Cisco wants to be more than the largest manufacturer of computer networking equipment. It wants to guide customers through the myriad possibilities of the Internet of Everything, a phrase it's co-opting in service of its new brand positioning.

The tech brand has shut down its six-year-old tagline, "The Human Network." Its new tagline, unveiled today in a $100 million campaign — "Tomorrow Starts Here," a phrase you'll find, fittingly, all over the Internet and beyond: on its homepage and on social media as a promoted hashtag on Twitter, on its Facebook page, in a new TV campaign, in an infographic, in a series of blog posts, and in a new print campaign that comes to life via augmented reality and Cisco's mobile app.

The brand's chief marketing officer, Blair Christie, told TheStreet.com that it's more than just a campaign and new tagline.Continue reading...

Eastman Kodak announced this week that it had the financing in place "to successfully execute its remaining reorganization objectives and emerge from Chapter 11 in the first half of 2013." Today, Kodak chairman and CEO Antonio M. Perez updated the progress toward that goal since filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in January.

Perez, in the video above, discusses the four areas Kodak has been working on during this Chapter 11 reorganization period: resolving legacy costs and issues in the US around retiree pension benefits, with an agreement reached in October and downsizing of its US workforce; "increase liquidity in the US," its biggest cost center and lowest profit center (with $1B in sales outside America); selling off non-strategic IP and patents; and "focusing on our most valuable businesses" — namedly, commercial imaging, as it moves away from its consumer businesses.

"This is a difficult process," he states. "Neither our employees, customers or suppliers doubted why we were doing what we're doing, and they've been there with us all the way. So thank you, thank you all."

Cisco has taken on historical themes before, imagining Paul Revere with a Cisco Cius tablet and an updated Braveheart in the office. Above, its new video evokes Helen of Troy vs. hackers insides a Trojan horse virus, a means to communicate the brand's value protecting small business networks. Tagline: "The right network changes everything."

A new study out of the Harvard Business School finds that restaurants reviewed on the site can count on higher business. Even a one-star increase on Yelp's five-star ratings scale, according to WSJ.com, "was associated with a 5 to 9% increase in revenue."

The research comes as businesses, especially small businesses, are pondering the benefits of participating in group-buying deals such as Groupon or LivingSocial. They offer not just good deals but new experiences is possibly new parts of your city that haven’t been fully explored. That’s all well and good for the consumer. But for the businesses offering the deal, it might mean eventual bad news.Continue reading...

LinkedIn announced two new features today at its Connect:11 event, as the world’s largest professional network augments its status with brand marketers.

CEO Jeff Weiner made the announcements about moving their platform to increased consumer engagement with Company Status Updates that enable admins of Company Pages to share their company news, videos, jobs, and industry articles, and LinkedIn Certified Developer Program that connects marketers and agencies with experienced developers leveraging the LinkedIn platform.

“At LinkedIn, we want professionals to be able to interact and build relationships with the brands and companies they value in the way that’s most relevant to them,” stated Mike Gamson, SVP Global Sales.

Building on the site's Company Pages, which created a “robust ecosystem of more than two million businesses and tens of millions of followers,” today’s announcements “accelerate brands’ ability to engage directly with their audiences in a professional context and a social environment they trust,” said a company release.Continue reading...

In recent interview with USA Today, Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg stated, “My dream is really simple. I think every small business should be using technology, they should be using all of the Web technologies, and they should be using Facebook. So we’re not going to stop until all of them are using it to grow their business.”

The latest addition to Facebook’s steady march towards digital dominance of all things social, recently advanced with the launch of Timeline and a slew of Open Graph social apps, plus a call-out to brands to leverage those apps, is Facebook Marketing Solutions, an offer to American small businesses of up to $10 million in free advertising beginning January 2012.

The drill down is $50 per business in ad credits to about 200,000 small businesses redeemable on a first-come, first-serve basis when purchasing ads that can be tailor-targeted.

In partnership with the National Federation of Independent Business and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the initiative at first blush is to educate small business on social-networking site promotion, but the obvious collateral for FB, is engaging yet another cohort of customer consumers.

The launch on the Facebook page reads in part:

Dear American Small Business Owner,

You are the backbone of the largest economy in the world, and at Facebook, we’re excited about helping you grow…Get more customers. Build lasting connections. Reach your customers' friends…We want you to be the next success story.

If you’d like to get started today, create a free Facebook Page for your business and read about best practices for Pages.”

The road show begins in October as FB reps meet with state and local chambers of commerce and regional NFIB offices. “Our goal is to give small businesses a boost by helping them find customers the best way possible – through recommendations from friends,” said Sandberg.

Facebook revenue projections are $2.01 billion in U.S. display ad revenue in 2011, a 67% increase from 2010, according to eMarketer Inc., making it the leading seller in the category, pushing Yahoo to #2 and Google staying at #3.

This latest engagement program aims to engage 30 million small-to-medium sized business owners to use FB as a marketing platform.

“Only 9.2 million of them are using the social network to speak to their customers. An even smaller percentage of that number are spending money on Facebook ad campaigns. Facebook knows most small businesses are too busy to try its ad program; they are already happy with their free Facebook Page and don’t want to spend money. The point of the credit system is to get them to at least try it out,” writes ZDNet.

The only vulnerable corner for now in Facebook’s juggernaut is mobile; 550 million people globally are engaging in social networking by year’s end and projected to reach 1.7 billion by 2016, according to ABI Research. Google and Apple are both working on mobile integration in their competing operating systems.

While FB has a huge mobile presence, it hasn’t yet shown a monetization strategy. "A huge problem for Facebook is that while on the Web, it is a platform — on mobile, it's just another application," commented ABI analyst Aapo Markkanen.

Don’t look for anything like “Intel on the Inside,” but Dow Chemical hopes to do a better job of branding toward and communicating with its largely business-to-business customers. 

With staple products ranging from acrylic monomers to formulated electrolytes, and including a gazillion kinds of plastics, the Midland, Mich.-based chemical giant serves dozens of industries, from construction to packaging to utilities. 

Yet, according to Dow CMO Ruby Chandy, "people don’t really think of [the brand] because we don’t really sell a lot directly to the consumer." Chandy told Forbes that 95% of Dow’s products “go in as ingredients into other people’s products.”Continue reading...

"Skype me" isn't as off-color as it sounds. Now part of the everyday vernacular among consumers, it may refer to asking someone to make a corporate phone or video conference call using the Web ... if Skype has its way, that is.Continue reading...