When U.S. and European brand marketers are talking about opportunities for global growth, India, which is promoting its own brand image, is often mentioned as a most desirable emerging market, second only to China. But brands from outside India apparently have a lot of work to do to penetrate this market.

According to a new survey, seven of the ten top brands in India, at least in terms of "thought leadership," are brands born and bred in India. The "Index of Emerging Market Thought Leaders" surveyed Indian government ministers, directors of leading companies, and newspaper editors and was conducted by the TLG consultancy in collaboration with international research firm GlobeScan.

Survey respondents were asked "to identify corporate brands with the power to change the attitudes and behavior of consumers, employees or politicians," according to The Economic Times of India.Continue reading...

Why should anyone care what billionaires do when they're not in the boardroom or glued to a Bloomberg terminal? When it's the annual Allen & Co. conference, aka "summer camp for moguls," media and tech observers pay very close attention.

Starting today, the goliaths of media, technology and private equity are gathering once again at Herb Allen's annual retreat in Sun Valley, Idaho. Casual chats there in 2006 between Google CEO Eric Schmidt and YouTube founders Chad Hurley and Steve Chen began the conversations that led to Google’s YouTube acquisition and the announcement above.

Last year's Sun Valley get-together hosted by the Wall Street investment banker gave Comcast's Brian Roberts and Steve Burke and NBCU's Jeff Zucker some quiet time to chew over what would become a $30 billion NBC Universal-Comcast merger.Continue reading...

Reckitt Benckiser, owner of Lysol, Woolite, Clearasil and other invigorating brands, is spending a record $40 million on web video, according to Ad Age. (Yes, that's a Clearasil "spot" - we couldn't resist - you can see above.)

The British global consumer goods company was clearly pleased with the $20 million it spent on video last year, seeing an immediate lift on sales. Turns out it's also a bargain Web video shopper.

Instead of paying $30 to $40 CPM (cost-per-thousand impressions) rates, such as found on premium video websites such as Hulu, it's looking for rates under $2 in order to achieve scale.

That Web video news is timely in light of new research from ZenithOptimedia.Continue reading...