Sales and Marketing

Jump-Starting Brands

Creating a new brand is no easy task. Karen Post offers five tips for lifting off and creating buzz.READ»

Spare No Expense

Even the staunchest budget "hawk" understands that you can't cost-cut your way to growth.READ»

The Happiness Factor

Today's most successful brands promise to help in our pursuit of happiness. But too often, marketers fail to understand what brings us joy.READ»

What’s On Your Customer’s Mind?

It’s easier to persuade people to buy what they want than what you want them to want. So ask yourself these seven questions.READ»

Lying, Cheating Brands

Deceptive marketing practices are damaging consumer trust for all brand builders.READ»

An All Natural Icon Reaches Beyond Whole Foods

As Reed’s ginger brew makes a play for the big leagues, the natural question arises: Can the brand's success be attributed to the marketing or is it all about the taste? READ»

• Has Pepsi Got Your Number?
• Jonesing for Soda

Products of Brand Mash-Ups

Lashing your brand to another may be the easiest -- and oddest -- way to create new products. Can you pick which items are real and which are fake?READ»

• 7 Fabulous Things You Probably Shouldn't Buy
• When Brand Extensions Go Bad

Obscura Digital's High Def Projections

A multi-media design lab out of San Francisco lights up companies such as GM, Google, and Oracle with mind-blowing projections. READ»

• The State of Mobile Advertising

High-Tech Gear for Olympic Athletes

When it comes to finding that last bit of leverage over the Olympic competition, gear makers strain as hard as the athletes. READ»

• 7 Footwear Innovations for the Olympics
• Olympic Innovations in Athletic Gear
• 7 Super Secret Olympic Shoes from Nike, Adidas, and Puma
• Audiobrain Meets NBC: Creating Music for the Beijing Olympics

Three Examples of Dirty Marketing Campaigns

1. Broadband Inadequacy A lot of guys don't even know they have connectile dysfunction, but you can tell when someone has been cured because they've got a little extra broadband in their browser. Right, Sprint? Wink, wink. Of ...READ»

• A Dirty Shame

American Apparel's New Image

In the beginning, American Apparel put a "sweatshop free" label on its t-shirts. But sex turned out to be a better sell than good labor practices. Lessons in the limits of altruism.READ»

• 7 Fabulous Things You Probably Shouldn't Buy
• In Fashion, Green is the New Black

Can Alex Bogusky Help Microsoft Beat Apple?

Alex Bogusky built the country's slickest ad shop using Apple products. His next challenge: Persuade people like him to buy Microsoft's stuff.READ»

• Apple vs. Microsoft -- Who is Winning the Epic Battle
• Microsoft's Ad Campaigns: An Overview

Rebel Alliance

How a small band of sci-fi geeks is leading Hollywood into a new era.READ»

• Why You'll Be Watching More and More TV On Your Computer
• The Wide, Wide World of Heroes

AOL's Greatest Hope

With the online-ad market expected to hit $42 billion by 2011, AOL's headlong rush into advertising makes plenty of sense. Following the 2004 purchase of Advertising.com, the company has gone on an acquisition bender, snapping up specialized ad servers with the intention of building the world's largest third-party network, dubbed Platform A. Here's how it all fits together.READ»

• Dead Man Walking
• AOL’s Year of Pain
• You've Got Problems!
• AOL's Greatest Hits

The Red Sox Secret Lineup

How a marketing offshoot in Boston is playing the pro-sports business differently. READ»

• Boxscore
• MLB's Digital Dominance
• Take Me Out to the Ballpark
• Show Me the Video

Is Your Marketing Strategy a Recipe for Failure?

The Fast Interview: Marketing maven Seth Godin on why it's hard to sell meatballs and why those Bud TV Super Bowl ads fail. Plus two words of advice: Parrot Chow!READ»

Order Versus Chaos

Duncan Watts's research tells advertising execs precisely what they don't want to hear: All their clever (and lucrative!) targeted viral campaigning may ultimately be less effective than good old mass marketing.READ»

Devil's Food

Big Food wants everything bad to be good for you.READ»

The Journal-ist: Matters of Perception

In this month's look at journals and academic reviews, studies on optimism in business, lucky execs, aesthetics in e-commerce, and smells and flavors online.READ»

Can PR Save China?

Recently, "Made in China" has been associated with dying pets, an amputated finger, poisoned children, and even toys that emit a date-rape chemical when swallowed. Can the country salvage its reputation? READ»

What Makes a Product Cool

The Fast Interview: Steve Quartz on neuromarketing – and why iPods are like heroin.READ»

What Paris Hilton Can Teach You About Branding

The Fast Interview: Alex Bogusky, an ad guy who definitely doesn't shy away from controversy.READ»

Microsoft Bets Big On Halo 3

Microsoft hopes its strategic partnerships sell not only the final installment of its Halo franchise but the Xbox 360 as well.READ»

• Halo 3's Octopus Marketing Strategy

Is Brand America Broken? How Do We Fix It?

Brad Nierenberg, President and CEO, Red Peg Marketing, and James E. Murphy, Retired Chief Marketing and Communications Officer for Accenture, currently Chairman and CEO, Murphy & Co., hash out solutions to revamp Brand America.READ»

What a Packaging Makeover Can Do For Your Company

Recently, some of the world's best-known companies have revamped their images through a radical redesign of their product packaging. Just how successful have these makeovers been?READ»