La recomandarea unui bun prieten, m-am inscris in programul iPlan, un program de planificare strategica de business implementat de The Network.
Dupa ce am trecut prin cateva etape de evaluare a competentelor manageriale, am avut surpriza sa fiu selectat pentru a participa la Markstrat,  un seminar de 3 zile unde am simulat intr-un mediu extrem de competitiv, planificare strategica de marketing.


Markstrat este o simulare online concepută pentru predarea conceptelor de marketing strategic. Este foarte eficient pentru învăţarea de concepte strategice, cum ar fi strategia de portofoliu de branduri, segmentare şi strategii de pozitionare.

Markstrat este pur şi simplu cel mai bun instrument pe care l-am am folosit în dezvoltarea gândirii strategice, precum şi in dezvoltarea ablitatilor analitice. Este instrumentul perfect pentru cei care doresc să aplice concepte de afaceri într-un mediu extrem de competitiv, dar fără riscuri.

Nu am nici o ezitare în a concluziona că standardele de analiză în marketing, managementul marketing-ului şi strategia de marketing obtinute in cadrul seminarului organizat de The Network sunt mult mai mari decât ai obtine in urma participarii la cursuri teoretice.

- Marketers place high value on social media: A significant 90% of marketers indicate that social media is important for their business.

- Measurement and integration are top areas marketers want to master: Onethird of all social media marketers want to know how to monitor and measure the return on investment (ROI) of social media and integrate their social media activities.

- Social media marketing takes a lot of time: The majority of marketers (58%) are using social media for 6 hours or more each week, and more than a third (34%) invest 11 or more hours weekly.

- Video marketing on the rise: A significant 77% of marketers plan on increasing their use of YouTube and video marketing, making it the top area marketers will invest in for 2011.

- Marketers seek to learn more about Facebook and blogging: 70% of marketers want to learn more about Facebook and 69% want to learn more about blogging.

- The top benefits of social media marketing: The number-one advantage of social media marketing (by a long shot) is generating more business exposure, as indicated by 88% of marketers. Increased traffic (72%) and improved search rankings (62%) were also major advantages.

- The top social media tools: Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and blogs were the top four social media tools used by marketers, in that order. Facebook has eclipsed Twitter to take the top spot since our 2010 study.
- Social media outsourcing underutilized: Only 28% of businesses are outsourcing some portion of their social media marketing.

You can find more interesting findings on the report the can be downloaded from here

1. Digital Cowgirl – the internet pioneer

• 51 percent of women say they love finding new and exciting websites on the internet
• 42 percent say they will go online even if they are not looking for anything in particular
• Where to find her: games websites

1. Digital Cassandra – the influential predictor of “what’s next”

• 43 percent of women say they tell all their friends about websites they like
• 22 percent claim they are usually the first of their friends to discover an interesting website
• Where to find her: news, finance, home & family and food & entertainment websites

1. Digital Diva – uses the “smartest” sites

• 16 percent of women say they use the Internet to buy luxury items.
• Where to find her: shopping, travel, health & beauty, entertainment & gossip and finance websites

1. Digital Debutante – new to the internet, but not a novice

• 20 percent of women state that although they are relatively new to the internet, they are constantly learning about new applications and websites.

1. Digital Detective – internet researcher

• 82 percent of women say the Internet is the first place they go if they need to conduct research
• 58 percent can spend hours on the Internet researching every aspect of an issue that they are interested in.
• Where to find her: news, weather, finance, home & family and food & entertaining websites

1. Digital Voyeur – uses the internet to anonymously observe

• More than 20 percent of respondents use the internet to look up old friends or boyfriends
• Where to find her: news, finance, games, home & family, food & entertainment and astrology websites

1. Digital Socialite

• 12 percent of women agree with the statement: “I use the Internet to help me plan my social life”
• 15 percent say they have used the Internet to meet new people
• Where to find her: travel, entertainment and gossip websites

1. Digital Shopkeeper

• Just over 10 percent of women say they have started an online business or have used the internet to generate income.
• Where to find her: news websites

1. Products are made and owned by companies. Brands, on the other hand, are made and owned by people … by the public …by consumers.

2. A brand image belongs not to a brand – but to those who have knowledge of that brand.

3. The image of a brand is a subjective thing. No two people, however similar, hold precisely the same view of the same brand.

4. That highest of all ambitions for many CEOs, a global brand, is therefore a contradiction in terms and an impossibility.

5. People come to conclusions about brands as a result of an uncountable number of
different stimuli: many of which are way outside the control or even influence of the product’s owner.

6. Brands – unlike products – are living, organic entities: they change, however imperceptibly,
every single day.

7. Much of what influences the value of a brand lies in the hands of its competitors.

8. The only way to begin to understand the nature of brands is to strive to acquire a facility which only the greatest of novelists possess and which is so rare that it has no name.

9. The study of brands – in itself a relatively recent discipline – has generated a level of
jargon that not only prompts deserved derision amongst financial directors but also provides
some of the most entertaining submissions in Pseuds’ Corner.

10. It is universally accepted that brands are a company’s most valuable asset; yet there is
no universally accepted method of measuring that value.

11. The only time you can be sure of the value of your brand is just after you’ve sold it.

12. It is becoming more and more apparent that, far from brands being hierarchically inferior to companies, only if companies are managed as brands can they hope to be successful.

13. And as if all this were not enough, in one of the most important works about brands published this year, the author says this: “Above all, I found I had to accept that effective brand communication …involves processes which are uncontrolled, disordered, abstract, intuitive … and frequently impossible to explain other than with the benefit of hindsight”.

by Jeremy Bullmore, WPP, 2001

Study finds that brand building is no longer a priority for marketers. The report, which aims to provide a timely insight for marketers to take a harder look at how their marketing dollars are performing, surveyed 3,000 marketers worldwide on a number of aspects of their role.

The report points out that driving customer demand has overtaken brand building in developed economies, such as the UK, Australia and the US.
Fournaise Marketing Group, one of the world's leading marketing effectiveness tracking companies, tracks both offline and online marketing effectiveness.

The report findings are not for the faint hearted:

• 65% of all marketing spend in 2007 had no effect on consumers.

• Estimated wastage rates varied from 45% for business-to-business marketers, through to 65% for business-to-consumer.

• Just one in ten of respondents have automated systems in place to track the effectiveness of their spend.

• Of the 55% of marketers who do track the results of their spending, 80% do so manually, spending hours capturing, compiling and analysing data.

• Questioned on strategy, 70% of marketers believe that short-term revenue-boosting and lead-generation campaigns are more important than long-term intangible brand building (15%). A clear indication that marketers are under pressure more than ever before to generate results.
  

• Tracking marketing effectiveness topped the 2008 wish lists of 35% of marketers, and made the top three for 70%.

originally uploaded by mark6mauno

After the "free and confidential" rectal exam, you would have scored two free tickets to a future Brewers game.

Odd promotional tactic!

If Marketing 1.0 was mostly about print collateral, then Marketing 1.5 moved to the web brochure, and Marketing 2.0 is about the entire online experience. In Marketing 2.0, you no longer have tight control of a polished, coherent message stream.

In effect, marketing is turning into a myriad of interlocking conversations between people inside and outside the company. Blogs and online communities give individuals a loud voice in conversations about products and brands, while keyword-based marketing is changing the way corporations disseminate their messages.

In truth, the conversations were always out there, in coffee shops, book club meetings, over the garden fence, at the corner store; millions of conversations are going on about hundreds of topics relevant to your company every day. The extraordinary thing today is that you can literally watch these conversations as they unfold online.

The emergence of the new 'ubersexual' man presents a potential goldmine for global manufacturers and marketers according to the latest research from Euromonitor International.

Cosmetics companies, health clubs, retailers and travel companies all look set to profit from the changing male image, as men become more image-conscious. The ubersexual man is defined by Euromonitor International as 'more complex, more thoughtful, more culinary and better groomed than macho man, but more traditionally masculine than the metrosexual'. They are, therefore, more likely to prepare and research meals, buy cosmetics and toiletries, and join health clubs.