Best Global Brands 2011

Here you have the top 100 Most Valuable Global Brands for this 2011. Feel free to make any comment.



Since the ranking was first published in 2006, the brand value of the Top 100 has grown by a massive 40 percent. For the full rankings and analysis, download the free complete report.

This year Top 100 surpassed $2 trillion for the first time. Apple increased in value by 84 percent to $153.3 billion to get No.1 position in the list.

Enjoy!
RT

Source: brandz.com

Get Your Team Members Harmonized, Don't Homogenized

If you think it's challenging to get team members from market research and brand management to work together, see what happens to your business if you don't do it

By: Chris Kuenne

More often than not, clients get marketing and advertising support from different partners that seldom interact. They simply hand things off to each other and something always gets lost in translation.

I realized this in one of my brand manager assignments, at Johnson & Johnson (JNJ), where I led the marketing of the Band-Aid brand. The market-research people sat at one end of the hall and the brand-management people at the other. We didn't talk to each other, let alone co-create system-wide solutions. A telling example: J&J used to sell Band-Aids in metal boxes that cost more than the Band-Aids. Research showed that people cared more about getting more product for their money and less about whether the strips came in a paper box or a tin one. We capitalized on this consumer insight by restructuring and repositioning the brand from the factory floor all the way to the product itself, introducing medicated Band-Aids and Band-Aids decorated with cartoon characters. This restructuring of the Band-Aid brand took it from losing $15 million a year to earning $25 million in annual profit.

The experience convinced me that groups engaged in solving a common problem shouldn't work in a linear fashion, with one group's responsibility ending where another's begins. Instead they should form an infinity loop, wherein a constant exchange of ideas and information takes place. Only when groups work like interconnected gears can you achieve transformational change. Our firm's three main capabilities—strategic insights, ideas and programs, and technology—function as gears.

Needed: A Culture for Everyone

The challenge arises from the fact that different crafts drive different cultures. Who people are—in terms of what motivates them, what worries them, what they think about, and where they derive their satisfaction and frustration—differs according to what they do. To maximize individual and company performance, you need to create a culture in which everyone feels part of and connected to it. This is not a problem unique to marketing companies. The issue becomes more important and more difficult in an interconnected world with ever-greater roles for technology and social media.

Too often, companies take the easy way out by embracing a homogenized culture, a monochromatic world of sameness that neuters the individuality of team members. More difficult—but more rewarding—is to create a harmonized culture with the emphasis on being complementary, rather than striving for conformity.

I'd like to share some lessons we've learned in creating harmony while developing our "infinity loop" approach.

• Skill drives the culture: Don't expect technologists and creative directors to approach their jobs the same way. Why would you even want them to? When we are building a website or e-commerce site for a client, we need the expertise of multiple teams: strategy and analytics, creative, user experience, and technology. The harmonization of these groups from a functionality standpoint is critical to success. From a human standpoint it is equally important, though harder to achieve.

• Values must be shared: If team members don't have the same values, you can't build bridges across the functional and cultural divides. Do they care about clients? Do they care about solving problems? Are they motivated to drive business impact? You can teach people new skills; you can't teach them to care or be responsive.

• Engage all your gears: If we are working with a client in only one capacity, such as technology, we still have a representative from both our strategic-insights group and our ideas-and-programs group as part of the client team. This provides us with a holistic view of our client's needs, even if the client isn't looking to us to fill all those needs. This approach also creates a sense of internal cohesiveness, reinforcing the idea that all parts of the business have equal importance.

• Create a common corporate identity: All workers have to believe and feel that they are working for the same cause, the same company. When conglomerates cobble together a bunch of entities that lack unifying structure or identity, the battle is already half-lost. A newly merged corporation needs a rewards system that's consistent across the organization. If you can work out the right relationship between rewarding individual performance and company performance, both will improve.

• Relationships matter: A large part of my job is to hire the best people and inspire them to do their best work, enabling them to realize their professional dreams right inside our firm. I could spend all my time on this side. Still, as much as I love that part of my job, it isn't practical and would be an abdication of my other responsibilities as a leader. Instead I have endeavored to restructure the leadership team to make certain that other people in the organization are responsible for, and equally passionate about, coaching and developing the rest of the people in the company.

The approach I advocate is a little like taking the captain of the football team, the president of the student council, and the head of the chess club and asking them to work together. You are seeking to create harmony among entities that don't naturally fit together—a formidable challenge but one that's necessary to achieve.

Today every company is a technology company. Succeeding in the connected world requires an integrated view that engages all your gears, focusing your team on the concept of shared goals, vision, and mission.

Retrieved from: Businessweek. http://www.businessweek.com/managing/content/may2011/ca20110516_966904.htm

Ten Must-Do Job-Search Tips for Spring 2011 Grads

Otro semestre que termina y la misma pregunta surge en los nuevos licenciados e ingenieros, ¿en qué voy a trabajar? ¿qué voy a hacer de mi vida? ¿como empiezo a buscar trabajo? Aquí les presento un artículo muy interesante para mis alumnos y ex-alumnos que están empezando la búsqueda de trabajo y buscan una guía para hacerlo no solo bien, sino MUY BIEN.

RT

BUSINESS WEEK

Super-specific advice on how to research, network, and rehearse your way to the head of the job-hunting pack.

By: Liz Ryan

This is not the easiest time to be graduating from school: The job market, while showing signs of life, remains tepid compared to prerecession activity levels. New grads need to focus intently on clarifying their job search direction, getting branded, and winning a hiring manager's attention. We've put together our Top 10 to-do-now job-search tips for people who are completing an academic program this spring and hoping to convert their sheepskins into paying gigs. Don't wait. Start ticking our Top 10 tips off your to-do list now.

1. Choose a Direction, or Two, or Three The biggest job-search mistake new grads make is to hit the market without a clear direction. Let's say your new degree is in marketing. Do you want to do marketing for a consumer products firm or an accounting firm? I know, I know—you'll take any job you can get. Still, employers need to see direction and focus. Choose two or three job-search "prongs" that meet our three-way job-search direction test. (Would you enjoy the work? Does the career direction make use of your talents? Are there jobs available?) Then focus your search on those few areas, avoiding the "spray and pray" approach that frustrates so many hopeful new grads.

2. Customize Your Resumés It's fine to construct more than one resumé, which you'll need to do if you settle on more than one job-search prong. If you choose three areas of focus (consumer products marketing, professional services marketing, and health-care marketing, for example) you'll need a dedicated version of your resumé for each prong. Each resumé will brand you as a great hire in a particular focus area, in three ways. First, the resumé summary at the top of the document will tell the reader why you're interested in the field and why you're a great choice for it. Second, the stories you choose to highlight in your resumé bullets will relate specifically to the prong you've selected for that resumé. Finally, your descriptions of each role (what we call "framing the role") will emphasize the aspects of each job you've held, even part-time ones, that are most relevant to the prong in question.

3. Use Our Examples Marissa is a new grad who is following three avenues in her job search (consumer products marketing, professional-services marketing, and health-care marketing). Here are Marissa's three resumé summaries, each focused on a specific job-search prong:

Consumer Products Marketing: "I started paying attention to smart marketing around the time I began browbeating my mom for an American Girl (MAT) doll. Now that I'm out of school, I'm eager to learn consumer products marketing from the ground up. Fresh off an internship at an organic chocolates company and with a huge appetite for on-the-fly learning, I'm excited to join a product marketing team and help expand audience, buzz, and revenues."

Professional Services Marketing: "The last project in my marketing program at the University of North Carolina was a group consulting project for a local accounting firm, where we overhauled the firm's marketing plan to shift into a new, lucrative practice area. I'm chomping at the bit to help a service business rev up its revenues as an in-house marketing pro. I'm comfortable with everything the social media world has come up with so far, and enough of a left-brain/right-brain mix to enjoy and thrive on the quantitative and analytical parts of marketing, as well as the creative bits."

Health-Care Marketing: "What's fascinating for me about health-care marketing is the combination of quantitative analysis and simple, old-fashioned listening it entails. I'm a new grad from the University of North Carolina with a passion for accessible health care and for better communication about how patients can use the resources around them. I'm excited to join a health-care marketing team and learn its craft while helping patients learn about wellness and nutrition for themselves and their families."

4. Use a Human Voice Corporate-speak boilerplate is out. A conversational tone in a resumé (and a cover letter and LinkedIn profile) is essential to grab a hiring manager's attention. The old "results-oriented professional with a bottom-line orientation"-type branding won't make a hiring manager's heart beat faster. It's okay to use "I" in a resumé—after all, the document is about you—and to use normal, conversational English instead of stuffy corporate language. A conversational resumé, LinkedIn profile, and cover letters will put you out in front of the hordes of job-seekers hitting the market this spring.

5. Get LinkedIn If you're not already on the mega-popular social networking site LinkedIn, what are you waiting for? Granted, it's not as colorful and gossipy as Facebook, but it's far more effective for businesspeople and job-seekers of all stripes. A basic account is free and a great, professional photo (head and shoulders—no bikinis, bongs, or beer steins please) is a must for your LinkedIn profile. Get connected to your schoolmates, your parents' friends and the friends of your parents, along with high school buddies and anyone else you know who's already using LinkedIn or could be induced to join. You'll use the site (with some 100 million members in the business-focused social networking space) for research, to reach out to hiring managers and others, and to increase your knowledge of industries through LinkedIn's Groups and Answers functions.

6. Assemble Your Network As a new grad, consider everyone you've met in your life a possible conduit to your next job. Make a list of 100 people (you read that right—it may take an hour, but it's worth it) who should know about your job search, including the lady you used to babysit for and the folks whose lawns you mowed back in high school. Don't leave anyone out: Scoutmasters and high school musical directors, every boss you've ever had, and former co-workers all count as networking contacts with value. If they're not on LinkedIn and you don't have their e-mail addresses, find them on www.whitepages.com and send a snail mail letter. People who knew you as a toddler are undoubtedly game to help you launch your career. Don't be shy. There is no statute of limitations on human relationships.

7. Research Employers Which employers are hiring in your area or the city you plan to move to? Use ~~, a massive jobs aggregator, to find out. Plug in keywords (the site has only two fields, one labeled "What" and the other "Where") to spot job opportunities in the geographical areas you're focusing on. If you find interesting employers that don't now have perfect-fit jobs available for you, go back to LinkedIn and sign up to follow these employers so you'll get a heads-up when they have news or leadership appointments. Indeed.com also lets you create alerts that will ping you when new jobs crop up. Jump on those. If you can compile a list of 20 or 30 likely employers to follow, you'll be way ahead of the new-grad job-search pack.

8. Know Your Market Value What are new graduates getting paid in the geographic areas you're targeting, as wall as in your functional area? You've got to have this information before you hit the talent marketplace. Use Payscale.com and Glassdoor.com to learn who's getting paid what and where. You may have a range of salary targets if your job-direction prongs vary—for instance, social work jobs pay less than finance jobs)—but in every case, you've got to know the prevailing salary levels before you get hit with the question: "What do you expect to earn?"

9. Practice-Interview, a Lot On-campus career placement offices love to mock-interview students and new grads. If the service is available at your school, go for it. There's nothing like interview practice to iron out rough spots in your stories and help you overcome perfectly normal job-search jitters. Get used to answering such standard interview questions as "why are you interested in our company?" and "what are your goals for your career?" When your parents and friends make introductions to working people who are willing to have coffee with you, grab those opportunities, too. The more mentoring, advice, and mock-interviewing time you can snag, the better.

10. Get Your Spiel Down Imagine that you're a middle manager who needs help in your department this summer. You meet a couple of new grads at a neighborhood event. You ask each one: "What are your plans, now that you're out of school?" One new grad says, "get a job, I guess." The other one says, "I plan to go to law school down the road, but right now I need some practical experience to understand how the business world works. I'm especially interested in how companies negotiate contracts." Which new grad is going to get a second look? The one who has a sense of direction, no doubt. Whether or not your department's extra-help need involves contracts, you're likely to bring the second new grad in for an interview. So get your spiel down, now—the answer to the question, "so what's next for you?" Your clarity and conviction are more impressive to a hiring manager than specific experience in his or her functional area. After all, you're a new grad. No one expects you to have years of experience.

Liz Ryan is an expert on the new-millennium workplace and a former Fortune 500 HR executive.

Bibliography:
Ryan, Liz. May 9, 2011. Ten Must-Do Job-Search Tips for Spring 2011 Grads. Business Week. Retrieved on May 2011 from: http://www.businessweek.com/managing/content/may2011/ca2011054_662887_page_2.htm