Advertising And Marketing - Corporate Branding

In the cutthroat world of business, every company is consistently vying for the interest and attention of consumers and constantly looking for ways to expand their market. This is the main reason why advertising and marketing corporate branding is a key factor in the success of any business entity.

Some people assume that corporate branding is only important for people who are relatively new players in the corporate arena. Since they are the ones who desperately need to establish their identity and to make their presence known to both competitors and consumers as well. This is true. However, even old companies should realize that they too should give equal importance to advertising and marketing corporate branding.

It is a widely accepted concept that in order to build an excellent reputation in any industry, it is a prerequisite that the company should first work on establishing a specific identity. This would certainly vary from one company to another; depending on what image they would want to project. Advertising and marketing corporate branding strategies will significantly help the company in creating a highly effective and well-established corporate identity.

But still, not only the small and budding companies can benefit in advertising and marketing corporate branding. Since building the companys identity is not at all a short-term project than can just be discarded after a degree of success has been achieved. Creating an effective corporate branding identity is an ongoing process, a constant interaction between the company, the competitors, and of course with the consumers.

A well-managed company would take pride in maintaining not only an impeccable reputation throughout the years of its operations but also in being able to adeptly keep up with even the most imperceptible change in the markets preferences. This is one of the important factors that would ensure that the company would be able to maintain a firm footing in a highly unpredictable industry.

To be able to persistently adapt to the fickle minds of consumers and compete with other fresh and highly aggressively players in the industry, a company would need a very strong advertising and marketing corporate branding scheme.

It is important to keep up with the ever-changing market trends, and continually reinvent the image of the company according to what would be the top priorities based on the consumers perception. There are companies who have invested in constant market research and development to be able to come up with a good and effective marketing approach.

Since different industries would produce varying reactions on certain marketing stimuli, a success in one industry would not necessarily ensure its efficacy in another industry. It requires a custom made approach, backed up with extensive market and industry studies.

The Marketing Research Challenge

Many firms, driven by a need to better communicate with their customers and other stakeholders, recognize that marketing "is not a specialized activity at all. It encompasses the entire business and is necessary for a healthy business . It is the whole business seen from the customer's point of view." Every aspect of the marketing mix - the product, channels of distribution, price, and marketing communications - affects customers' response to a product/service.

The Marketing Association defines marketing as "the process of planning and executing the conception, pricing, promotion, and distribution of ideas, goods, and services to create exchanges that satisfy individual (customer) and organizational objectives". The marketing concept is a business philosophy that defines marketing as a process intended to find, satisfy, and retain customers while business makes a profit. Central to both of these definitions is the role of the customer and the customer's relationship to the product, whether that product is a good, service, or idea. Thus, in order for a company to investigate whether or not it has successfully managed to satisfy its customers, or to examine what type of products and/or services it would be profitable to introduce, it has to conduct marketing research.

Marketing Research "is the planning for, collection, and analysis of data relevant to marketing decision making and the communication of the results of this analysis to management." As the previous definition illustrates, in order to measure the success of the marketing plan, a marketing research is the appropriate tool for a company to use. By having a thorough knowledge of factors that have an impact on the target market and the marketing mix, management can be proactive rather than reactive. Actually, research is the difference between viewing the turbulent marketing environment as a threat or as an opportunity.

Two types of research exist; secondary and primary. Both must be used in order for a company to satisfy the previous objectives. Secondary research must be in terms of collecting / gathering all the necessary information that is already published. These data, that can become the company's database, acting as the first step of the research in order to perform the situation analysis, identify its competitors, perform a benchmarking strategy, and define those segments that wants to target, in terms of population, usage rate, demographics, behavioral patterns and lifestyle.

Directly related to the information gathered by the secondary research, next a primary one must occur. With the use of primary research-information that is not currently available, a company's management team will be able to understand better the potential customers needs and target those that are not adequately served by the existing practices. Also, primary research will monitor the sales increase of the company, follow with the competitors' plans, and measure effectiveness of the business practices, such as quality of services offered, or communication tools used by the company.

Moreover, marketing experts refer to two major categories of data collection methods. These are divided into quantitative and qualitative methods. Named as quantitative, are studies that use mathematical analysis that can reveal statistically significant differences. On the other hand, qualitative research is a method that the researched data are not subject to quantification or quantitative analysis.

Particular attention must one pay at the research sample. Depending on the incidence rate, the percentage of the people or households in the general population that fit the qualifications to be sampled, the sample size must be large for the quantitative methods and small for the qualitative methods of research. Companies manage to create synergy among the above-the-line and below-the-line activities only if the competitive advantage is stressed adequately to all publics. Keeping track of the tools used and their effectiveness is a must, if the company is willing to maintain a constant dialogue with its target audiences and to ensure them that its image is accompanied by the values that are stressed and these are appealing and relevant to their customers' needs. Thus, the research must be constant and ongoing. Today, the opportunities that arise have to be recognized promptly, and used at the right time. What a manager must ask himself/herself, is "Is my business and I devoted to the best actualized way towards the publics' needs that I wish to serve?"

Kadence Buchanan

Tips For Choosing High-Performance Mutual Fund

Most people who invest in mutual funds don't know what they are doing. They take advice from someone at a bank or perhaps a friend and plunk down money into a fund. Sometimes this strategy works, but most of the time, it doesn't.

When you invest your money in a mutual fund, you are trusting someone to invest in the stock market for you. Because of this, you want to be sure this person knows what he or she is doing. Also, you want to make sure that this person is not charging you too much to manage your money for you. Mutual funds fees are "hidden," in the sense that they do not charge you an upfront fee but rather a percentage of the amount of money in your account. If this percentage is too high, you would do better just blindly picking stocks yourself.

Here are five helpful tips for choosing the right mutual funds.

1. Keep the fees low. Generally, expense fees should not be much higher than 1% if it is just a basic domestic equity fund. You should never invest money in a fund that also charges a "load," which is an additional fee that is ridiculous to pay. Never invest in funds that charge loads; those funds are for suckers.

2. Check the asset base. Mutual fund managers only know of so many good investments. When they have too much money to manage, they begin investing in stocks they don't like much but need to invest in anyway or else they'll just have money laying around. There's little reason to invest in a fund with over $5 billion in assets. It's best if it's under $2 billion generally.

3. Consider an index fund. This is a fund that tracks a stock index, such as the S&P 500. For these funds, the manager just buys whatever stocks happen to be in the index. Since this is not much work, the fees are much lower. Even though this method is simple, it has proven to perform better than most mutual funds. Some high performance index funds include FSMKX (Fidelity S&P 500) and VIMSX (Vanguard S&P 400 Midcap.

4. Evaluate the fund's strategy. If you have a long term outlook, look for a more aggressive fund that invests in small-cap stocks, international stocks, and riskier stocks in general. High risk tends to result in high performance in the long run. If you are more risk-averse, consider an S&P 500 index fund.

5. Keep the fees low. Did I mention this already? Well, I'll mention it again. This is where most people mess up. Make sure you are not paying a load or paying too much in fees to the mutual fund.

More information about mutual funds can be found at Research Mutual Funds.

All About Insider Trading

Insider trading is the trading of a company's shares by people who work for the company, such as senior level executives, directors and those who own more than 10% of the total shares. Insider trading is illegal since the trading is based on some privileged information that the insider has access to, but is not known to the public at large. The act of misappropriating some privileged information, or violating duty and trading or relaying information illegally is illegal in the United States. The office bearer has made a contract to serve the shareholders and to protect the interest of the shareholders so the office bearer violates their duties if the office bearer trades based on company owned privileged information for their own gain. The United States has had laws against insider trading going as far back as 1909. At this time the law declared if a company's director bought his company's shares because he knew its value was about to increase suddenly, it was fraud.

Not just senior level executives are capable of insider trading. Anyone in the company with privileged information is capable of insider trading. For instance, if an employee of company 1 learnt about the takeover of company 2 by company 1 and buys the shares of company 2 it is illegal insider trading, since that employee is violating the interests of the shareholders of company 1. According to US federal laws, companies have to specify a certain period when their staff can safely trade stocks without being accused of illegal insider trading.

Penalties for Insider Trading
Penalties for insider trading include a fee of three times the profit incurred or the loss caused to the company by insider trading. The insider may be banned from being a company executive or removed from the board of directors. The culprit may even have to face a jail term. The SEC (Stock Exchange Commission) offers rewards as bounty to those who help apprehend insiders who practice illegal insider trading.

Laws must be enforced to protect the investors, to ensure a fair, efficient market that is transparent and ethical, and to reduce systemic risk. Laws are needed to control insider trading, trading ahead of the shareholders, and to avoid misuse of client's assets. These principles are the core principles issued by the International Organization of Securities Commissions and more than 85% of the world's security and comodities regulators have agreed to follow these principles.

Legal Insider Trading
Insider trading can be legal when a company's insider does not break any law and trades his shares in a normal mannerm reporting it to the SEC. However, some groups oppose the notion of any insider trading being illegal. They argue that trading by insiders is allowed in real estate sectors so it should be legalized in other sectors as well. They don't think the securities market should be treated any differently. They believe insider trading makes the stock market more efficient.

Effects Of Insider Trading On Shareholders
When insider trading occurs repeatedly, the common shareholders end up losing money, whereas the insider pockets a sizeable profit cheating the company and the trust the shareholders have placed in the corporation. Despite the laws and the penalities, insider trading continues and most often the perpetrators of this illegal act are left unapprehended due to lack of proper evidence. This has a negative effect on shareholders in general.

Ref: David Gass

Wal-Mart Takes on Wall Street

Whether people like or hate Wal-mart, the large retail chain store, there is one thing they do agree on. Wal-mart has cornered the market on merchandising products that average middle class American families can afford. Widely criticized for putting "mom and pop places" out of business and not paying their employees fair wages, the company has undergone a lot of scrutiny over the last few years, and now they are gearing up to be under the watchful eye of America once more.

Wal-Mart is ready to take on Wall Street, as company executives try to enter the store into the banking business! An attempt in 1999 to purchase an Oklahoma Savings and Loan was met with a negative result by Congress. People are afraid that if Wal-mart enters into the world of banking, smaller banks won't be able to compete with the amenities they offer. Opponents of the plan include Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, who ironically once sat on Wal-Mart's board, but feels it wouldn't be prudent to remind people of those ties with an election year closing in on her ...

Those who support the idea point out that Wal-mart would do for the average American's banking needs what it does for their retail needs. It would make banking available for the little people that big banks tend to overlook. Right now, most banks force lower income families (i.e. those that can't afford to carry big balances in their checking accounts) to pay higher than normal fees.

Wal-mart isn't trying to become a full-fledged bank. They gave up on that idea the last time they were rejected in their attempts. They simply want to apply for a charter that will help them reduce their credit card fees. At present the company offers a check cashing service that costs patrons $3 to have a check cashed. While this may seem a bit expensive, it is much cheaper than the percentage fees that most check cashing businesses charge.

Started in Rogers, Arkansas in 1962, by Sam Walton, Wal-Mart is the largest retailer in the world. Wal-Mart is the largest private employer in the United States, Mexico and Canada. It also has given back to shareholders over 180,000% in total returns since it went public in 1972. There should be no wonder that several Walton heirs feature on Forbes' list of billionaires; they include Christy Walton, Jim Walton, S. Robson Walton, Alice Walton, and Helen Walton who all hover around a net worth of $16 billion.

Ref: Salim Jordan

When in Japan, Do as the Japanese Do; When in Rome, Do as the Japanese Do:

The Achilles’ Heel of Japanese Business Philosophy

Japan, using the wakon yosai, Japanese spirit and Western knowledge philosophy, rapidly and painfully industrialized and caught up with the West by the time of the First World War. Feeling superior to the rest of Asia, they believed they had a manifest destiny to control and direct Asia. This attitude was a primary cause of the Second World War and the attack on Pearl Harbor. Only a vain people would have challenged an economy ten times richer than their own to battle and still believe their destiny was ultimate victory. This arrogance proved to be their undoing and the miscalculation ended with the neartotal destruction of Japan. Now, 50 years after Pearl Harbor, Japan’s arrogance is again raising its ugly head. Its economic dynamo, second only to the USA, has indeed taken that nation from the depths of despair just after the Second World War to the ranks of a true economic world power. Surging Japanese nationalism and a rising tide of arrogance and condescension towards the rest of the world is merely the groundswell of worse storms to come. This economic prosperity resulted from not only the hard work and sacrifice but also US open markets and military protection. The Japanese trade barriers permitted export while virtually prohibiting imports. The unilateral taking without any giving in turn led to the successes of the last 40 years. Not understanding the real reasons for their success but rationalizing it to their uniqueness and superiority has instilled in the Japanese an arrogance about their way as the only way and superior to the rest of the world. Once again, in the years to come this arrogance will come back to haunt them, as they will take on a revitalized North America and Europe who will insist on an equal playing-field on all locales.


By Paul A. Herbig and Robert Milam

American sogo shosha: American trading companies in the twenty-first century

Japanese General Trading Companies or sogo shoshas have been instrumental in the phenomenal Japanese economic miracle of the last 40 years. In 1982, the USA passed the Export Trading Company Act to home grow its own sogo shoshas; to date the Act has been ineffective – yet the need remains. Examines what trading companies are and what functions they perform. Observes the steps that need to be taken to make them profitable and successful. Trading companies are postulated to be an integral part of this country’s future.

By
Paul Herbig & Alan T. Shao