It has finally happened. After seven years of waiting the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), has expanded the roster of top-level domain names to include all types of words and in many different languages. If the Internet was not already fragmented enough, this change has the potential to create some real headaches for global brands.

On one hand, the decision seems to offer an opportunity for brands, since they can now create their own domain. How about .millwardbrown anyone? But on the other hand, the change opens up vast potential for domain name squatting and the need ...

In recent posts I have been exploring the importance of brand meaning. My basic premise is that the brands which people find to be different in a good way are the ones they will be willing to pay a price premium for. But as I have explored this topic, I have come to realize that there are some very distinct layers of meaning (how a brand is perceived) and marketers need to work differently to motivate people within each level.

Let me quickly outline the three main layers of brand meaning that I believe are important, starting with the outside ...

I understand that the nice people over at Brainjuicer sent our Millward Brown London office a Valentine’s Day card. My name was on the card (even if they delivered it to someone else). How sweet of them, I’m so happy that they would think of me (thanks, guys!).

But I can’t believe how long that card took to get to us. It must have been lost in the post for decades because it strangely suggests that Millward Brown has had a recent change of heart over the role of emotions in advertising. When in reality, Millward Brown pioneered the measurement ...

It is an indisputable fact that purchasing in product and service categories obeys the law of Double Jeopardy. This is - stated at its most simplistic - an empirical generalization that higher market share brands achieve stronger customer loyalty than lower market share brands in the same category. But the thing that always intrigues me is whether all brands obey the Double Jeopardy law to the same degree all of the time.

Take pretty much any data set at a point in time and plot brands on a graph comparing a penetration metric with a loyalty metric, and you will ...

For some time now I have been exploring the role of meaning in marketing. I think being perceived as meaningfully different is the origin of a brand being able to command a price premium. So if your brand is one that aspires to command a price premium, then you need to understand what makes it meaningfully different from the alternatives.

But meaning is in the eye of the beholder. So much as marketers seek to add meaning to their brands, the user also adds their own unique meaning to what the brand stands for, and the latter may be far ...

I recently came across this McKinsey Quarterly paper by Harvard Business School professor, Teresa Amabile, and co-author, Steven Kramer. The paper proposes four traps by which senior management can accidentally undermine the motivation of their staff. And it makes me wonder if those same traps can undermine a consumer's allegiance to a brand.

Based on a multiyear research project, the paper finds that making progress in meaningful work is the single most important factor in ensuring people are motivated to do their job well. The paper also documents four traps which undermine meaning and motivation. Given that I believe people ...

New evidence presented in this point of view (POV) by Duncan Southgate, Global Brand Director for Digital at Millward Brown, suggests that a brand should maximize both its digital and traditional media share of voice if it wants to grow. Knowing that digital share of voice (SOV) is a driver of growth is important, knowing that you can also measure that SOV is even better because then you can manage it effectively.

As Duncan notes, the argument that SOV matters is an established and validated one; there is clear industry evidence that higher TV SOV is likely to lead to ...

2011 was a good year for Audi in the USA. While BMW and Mercedes-Benz duked it out for the highest number of cars sold, Audi posted a 16 percent increase in sales. Perhaps more important, is that the brand’s average transaction price has closed on its key competition. So what lies behind this improved marketplace performance?

Talking to Brandchannel, Scott Keogh, CMO of Audi of America, states:

True luxury leadership comes from being the thought leader in the segment, not necessarily the sales leader.

He then goes on to cite Audi's promotion of clean diesel drivetrains as one of ...

In a recent Media Post article titled, “TV Brand Names Become Irrelevant,” Aaron Baar states:

With so many HDTVs offering the same features (Internet connectivity, high definition, etc.), the brand names are becoming irrelevant.

I am sure he is right. Why? Because I had to get up and check whether I own an LG or a Samsung. From memory, all I could have told you was that it’s not a Sony.

The BrandZ database also lends credence to Aaron’s statement. The correlation between familiarity with what the brand stands for (Presence) and what brand was bought last is over 90 ...

McKinsey & Co want us to think of the consumer purchase journey more as an iterative loop than a simplistic purchase funnel.

The idea that the purchase decision journey is not linear has been around for years. I wrote about it in The Global Brand in 2008, referencing Prophet’s Brand Touchpoint Wheel from earlier that decade (click here for a 2003 reference).

Don’t get me wrong, I think the McKinsey decision journey is an improvement on the purchase funnel. As I wrote in The Global Brand:

A good discipline for developing a customer-centric view is to lay out the different ...