Love is in the air. Floral deliveries zip to and fro...mail carriers are weighed down with pink and red envelopes...and ecards pour into inboxes promising instant gratification for those hoping to send a quick message to loved ones. The only trouble is that recently, ecards are spreading a lot more than love.

There are a multitude of viruses you can catch on Valentine's day—keep your minds out of the gutter, people—I am talking about online viruses. But protection is the name of the game no matter what you were thinking.

Online fraud, brand jacking, the sale of counterfeit merchandise (both online and off) mixed in with your good old fashioned malware, virus downloads and scams are all blatant attacks on your brand. Let’s take the good old banking-customer phishing scam. A consumer gets an email requesting an update to their banking records from a site that appears to be from their bank...thanks to a false website that carries all of the brand markers of the bank, the consumer bites and the criminals accesses the account and siphon hard-earned money out. The bank’s brand is caught in the middle. The consumer knows the BANK didn’t steal, but the BANK’S BRAND can no longer be trusted.

Let’s add up the research-facts:

• 80 percent of consumers would stop doing business with a company based on a bad customer experience
• 60 percent of consumers would stop doing business with a company after that company experienced a data breach
• According to MarkMonitor AntiPhishing Security Operations, Online fraud scams continue to grow by 15 percent per quarter
• According to a Harris Interactive poll, 30 percent of consumers said they limit online transactions, and 24 percent limit online banking transactions

No matter how you cut it, brand-crimes affect experience…and experience affects the bottom line. Now, more than ever, we need to watch both brand security and experience.

I’ll point you in two directions for this month’s extra-curricular web-surfing. First, I’ll ask for you to take a few minutes and share your experiences by taking the Protection From Brand Infection audit. The goal of the research is to assess marketing’s awareness of the brand security issue and aggregate best practices in stopping brand threats.

Second, here is a site to share for a truly safe and sound Valentine's (or any time) greeting: Slam the Online Scam is a site that we have partnered with to alert consumers to threats online. Its got consumer tips and definitions so you can finally learn what a skimming device is and where bots attack.

Happy Valentines day to all!

Liz Miller
VP, Programs & Operations
CMO Council

Protecting Brands, Protecting Economies

By Tim Phillips for Authenticate 360

Amazon lists 7,627 books on brand management. I haven’t read all of them, but it’s a safe guess that the overwhelming majority make a simple assumption when consumers experience the brand: that what they think they are buying is actually what they get.

If the name on the outside of the box, or on the pill, or stitched to the back pocket, or stamped on the part is fake, then all the brand equity built into the product is meaningless. That’s a losing situation for everyone.

On one hand, it disastrous for an unwitting consumer whose car parts, whose medicines or whose premium eBay purchase is at best a waste of cash - and at worst positively dangerous.

But it is also calamitous for the brand owner. Any brand owner building a responsible brand is marketing brand attributes that it is attempting to build into its products. For example, if safety is a brand attribute, if responsible manufacturing and sourcing, build quality, exclusiveness or unique design features are part of the brand, then counterfeiting takes those brand values and piggy-backs on them to sell a product that doesn’t share them.

The traditional way to look at this is leakage - that is, if the authentic product has effective branding, a leak into the counterfeit product is irritating and unfair, but it doesn’t negatively impact the brand.

This happens because much of current management thinking about the problems of counterfeiting is hampered by an understandable assumption: that it’s a legal problem. Anyone counterfeiting your products is breaking the law, and probably more than one. But they are doing more besides.

In large parts of the developing world, and in many areas of the developed world, the primary experience of a brand is through counterfeits of that brand.

To start in the richest parts of the globe: today’s street markets and Internet sites are awash with counterfeit product: clothes, shoes, CDs, DVDs, toys, beauty products. Entire segments of the population are experiencing the brand values of the counterfeiter: easy availability, cheap prices, the brand as little more than a name.

But move to the developing world, and there are large parts of the globe where the branding message is getting through: logos and names are easy to recognize from television and magazines. But the genuine product is simply not available - even if it was affordable.

A particular worry is the next generation of affluent consumers. Four countries are usually singled out: Brazil, Russia, India, China. I’ve visited all four to look at the market for counterfeits, and anyone who is optimistic about the global reach of brand values can’t help but be depressed by what’s happening. All four countries share attributes: counterfeits are easily accessible, and fake consumer brands are knowingly bought by the emerging middle classes as just another consumer choice. Premium brands aren’t affordable; but there are more pressing problems that the often marginal differences in quality between many consumer brands and their fakes.

Without explicitly saying it, we’re sending a message to consumers that maybe branded product isn’t so much branded - which implies quality in design and manufacturing - as labeled. For the pedigree to mean something, the branding effort has to start with the question: would this product be significantly worse for our customers if it were not real?

There are two brand values that must be meaningful in a global situation: relevance and service.

Read full article »

Warning Indicators for Marketers: Understanding the State of the Market and Economic Environment
By Nicholas C Watkis of Contract Marketing Service

Do marketers really understand the business that they are in? The question is not about marketing, but about understanding the business organization of which they are an integral part.

For marketers to do their job effectively, that is, to maximize sustainable profitable revenue, they need to be aware of the market and economic environment in which they operate. Understanding the state of the market and economic environment in which their business operates is fundamental for the marketer. But marketers must also be aware of the economic health of the business in which they work. What about the economic state of the business? How well is the business performing, and how do we know? How much is being invested in getting and retaining business and what return is being made on that investment?

Marketers must ask questions about the condition of the business and its ability to weather any economic or market storm. Forget about brand, image and market share, for the time being, for while they remain important, the marketer must look for those indicators that show of the health of the business and where problems may be arising.

What indicators should the marketer look for? The first indicators are for the financial strength of the business. An examination of the balance sheet will show how the assets and liabilities are balanced, from which the ability to pay creditors may be derived. This is done by calculating, what is known as the Current Ratio for Liquidity.

The Current Ratio for Liquidity, defined as the current assets divided by current liabilities. “General opinion” considers that ideally, the Current Ratio should be 1:1, so that assets should equal liabilities. When assets are larger than liabilities, it is generally considered that the assets are underused. However, when its assets are less than its liabilities, a business is generally considered insolvent. The immediate liquidity of the business, which is the assessment of its ability to pay its immediate creditors, is measured by the Quick Ratio or “Acid Test.” The Quick Ratio is defined as the current assets less stock, divided by the current liabilities.

While these two ratios are good initial indicators to the financial health of the business, they are relevant only at a particular time. Neither the Current Ratio nor Quick Ratio relate to a business’s trading state, marketing position, management resource, workforce or intellectual property. However, while the Current and Quick Ratios provide initial warning signs concerning the overall health of the business, it is important that marketers should know what other indicators they should be looking for, regarding the marketing or trading strength of the business.

If marketing managers are managing their resources responsibly, they should be continually looking at a variety of marketing performance indicators, which will quantify performance in a number of specific and significant areas. In reality, many businesses fail to do this. Therefore the marketer needs to know which key indicators may act as warning signs of inefficiency and under achievement.

The prime task of the Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) is the generation of sustainable profitable revenue, thus the most obvious initial performance indicator, is the current revenue trend. The comparison of revenue levels at different times soon shows the general trend of income, as do the complementary data for units of sales over the same period.

The balance between production and sales is indicated by movements in stock turn. If stock turn is slowing, it indicates that production is starting to outstrip demand, which may store up problems for the future, particularly with cash flow. If the conversion rate from enquiry to order starts to reduce, then it is important to examine the trend in the levels of enquiry, as well as the time taken between an enquiries and orders.

The trend in calling rates for sales staff can be an important indicator especially when related to trends in the conversion rates of enquiries to orders, and order to sales. Regular checks of the customer base and order frequency will indicate movements in customer attrition and the maintenance of the customer order base. Any shrinking order base requires the definite attention of marketer.

Since marketers are responsible for the production of revenue, they need also to be aware of the level and trends of bad debt and late payment. These two indicators show whether the money promised by the level of invoice sales, actually turns into the necessary cash revenue, and may highlight a need for changes in credit and payment terms

The indicators listed here is not exhaustive, as there are many others, which may be significant to particular businesses and industries. Used regularly, the right indicators can provide timely warning of emerging problems. It is then down to the marketer to devise actions to counter negative activity, or engage alternative actions to meet the objectives of the marketing plan.

Nicholas Watkis set up Contract Marketing Service in 1981, providing professional interim marketing management for a wide variety of businesses. Over 20 years practical experience in organizations, large and small, national and international, led to the development of specialist management consultancy in marketing management and measuring marketing performance. A Certified Management Consultant of the Institute of Management Consultancy, he was elected a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Marketing in November 2007.