Founders as the Logo of their own Brands? | Mark Ritson

Branding guru Mark Ritson says that founders are fundamental to a brand’s fortune because they have the brand in their bones.

• 'When a founder runs their own brand it can confer astonishing strategic advantages.' 

• 'Time and again, they instinctively and instantly make the right decision.'

• 'The most powerful form of marketing communication occurs when a founder talks about their business. Suddenly consumers listen. Even more amazing, they believe.'

• 'Such is their power, that when the founder finally departs, dies or retires many brands struggle to retain their trajectory. A fact reflected in the 6% drop in Apple’s share price since the news of Steve Jobs’ departure was announced.' 

Steve Jobs

• 'There are many cases where a founder returns to their failing brand and resurrects it. Steve Jobs did it against all the odds in 1997 and Gabrielle “Coco” Chanel did it in 1963 and at the age of 70.' 

Coco Chanel

On a not so side note, here is a break down of Apple’s iPhone profit margin, compiled by Mark Ritson and an example of top brands using extreme methods to make profits.

In what ways do you think this will change now that Steve Jobs is gone?

Google also announced a pretty huge management changeover, in this case from non-founder Eric Schmidt to co-founder Larry Page. Read more about this in Ritson’s article here. 

Eric Schmidt

Larry Page

Ritson’s Brand Management program as part of the MBS Executive Series is filling up. Don’t miss out on the chance to learn from one of the top associate professors in marketing, an award winning columnist, and a consultant to some of the world’s biggest brands. 

Mark Ritson

For more on his program, click here or contact Marianne Carollo at the Melbourne Business School +61 3 9349 8292 or m.carollo@mbs.edu 

Strategic Partnerships that work: Hewlett Packard & Mac, Dell & Microsoft - Can you suggest one? | Debi Mishra

In recent years, firms have moved away from the traditional mode of 'arms-length' transactions toward inter-firm ties based on long term partnerships. It has been argued that this change in emphasis has bestowed firms with competitive advantage in the marketplace. Stated differently, today firms create more value ‘outside’ their boundaries by initiating, developing, and enhancing inter-firm partnerships. Case in point—Dell.

Read about Dell's partnership with Microsoft.

What is special about Dell? To answer this question, consider the power of ‘partnerships’ and why a company like COMPAQ had to eventually merge with HP. Compaq could never convince ‘retailers’ that selling over the Internet was viable because these retailers were worried about a loss in their market share. Hence Compaq was mired in the morass of ‘sticky’ unproductive relationships that proved disastrous. 

Another example is the HP and Mac alliance.

While there is general recognition about the power of strategic partnerships, relatively little guidance is available to mangers on the appropriate mechanisms that can be used to set-up, nurture, and grow these partnerships. Over the past two decades, Dr. Mishra has worked with numerous Fortune 500 companies around the world and developed actionable models that provide guidance to managers on how to best manage such relationships.

All this and more will be covered in Dr. Mishra's Executive Series program, Managing Strategic Partnerships, starting 2nd March.

Debi Mishra

What does Carbon Tax, Game Theory, Broadband Policy and the Australian Dollar have in common? | Sven Felmann

With the application of microeconomics and game theory, Sven Feldmann is able to develop managerial and political decision-making strategies. He is thus an academic of all trades. 

Through his methods, Sven advises on an eclectic range of challenges facing our time, from how carbon tax should be priced to how game theory can be used to match children and kindergartens.

Sven is also running a very popular 2 day program in the upcoming Executive Series, called Pricing in a competitive environment, which starts on 2nd March.

For more on his views about Carbon Tax pricing, see the transcript from his appearance on ABC's Lateline. The interview podcast can also be downloaded from this link.

Kwang Lim also provides a piece on Sven's use of Game Theory in linking children to kindergartens, including some helpful references explaining the more complex details. See the full article on ThinkTank.

Sven's summation of the polictical responses to Broadband policy and his theories about the Australia Dollar can also be found on MBS in the Media.

For more information on Sven Feldmann or his Executive Series program, please contact the Melbourne Business School at executiveseries@mbs.edu

Sven Feldmann

Is the Australian population disappearing? | Chris Lloyd

According to Kerry-Ann Walsh the future of the Australian population is in dire straights unless a healthy immigration level is introduced by the Government.

Using a few data projection techniques, Chris Lloyd illustrates something quite different.

The current TFR [total fertility rate] in Australia, as in the average number of children a woman will have, is 1.97. According to Chris’ data, which assumes zero net immigration, a population of 22.1 million in 2010 will increase to 24.6 million by 2050. Hardly disappearing. 

Even in the worst case scenario, if the TFR drops to 1.80, the baby bonus is abolished and net overseas migration rates are reduced from 200,000 to 100,000 per year, the extreme of what is politically possible, the total population is still projected to increase to 28.7 million by 2050 and continue to grow.

For the finer details of Chris’ data projections, visit CoRE Economics. 

Chris Lloyd

Chris Lloyd’s expertise is in the fields of statistics, data analysis and market research within both academic and business environments. For more on his Executive Series session starting on 28 February, click here.

“It’s not you it’s me.” Ever wondered how to better manage your sponsorship relationship? | Richard Speed

A message from Richard Speed, 

"When the football clubs of Australia announce their new sponsorships for the year, the sponsoring firms explain how proud they are of the association and how central the relationship is to their marketing strategy. I am happy to guarantee, here and now, that by the end of the season, bad behaviour by players, officials or a club as whole will lead to some of those sponsors cutting their ties as fast as possible, leaving their marketing strategy in tatters.

Sponsorships are one of the situations in marketing when you rest the success of your strategy on something outside the firm and outside your direct control. If you manage these relationships like your traditional resources, your risk of failure goes through the roof.


Have you had any experiences like this? Please share them below.

And to learn how to better manage these risks, join me for Hired, borrowed or stolen; Making your marketing strategy work with someone else’s resources, starting March 2nd."

Richard Speed

Richard’s research focuses on creating effective marketing strategy and valuable brands, such as sponsorship and its use in marketing strategy.

Can you guess the 4 ideal types of change? | Paul Kirkbride

When you think of change within your organisation these are the typical elements of change you might consider: 

1. Structural 
2. Organisational 
3. Technical 
4. People 
5. Financial 

Paul Kirkbride presents us with a new model for change based on two major dimensions: 

The What of change, in terms of targets and goals and The How of change, considering its tools and methods.

Listen to Paul’s podcast to discover his alternative model for assessing and implementing change.

Before you listen, can you guess what the 4 ideal types of change could be?

Copy and paste the below into comments, adding your response. 

Paul Kirkbride's 4 ideal types of change. 

1. 
   
2. 
   
3.  
4.  

Paul Kirkbride

LISTEN TO THE PODCAST HERE.

Click this link for more info on Paul’s Executive Series session, Making Change Happen, starting February 28th, 2011.

QUESTION: How do I get my top management to pay attention to Marketing? | Don O’Sullivan

ANSWER: Reposition it from an Activity to an Investment 


........Obviously but......



How can I make this happen?

What are the approaches leading marketers take to ensuring that marketing becomes mission critical and not as a discretionary activity?

What role does marketing play within these firms and what practices and approaches can we adopt from them?

How can I sell marketing internally an what is the best way to make a case to the board for marketing expenditures?

We already have an array of marketing metrics... Can we get beyond metrics?

The best performing firms show that the solution is both simple and complex: 

1. Position marketing as the engine room of growth within the organisation
2. Charge marketing with the task of building and leveraging the firms market based assets
3. Create a business enabling mindset within the marketing function as a basis for engaging with other functions
4. Develop, deploy and manage credible, reliable, predictive measures of marketing's contribution
5. Leverage marketing's 'wins' to raise the function's sphere of influence and contribution to the firm

Don O'Sullivan

In this two day program, Marketing and Firm Value, we will work with the frameworks and practices adopted by the leading marketers. We will learn from the experience emerging from best and worst practice and provide a basis for ensuring that marketing optimises its contribution to the performance of the firm and is recognised as a key business driver.