What is brand & product relevance?

Learned from book 'Brand Portfolio Strategy' by David A. Aaker page 103, relevance for a brand has two conditions. (not in exact words though..)

1. Perceived need or desire by customer for product category or subcategory defined by combination of attributes, application, user group, distinguishing characteristic
2. The brand is among the set considered by customer to be relevant for the product category or subcategory

Value vs Relationship

Peter F. Drucker "The Five Most Important Questions" book page 33 states that "Recognise that today's customers are increasingly buying on value, not on relationship. Your success ultimately depends on what you have contributed to the success of your customers."

This is all so true! We must recognise the shift in customer's behavior, needs, wants and aspiration.

Magic Cube

I actually wish for the Magic Cube for my birthday present. Think Shini searching high and low for it now.. ;-)

Come to think of it, i was never interested in it since my childhood days.. thought it was boring till now.. Now i think it's interesting - keeps my mind working.. training my brain to be more alert and analytical.. Well,.. that's what i think today.. until i get my hands on it again..

Relaxing at Bottle Tree @Yishun

Investment approaches

Method 1:
Lump-sum investing.

• How - Buy when stock at its lowest; Sell when its highest
  
• Pro - higher returns
• Con - higher risk; timing the market

Method 2:
Dollar-cost averaging.

• How - Invest same amount of money on a regular basis
• Pro - spread risk
  
• Con - averaging returns

Method 3:
Value-averaging.

• How - Investing more when market is low and less when market is high; on the basis of a fixed amount of value portfolio u wish to attain. For example, u wish to maintain a value of $1000 each month. Some months market is low, say your portfolio value down by $250, u will invest $1,250 to purchase more stock to maintain $1,000. While some months market is high, say your portfolio value is up $400, u will only need to invest $600 more for that month.
• Pro - more market sensitive and sensible in investment approach
• Con - cant think of any now.. perhaps doesn't provide the highest returns
  

Summary: For good net results, i believe value-averaging make a lot of sense.

disclaimer: author isn't giving any professional advise. just storing info he gotten from some other smarter author.

Branding & Marketing, Advertising

Studies show companies that market their products or services without first establishing their brand identities are not likely to achieve return on investment. "If you're spending money to advertise and market without being connected to a brand position, you might as well pile the money up and burn it," Guge says.

Rob Frankel, a branding expert and author in Los Angeles, calls branding the most misunderstood concept in all of marketing, even among professionals. Branding, he says, "is not advertising and it's not marketing or PR. Branding happens before all of those: First you create the brand, then you raise awareness of it."

extracted from businessweek.

Rich & Poor Attitude

There's a big difference 

between a poor person's attitude - 

wishing you had it -

and wealthy person's approach -

believing you'll get it.

from Andrew Matthews

Marketing concepts

4 Ps / 4 Cs - Tactical

1. Product. Customer value

2. Price. Customer cost

3. Place. Customer convenience

4. Promotion. Communication

STP - Strategic

1. Segmentation

2. Targeting

3. Positioning

note: Above marketing concepts from Philip Kotler.

How small companies can build big brands

The birth of mulist.com

This is the fruit of a few folks who are passionate about creating something from nothing.. It's a dream i cooked up inspired by my beloved wife.. those times when i wish i could put together a list of movies we've watched.. and finally i have my own Internet list! ;-)

So far, we have watched 65 movies on last count.. will have a lot to key into my mulist..

Anyone interested please give it a try at www.mulist.com. We're working on a facebook version now.. ;P