Where do we stand on the current topics of debate? What future trends will significantly affect cultures, shift market adoption and change consumer behaviour?
 
How will these trends affect the way consumers feel about your brand? And what effect will that have on your business strategy?
 
Here are some of the things we’re talking about at the moment. We’re constantly finding new subjects to discuss, so please come back for more.

Branding for Good
All brands and businesses have a continuous struggle to innovate & differentiate to keep ahead of the competition. The opportunity for us as marketers is to consider the role of ethical marketing as a springboard for brand and business growth, ensuring we stay emotionally connected with our consumers as they search for more accountability from their brands and more meaning from their purchases.  click here to read more...

Innovation can help brands ride a recession
As a potential recession looms on the horizon, the wise companies will be those who appreciate that innovation drives growth.
click here to read more ...

Applying Neuroscience to Marketing
Discovering the Feeling - "Why does a consumer choose one brand over another?"  Marketers ongoing fascination with the area of Neuroscience. click here to read more...

Brands & Gaming:
Mention computer games and what springs to mind? Niche market? Teen grunge? Think again. This academic study is the first to apply new marketing ideas to a growing phenomenon. click here to read more... 

The DNA of Luxury: 
What drives consumers towards luxury brands? The answer is the most primal of triggers: the need to feel more desirable. click here to read more...

“Fight from the villages, surround the cities”:
Chairman Mao can hardly have expected his 1920s rallying cry to become a marketing doctrine in modern China. But, as local brands struggle against the forces of foreign multinationals, the government’s economic “levelling up”, could it be the way forward? Download a PDF
 
Familiarity doesn’t breed contempt:
More and more East European nations may be joining the rush for EU membership but they aren’t all racing to buy western goods. Download a PDF

Our friends connected:
Brands are a vital part of teenage weblog lore, used to flag up status, individuality and relative ‘coolness’. Download a PDF
 
"Pop-up-Retail" a retail revolution?:
From one-off exhibitions in gallery-like shopping spaces to mobile units bringing urban chic to the rural customer, is the face of retail changing? Download a PDF
 
Honesty points to healthier returns:
With obesity reaching pandemic levels, it’s time for marketing to face up to its responsibility with a Marketing Diet of its own. Download a PDF
 
Shopping made simple: 
Savvy retailers/marketers need to open their eyes and ears to what their consumers want, to build better experiences that will stimulate desire. Download a PDF
 
Marketing the Science - the new marketing challenge: 
We’re all used to lycra and Teflon but now we’re being asked to swallow provitamins, isotonic drinks and xylitol. So how do marketers drive desire, scientifically?      Download a PDF
read the article in Brand Strategy November 2005

Staff-Brand Alignment - key to business growth: 
Companies spend vast sums on traditional brand-building. So why don’t they invest in helping employees keep those brand promises? Download a PDF
 
How does culture interpret what it sees? Semiotics into consumer language:
If we said red means stop, green means go and orange means slow down, most people would agree. Semiotics use a culture’s bank of learnt meanings to understand how that culture interprets what it sees and how these interpretations evolve through time. Download a PDF
 
Nutrition and health in China:
We may use words like ‘ying’ and ‘yang’ more and more often when we talk about diet and health but can we as Westerners ever really understand them?  Download a PDF