The word "branding" is dangerously overused. Many people use branding as a cure for all kinds of problems in all kinds of businesses. To lay claim to a deeper understanding of this elementary word, branding agencies all over the world have developed some cute variations of it, from "emotional branding" to "primal," "sensory," "musical," "internal," "external," "holistic," "vertical," "abstract," "nervous" and all the way to "invisible" branding. However, to see these distinctions, you will need special 3D spectacles. The list of branding types is almost like the three MIT wizards who took an academic conference for a ride by submitting a paper in all fake jargon: "Rooter: A Methodology for the Typical Unification of Access Points and Redundancy." Their paper was accepted. READ MORE

In this day and age of ensuring your identity is recognized by consumers, the question will inevitably be raised; do you or do you not need a brand? Are there values and a return on the investments or can you make it on your own? With the availability of information at everyone's fingertips and a plethora of choices available for consumers to buy a product, how can anyone ensure that the bases have all been covered? The larger question of critical importance today, however, is the relationship of brand value. In reality, consumers value branded companies. A walk through any major shopping area will prove this. Brands deliver major impact to a business as they will most often bring loyal customers with previous positive experiences. For independent hoteliers, this can make a huge difference to being successful or not when competing in a market place. READ MORE

Corporate identity and image design rules of the past are gone and so are the principles of old-fashioned mass marketing blitzes. What is now new is to aim for the targeted areas with powerful, unique global name identities and apply the latest of cyber-branding skills. The laws of e-commerce and Internet marketing are just the right steps in the right direction. Every hour there are new changes to our old ways of thinking about traditional marketing rules. While we are all very deep into e-commerce, we must be aware of whether we are either already very successful or still learning the processes. Here are some cutting-edge rules to ensure good returns on e-commerce and Internet marketing. READ MORE

In today's e-commerce age, where everyone is forced to type and to remember names with absolutely correct spellings, companies with big branding campaigns only hurt themselves with their old-fashioned, painted, colorful advice. They must all reconverge and regroup and realign their thinking to cope with today's name-driven economy. Contrary to branding beliefs, customers don't really care about, and are completely oblivious to, a corporation's image being tied to a very specific color. Meanwhile, trying to use a color for corporate identity can actually lead to trouble. For example, Orange Mobility, a British mobile phone company of France Telecom, is one of the largest telephone players in Europe. Just to make its point, as a gimmick, the company painted an entire town in England orange. Now, Orange Mobility, fully drenched in the color orange, is asking courts to disallow Easymobile, a new mobility service, the use of the color. READ MORE

There are thousands of very, very small companies out there who will develop a logo at no cost, a tagline at no cost, get you a free domain name and a free website at no cost. I guess the next big thing will be that they also write you a fat check...all for free. Who are these enterprises and how are they doing this? The Internet has removed the cumbersome overhead costs and linked very talented people to handle the real issues in real time without the fancy decorum and the super fulvous big time fanfare. Enter the street fighter, a savvy marketer with some teeth and a friendly smile. The freelance nations have far too many operators on the marketing and branding circuit that all are chipping away the armor of the giant branding companies who until now sold more on their posh addresses and furniture than raw talent. Million dollar logos with a matching spin to thousand of others, million dollar-slogans, confusing sentences as branding miracles. Suddenly, such services are now available for free as an incentive to get a new client for print and related packaging services. READ MORE

For any Hospitality corporation with plans to hit the markets with an IPO in 2005 or beyond, here are some key points. Just like how your latest technology and your other corporate assets are essential to develop great financials for a potential IPO, your corporate image and brand name recognition are equally important to get the word out in the marketplace. Both are critical for real success. Google's recent success with their IPO and the way their unique name played out is a clear case of a smart victory. Uniqueness and distinction makes a clear path of communication starting from your HQ all the way to the shareholders via the stock markets. A corporate brand with millions of dollars in advertising and promotional support is just a useless brand unless it has a unique position, and a clear name identity, strong enough to place the corporation aside from all the other copycats and look-alike, similarly named companies. READ MORE

Is this the dawning of the age of branding or just another black hole? Learn and teach new standards, lead and spread the new knowledge in your organization, break the old methods. The sooner you come out of the bondage of the old fashioned marketing and branding campaigns, the sooner you will see a new dawn. There is certainly light on the other side of this black hole. There are brand new rules of global marketing. A proper discovery process on how to approach visibility while building clean international name identities for this global name-economy is a must. Globalization will make the localization process manageable. Look out for feelings of certain numbness while sitting in a quiet time zone in a corporation. READ MORE

No matter how and where you travel, with or without your products or your corporate image, the chances are that a lot of your marketing messages are getting lost in translation as they make their way around the globe. Business names are being hit the hardest as the world becomes smaller and companies go global. Each one of us is now spinning in a mix of international alphabet soup of strange names and terminologies. You invent something new, send out a release, the media talks about it and, within seconds, it becomes an international item.Your business name image might end up as a great universal message or emulate some strange and confusing messages with insults or profanity. But why? READ MORE

Successful fractional ownership projects today are often characterized by authenticity, enrichment, and sustainability more so than just "luxury" - which is clearly an overused term. With price points ranging from $100K to one million dollars, they will most likely be purchased by more of the "super affluent." But it is more than just income and assets. It's also about inner life and their propensity to indulge in a preferred lifestyle that their wealth allows. READ MORE

Mergers. Acquisitions. Employee attrition. These terms are becoming more and more commonplace in the hospitality industry, and they all translate to big changes. The brand message your customers receive sets the tone for your property's ongoing success, and dictates not only whether or not they will come back, but what they'll say about your property to others. One bad experience or one encounter that fails to deliver what was promised or expected means they'll potentially attach a negative perception to your property and, most likely, share that perception. Unfortunately, you can't blame the hiccup on your period of change. Once that impression is made, there is little you can do to change the customer's opinion. So how do you prepare when it comes to managing your brand during times of change? READ MORE

It used to be that when a person decided he was going to need hotel accommodations, he called either a hotel directly or a travel agent for reservations. Fast forward to today, and with the impact of the Internet, the options for reserving a room -- whether in a chain, boutique or independent hotel, bed and breakfast, inn, all-inclusive club, or timeshare -- are extensive. Of course, a person can still call a hotel or a travel agent, but now he can also conduct research and make reservations via the Internet. Here is where the choices become whelming. So, when do consumers make reservations online? When do they call a travel agent? When do they call you or central reservation numbers or properties directly? And, when they consult the Internet, are they reserving directly through the hotel chains' or properties' websites or are they surfing the Web for third-party sites, many of whom provide reduced rate accommodations? What factors impact this decision-making process? READ MORE

Why are hotel loyalty programs important to consumers? What do travelers want from them? How do they affect consumers' decisions about where to stay? How do you attract target market consumers' attention to your program? Qualitative research, primarily through focus groups, can provide answers to these questions. READ MORE

Loyalty. What creates it? How can you sustain it? Is there a 'secret sauce' that helps you transform a run-of-the-mill customer into a wildly enthusiastic devotee? What motivates a consumer to drive past 25 restaurants to get to their favorite one? Why does every piece of clothing I'm wearing have a Nordstrom label? What in the world causes Harley Davidson loyalists to love a brand name so much that they will tattoo it on their body? I'm not sure there is a single answer. But I know some things that will help. Here are ten sure-fire ways to help turn customers into brand enthusiasts: READ MORE

What are the ingredients for a successful Private Residence Club? Many would suggest that it starts with location...a resort setting where there is a strong demand for luxury vacation homes or luxury hotel offerings. A location with mountains, rivers, golf courses, spectacular views, and multiple seasons is preferable. Resort areas with land scarcity and a difficult entitlement process are also particularly attractive. READ MORE

The War Generation, raised on Depression and World War, may have accepted somewhat stoically the difficulties of navigating through an America accustomed to focusing on youth culture, but Baby Boomers have never yet accepted anything anyone has tried to impose upon them and have had the economic might to get their way. As 78 million consumers enter their later years, expect to see sweeping changes in the treatment of greying populations. Intelligent businesses will begin today developing new products and services targeted at this mass of older spending power. READ MORE