For Coldwell Banker's Generation Blue Experience annual sales conference that kicks off in New Orleans on Feb. 29th, the company's marketing team is featuring the next generation of millennials who are driving innovation: a group of young agents who are pioneering collaboration via digital and social media. They're featured in a main-stage panel at the #genblue confab — and in a slick video befitting their age, locale and — we'll go ahead and say it — good looks.

The dozen or so social-savvy agents, who are based in Miami's South Beach area, "are changing the way agents traditionally approach their business. They are collaborating with each other to help promote each other's listings and learn from one another. Led by their manager, Nancy Corey, the New Wave Group personifies the core qualities of what it means to be part of Gen Blue."

A blog post elaborates:Continue reading...

The Human Rights Campaign Foundation (HRD), the educational arm of the nation's largest lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) civil rights organization, has honored 337 major U.S. companies in its 2012 list of the 'Best Places to Work for LGBT Equality."

"We're honored to recognize a record number of employers this year who have taken the steps to treat their LGBT employees like the valuable assets they are," said HRC President Joe Solmonese in a release.

"These companies have shown a commitment to their employees through fair hiring and employment practices and recognize that equal treatment of LGBT employees is not only the right thing to do, but also a good business practice."Continue reading...

When Walmart customers sniffle, the economy catches a cold; look at what's happening now. And when America's largest company and the world's largest retailer puts its might behind something with a huge corporate commitment, it arguably changes the globe.

Walmart has done so over the last several years in areas as diverse as its environmental footprint, low-price prescriptions, "food deserts" in inner cities and the spread of organic and locally sourced products.

Bolstering those corporate citizenship commitments, today the company announced that it is going to put similar if not greater oomph behind a new program to better women's economic empowerment around the world.

The program includes increased sourcing from women-owned businesses in the United States and elsewhere, skill-development programs for factory workers, retail training of 400,000 women worldwide, an effort to increase gender diversity among major suppliers, and a vow to make significant philanthropic giving toward women's economic empowerment.

The external initiative also includes country-specific goals, from Brazil to China — but is it doing enough for the women in its own ranks?Continue reading...

DHL is betting big on a global campaign, touting its acumen as "International Specialists" in local delivery, customs clearance, express shipping and customer service, as seen above.

The DHL Express campaign launched in May in Hong Kong, and is now rolling out worldwide in the brand’s broadest marketing initiative, covering 42 global markets highlighting its commitment to “the speed of yellow, excellently delivered.” Read more about the campaign tactics below.Continue reading...

Brands concerned with internal brand engagement would do well to heed what's going on at Whole Foods right now.

The upmarket grocer is lambasted as is more of a “faux hippy Wal-Mart than an 'earth-and-body-friendly organic foods paradise” by a disgruntled employee of five years in a 2,343-word resignation letter to former bosses in Toronto, where there is one Whole Foods Market location, in the tony Hazelton Lanes retail complex in Yorkville.Continue reading...

Little is known about the photo at right, other than the fact that it was uploaded to i.imgur.com and then publicized by Buzzfeed.com. So we cover this with the proviso that it could be a hoax, but it's out there — and it's impacting the Starbucks brand.

It comes as mainstream media outlets (we're looking at you, TIME) are making hay this week with a Tumblr site that collects (and doesn't verify) user photos of their Starbucks order with misspelled (or just plain mangled) versions of customer names scrawled on the cup.

If this particular maligned Starbucks cup scrawl is real, it's a sign that Starbucks' internal brand engagement and employee training needs some work — and just the latest incident in a long line of poorly thought out moves by employees. Poorly thought out moves that cause loads of grief for the brands involved.Continue reading...

The Corporate Social Media Summit 2011 has wrapped up its two-day conference in New York, today featuring a whirlwind of expert speakers from companies such as Coca-Cola, American Express OPEN, Kodak, Marriott, AT&T, WWE, Aflac, and Cisco.

Discussion was consistent with the major talking points about brands and social media: ROI, customer engagement, strategy, and case studies galore from various campaigns. However, the big question remained, what’s next?

Andrew Warden, head of Strategy & Communications for Emerging Markets Services at Cisco Systems, has an idea of what the next wave of social media will be — internal brand engagement by getting more social within company ranks.Continue reading...

Beatlemania is back — without the hordes of screaming teenagers.

The midwest US retailer specializing in appliance and electronics sales called hhgregg (pronounced "h-h-gregg," the brand uses all lowercase letters to distinguish itself) has licensed the Beatles' song, "Help!" as the cornerstone of its new branding campaign.

With the tagline of "We Help," the campaign's goal is to highlight the chain's sales staff and emphasis on customer service. The move comes as its competition is tougher than ever.Continue reading...