There are thousands of very, very small companies out there who will develop a logo at no cost, a tagline at no cost, get you a free domain name and a free website at no cost. I guess the next big thing will be that they also write you a fat check...all for free. Who are these enterprises and how are they doing this? The Internet has removed the cumbersome overhead costs and linked very talented people to handle the real issues in real time without the fancy decorum and the super fulvous big time fanfare. Enter the street fighter, a savvy marketer with some teeth and a friendly smile. The freelance nations have far too many operators on the marketing and branding circuit that all are chipping away the armor of the giant branding companies who until now sold more on their posh addresses and furniture than raw talent. Million dollar logos with a matching spin to thousand of others, million dollar-slogans, confusing sentences as branding miracles. Suddenly, such services are now available for free as an incentive to get a new client for print and related packaging services. READ MORE

For any Hospitality corporation with plans to hit the markets with an IPO in 2005 or beyond, here are some key points. Just like how your latest technology and your other corporate assets are essential to develop great financials for a potential IPO, your corporate image and brand name recognition are equally important to get the word out in the marketplace. Both are critical for real success. Google's recent success with their IPO and the way their unique name played out is a clear case of a smart victory. Uniqueness and distinction makes a clear path of communication starting from your HQ all the way to the shareholders via the stock markets. A corporate brand with millions of dollars in advertising and promotional support is just a useless brand unless it has a unique position, and a clear name identity, strong enough to place the corporation aside from all the other copycats and look-alike, similarly named companies. READ MORE

Is this the dawning of the age of branding or just another black hole? Learn and teach new standards, lead and spread the new knowledge in your organization, break the old methods. The sooner you come out of the bondage of the old fashioned marketing and branding campaigns, the sooner you will see a new dawn. There is certainly light on the other side of this black hole. There are brand new rules of global marketing. A proper discovery process on how to approach visibility while building clean international name identities for this global name-economy is a must. Globalization will make the localization process manageable. Look out for feelings of certain numbness while sitting in a quiet time zone in a corporation. READ MORE

No matter how and where you travel, with or without your products or your corporate image, the chances are that a lot of your marketing messages are getting lost in translation as they make their way around the globe. Business names are being hit the hardest as the world becomes smaller and companies go global. Each one of us is now spinning in a mix of international alphabet soup of strange names and terminologies. You invent something new, send out a release, the media talks about it and, within seconds, it becomes an international item.Your business name image might end up as a great universal message or emulate some strange and confusing messages with insults or profanity. But why? READ MORE

Successful fractional ownership projects today are often characterized by authenticity, enrichment, and sustainability more so than just "luxury" - which is clearly an overused term. With price points ranging from $100K to one million dollars, they will most likely be purchased by more of the "super affluent." But it is more than just income and assets. It's also about inner life and their propensity to indulge in a preferred lifestyle that their wealth allows. READ MORE