Archive for March, 2008
Finally, a metric for measuring the comparative equity in a brand name across markets, industries, and products.
For years, people have talked about brand value and brand equity in difficult to define terms. Brand value was one of three things: 1) the current financial worth of a brand entity, 2) the future financial worth of a brand entity (valuation), or 3) the allowable premium businesses could charge for branded goods over generic goods. It is nearly impossible to have a meaningful discussion on brand without defining which brand value we’re talking about. Here is my definition:
I never really liked the way McCarthy’s four Ps of marketing (product, price, place, and promotion) were presented. It was all too theoretical and dry. Beyond that, no one seemed to care about the customer – as a customer myself, this always upset me.
A colleague of mine forwaded me a very thoughtful article about Social Applications from the MIT Sloan Management Review. I have been trying to explain to people for a very long time the power of social networking sites, blogs, and user-contributed media. Apparently, people are starting to catch on.
A friend of mine recently brought a partnership between Mercy Corps and Wal-Mart to my attention. She was concerned about the partnership because the missions of both organizations seem fundamentally misaligned. Here are my comments on this specific partnership:
(Soon to be featured in an HR newsletter – details to follow…)
Sure, blogs were cool years ago when everyone and their 13-year old niece had one. Today they seem to be everywhere and cover topics from conquering global climate change to cleaning the soap ring off your bathtub. The question is: how can blogs improve my hiring process?