Change is inevitable, especially in the hospitality industry. With brands, ownership and management shifts taking place daily, especially with a lifting recession, the hotel landscape is sure to change. But what does this mean for the hospitality employees who are forced to participate in a "relaunch" without much notice or feedback? Well, it could mean a new energy or a revitalization of staff if the proper tools are put in place. By making current employees - from management to housekeeping - a part of the process, change can be more than inevitable. It can be welcomed. READ MORE

The word "branding" is dangerously overused. Many people use branding as a cure for all kinds of problems in all kinds of businesses. To lay claim to a deeper understanding of this elementary word, branding agencies all over the world have developed some cute variations of it, from "emotional branding" to "primal," "sensory," "musical," "internal," "external," "holistic," "vertical," "abstract," "nervous" and all the way to "invisible" branding. However, to see these distinctions, you will need special 3D spectacles. The list of branding types is almost like the three MIT wizards who took an academic conference for a ride by submitting a paper in all fake jargon: "Rooter: A Methodology for the Typical Unification of Access Points and Redundancy." Their paper was accepted. READ MORE

In this day and age of ensuring your identity is recognized by consumers, the question will inevitably be raised; do you or do you not need a brand? Are there values and a return on the investments or can you make it on your own? With the availability of information at everyone's fingertips and a plethora of choices available for consumers to buy a product, how can anyone ensure that the bases have all been covered? The larger question of critical importance today, however, is the relationship of brand value. In reality, consumers value branded companies. A walk through any major shopping area will prove this. Brands deliver major impact to a business as they will most often bring loyal customers with previous positive experiences. For independent hoteliers, this can make a huge difference to being successful or not when competing in a market place. READ MORE

Corporate identity and image design rules of the past are gone and so are the principles of old-fashioned mass marketing blitzes. What is now new is to aim for the targeted areas with powerful, unique global name identities and apply the latest of cyber-branding skills. The laws of e-commerce and Internet marketing are just the right steps in the right direction. Every hour there are new changes to our old ways of thinking about traditional marketing rules. While we are all very deep into e-commerce, we must be aware of whether we are either already very successful or still learning the processes. Here are some cutting-edge rules to ensure good returns on e-commerce and Internet marketing. READ MORE

In today's e-commerce age, where everyone is forced to type and to remember names with absolutely correct spellings, companies with big branding campaigns only hurt themselves with their old-fashioned, painted, colorful advice. They must all reconverge and regroup and realign their thinking to cope with today's name-driven economy. Contrary to branding beliefs, customers don't really care about, and are completely oblivious to, a corporation's image being tied to a very specific color. Meanwhile, trying to use a color for corporate identity can actually lead to trouble. For example, Orange Mobility, a British mobile phone company of France Telecom, is one of the largest telephone players in Europe. Just to make its point, as a gimmick, the company painted an entire town in England orange. Now, Orange Mobility, fully drenched in the color orange, is asking courts to disallow Easymobile, a new mobility service, the use of the color. READ MORE