“From Stretched to Strengthened,” IBM’s latest Global Chief Marketing Officer Study, interviewed 1,734 CMOs from 19 industries and 64 countries. Topline findings converge on three points:

• The empowered customer is now in control of the business relationship
• Delivering customer value is paramount — and an organization’s behavior is as important as the products and services it provides
• The pressure to be accountable to the business is not just a symptom of hard times, but a permanent shift that requires new approaches, tools and skills.

While 82% of marketing chiefs rely on traditional market research -- which delivers information about consumers in the aggregate -- comparatively few “are exploiting the full power of the digital grapevine,” with only 26% regularly tracking blogs, 42% tracking third-party reviews and only 48% tracking consumer reviews.Continue reading...

If you love chocolate and coffee, take a whiff – Le Whif, that is.

Branding enthusiasts enjoy discussing the future of the branding industry – from logos and colors to sonic branding and slogans – but perhaps nothing draws more speculation, and skepticism, than the powerful, untapped sense of smell. The future is here.

Le Whif is "a first commercial step toward breathable food," says creator David Edwards, a Harvard professor. "Le Whif uses particle engineering to form chocolate in particle sizes that are small enough to become airborne though too large to enter the lungs." In other words, it’s a taste of food, like chocolate.Continue reading...

Society's obsession with beauty and youth has spawned the creation of various pills, and brands, that promise to turn back the clock.

Created by L'Oreal and Nestle, Inneov Fermete is a daily antidote that claims to wipe away wrinkles. It combines nutritional and dermatological science with the help of lycopene, a compound found in tomatoes. The food and cosmetic companies collaborated to develop the anti-wrinkle product found to drastically increase skin elasticity after six months of use. The pill works to preserve old skin cells while promoting the growth of new cells.

Patricia Manissier, of Inneov, said: "We have done a lot of research which shows this product works and now we're looking for ways of improving it. We know that good nutrition can prevent the skin from ageing and that there are clear links between certain nutrients and skin health."

Time was when nearly all the companies creating the functional-foods revolution were entrepreneurial upstarts: Red Bull. Silk. Odwalla and many more. But nowadays, the mainstream titans of the global food and beverage business are just as apt to be at the forefront of better-for-you innovations, like probiotics, as bringing up the rear.

Groupe Danone, Nestle, even Kellogg are among the major food industry players becoming known for nutritional advances that are key to consumers in the new marketplace. That’s one message of the ten key trends identified by New Nutrition Business, a trade journal published by the UK-based Centre for Food & Health Studies.Continue reading...

A brand wouldn't be a brand without some support, right? Well, many footwear designers credit their strong heels to Acrylonitrile Butadiene Styrene (ABS), a polymer developed by a government team working on synthetic rubber patents. Without it, many women would literally fall flat.

“The most important innovation in high heels is the ABS molded high heel,” said Nicholas Kirkwood, 29, a shoe designer who won the British Fashion Awards emerging star prize last year. “It’s what allows them to be really high and come in multifaceted shapes.”

ABS is responsible for Manolo Blahnik's famous “spindly” heels. Blahnik shoes enforce a central steel rod, surrounded by ABS plastic and a polyurethane tip at the bottom.Continue reading...

If I’m shopping for a new wine, I’m a sucker for three pieces of branding: the label design, the name (I’m always drawn to Fat Bastard), and any reviews or ratings that are attached to the bottle. (The size and duration of the following day’s hangover plays a role in repeat purchases.)

We’re a society of shoppers who love ratings from institutions like Consumer Reports and amateur experts who post on Amazon. So, all else being equal, I’ll favor the 95-point wine over the 85-point wine, even if I don’t know who’s issued the 95 and the 85, because, well, 95 is better than 85, right?

But more so than reviews of, say, hybrid sedans, wine reviews can be quite subjective, if not outright convoluted. New York Times wine critic Eric Asimov’s article on suggested spirits for Thanksgiving includes the following adjectives: agile, nimble, modest, confident, polarizing, stony, ripe, floral, earthy, jammy, polished, and “redolent of the vanilla flavors that come from new oak” (as opposed to older oak).Continue reading...

Fascinating, counterintuitive data coming out of a year-long consumer behavior study finds that Kraft, Coca-Cola and Tide are the three brands least likely to be traded for store brands. The study should worry name brand owners, since "only 37% of consumers say name brands are more reliable, and 39% believe name brands are better quality products."

The data are edifying. Age breakdowns show consumers growing less brand loyal (and more price-conscious) as they get older. The huge numbers who are turning to private labels find Wal-Mart, Kroger, and Target to be the stores with the best selections.

An executive for the Integer Group, the conductor of the study, summarized the dilemma for many nationally advertised brands: "With this many shoppers doing price-comparison, name brands need to act now in order to keep consumers - and beyond the recession, entice consumers to return."Continue reading...

Detroit's year of bad news just got worse: the car industry isn't only losing sales from current buyers depressed by the economy -- it's losing the future.

A new J.D. Power report says teens and twenty-somethings lack what was once thought to be the genetic desire to own a car.

The study, which analyzed hundreds of thousands of conversations on blogs and social media sites like Facebook and Twitter, showed young people have a poor image of the auto industry. The bad economy and high gas prices could be to blame. But J.D. Power blames social media itself: "with the advent of social media and other forms of electronic communities, teens perceive less of a need to physically congregate, and less of a need for a mode of transportation.”

Of course, research done among social media diehards that finds social media is more popular than driving may be suffering from an echo-chamber effect. People chained to Facebook and Twitter may indeed be too busy to go out. But the trend is real, and has been building: The New York Times reported last year that fewer 16-year-olds now rush to get their licenses as soon as they're eligible.Continue reading...