Blogs

Visual Style, Part 2

It should go without saying that the content and style of images should reflect the brand: if your car is supposed to be luxurious and roomy, the photos shouldn't make it look cheap and small. If...

Values

It's not hard for a brand to be aligned with certain values. Being aligned with the right ones can give a boost to customer loyalty. Values are the things a brand stands for. Customers are generally...

Valuation

Brand valuation is controversial. Putting a precise financial value on such a great intangible is impossible, although there are plenty of brand experts who are prepared to make an estimate, and...

Typeface

Type is the clothing that dresses words, giving them character, emphasis, and a subtle, but distinct personality that the reader often senses subconsciously. Typography is the art of selecting and...

Name, Part 2

Most firms struggle to get their names into the public consciousness and achieve the wide recognition they desire. For a bemused few, however, the problem is the opposite: their name is so handy and...

Trademark

A brand consists of a single insight or idea in the customer's mind, wedded to a sign—a name and symbol—that serves as a convenient shorthand for that idea. Trouble may arise if two or more ideas...

Total Quality Management, Part 3

Humanistic approaches to TQM Humanistic approaches regard the key challenge of TQM to be the creation of a quality culture in which staff use their own initiative and judgement to deliver a quality...

Total Quality Management, Part 2

Reliability Having defined the product, the next stage of the TQM process is to develop processes that ensure that production consistently meets the quality specification. The quality specification...

Total Quality Management, Part 1

The importance of organizational systems to RM cannot be overstated - Gronroos (1996) argues that one of the three key strategic implications of RM is the adoption of a process perspective. The...

The Situation Analysis

The purpose of the situation analysis, also known as the strategic audit, is to answer the question: Where are we now? This involves the detailed analysis of the organization and its environment. A...

The RM Plan, Part 2

Marketing strategy Strategy is frequently defined as the means by which objectives are achieved. Although this definition is technically accurate, it throws little light on the nature of strategy....

The RM Plan, Part 1

Planning, strategy and management There is considerable variation in the definitions of planning, both explicit and assumed, offered in the marketing literature. The term is often used...

The Relationship Portfolio, Part 2

A number of writers have noted that business relationships also follow distinct phases as the relationship develops over time. The common themes in these works suggest that the relationship life...

The Relationship Portfolio, Part 1

Given its emphasis on customer retention, the analysis of current customers plays a central role in the relationship planning process. Traditional marketing techniques advocate the application of...

The Network View of the Organization

With the developments in the management of corporate structure, many theorists (e.g. Gummesson, 1996) believe that the traditional concept of structure should be abandoned, and organizations should...