The book "The New Gold Standard" by Joseph Michelli gives an inside look into how the Ritz-Carlton has built and maintains its global, top-drawer, brand status. While browsing through the pearls in the book a second time, I decided to go one step further by taking my own inside look – into The Ritz-Carlton, Kuala Lumpur.

Brand equity is one of the more popular concepts in marketing today. It is also one of the most overused and misused terms in marketing research, and the subject of much fuzzy thinking. In fact, there are several definitions of brand equity, all of which stem from the concept of 'brand'.

Customer equity represents the lifetime value of customers. It is an invaluable tool for determining the 20% of customers who generate 80% of profits, and for identifying the 15% of customers who, on average, are unprofitable.

This started out to be an East vs. West branding story. Could a dominant, high-powered US brand compete against a fast-growing, successful Chinese brand on its own turf?...

In the autumn of 2004, General Motors used a podcast to help introduce its 2005 vehicle line-up. Microsoft soon followed suit, and now dozens of companies are using podcasts as part of their branding mix...

"Positioning" is dead, and McDonald's has just put up the tombstone. But what is really interesting for branding is what is taking its place...

A few introductory points on branding principles and how they apply to Asia in particular.

Points to consider when running focus groups in this region. How Asian culture forces us to reconsider previous "rules" of running successful focus groups.