee shot into the water to the left of the hole, which was cut on the side nearest the drink, and double-bogeyed the hole. The swing betrayed anxiety. He’d felt it before at Africa’s major.

Immelman had watched each of the Nedbank events since their inception in 1981. This time, he’d been invited as a last-minute replacement for Sergio Garcia and held a two-stroke lead over Justin Rose with three holes to play. But Immelman lost his lead when he bogeyed the 16th and 17th holes against Rose’s pars. He then bogeyed the final hole, where he fluffed a chip shot. But Rose double-bogeyed the hole, and Immelman won.

“It just shows you what nerves can do,” Immelman said.

Immelman didn’t appear that nervous yesterday, but, of course, he was. He’d started the final round with a two-stroke lead over Snedeker, three over Steve Flesch, four over Paul Casey and six over Tiger Woods. Immelman pushed his opening tee shot and bogeyed the hole. Nerves? Immelman had prepared for this challenge and opportunity. He started to play when he was 5.

His father, Johan, the outgoing commissioner of the South African Tour, put in a practice bunker and green at the family home in Cape Town. Immelman followed in the footsteps of other elite golfers born on the African continent, most notably Gary Player and Nick Price. He admired both, and they him.

Immelman had been ranked as high as 13th in the world in 2006, when he won the PGA Tour’s Cialis Western Open, and was 29th when he came to the Masters. At 28, he’d fought a few battles, on and off the course.

For one thing, he was criticized as an amateur for being cocky.

Many people didn’t feel he deserved the two-year PGA Tour exemption he received after Player, the International team captain, named him to his side for the 2005 Presidents Cup. But Immelman’s rise in the world rankings along with his elegant, controlled swing won most critics over.

Immelman studied the game closely. He’d always believed he would reach the heights, he would justify his promise, he would become the golfer he knew he could be and that others who knew the game sensed he could be.

Obstacles presented themselves. There were his much-chronicled medical problems. He picked up a stomach parasite at last year’s Masters and lost 25 pounds. He didn’t play for a month.

Then, 10 days after winning the Nedbank, Immelman withdrew from the South African Airways Open because he felt pain in his rib cage and had difficulty breathing. A week later, surgeons removed a golf-ball-sized benign tumour from his diaphragm. Immelman took eight weeks off to recover.

He completed his recovery yesterday. Immelman took a three-stroke lead to the 17th hole and managed a par after finding the bunker in front of the green. He drove into a deep divot on the 18th fairway - the final challenge - but got down to business and poured through the ball with his lower body moving first and his arms and clubhead trailing. He was in the strike zone and found the green.

Immelman walked onto the green to a warm reception. His parents and his wife, Carminita, and their infant son were waiting behind the green. Minutes later, he was wearing the green jacket in recognition of winning the Masters.

Immelman had mastered one challenge after another. He deserved to be exactly where he was. He could well be there again.Immelman had mastered one challenge after another. He deserved to be exactly where he was. He could well be there again.

LORNE RUBENSTEIN

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/LAC.20080414.RUBE14/TPStory/Sports/columnists

Thursday, April 10, 2008

Wine brands must foster differences - WOSA

The product and concept offering of wine brands are becoming more generic. This is the view of Su Birch, CEO of WOSA

 

The European brands are all starting to look like the New World wines, and more and more the wines look as if they have been created to a recipe written by fmcg marketers. Birch adds that if the whole wine world goes in this direction, she wonders why the supermarkets would feel the need to stock more than a very few brands. Birch concluded that if the hundreds of thousands of brands that she saw at Prowein want to survive, the wine world needs to communicate a stronger sense of the people and places behind their wines, and foster the differences, not the similarities.

 

Social media marketing is the ideal tool to communicate a stronger sense of people and places behind the wine.