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Relatively few Chinese firms have tried to develop their own brands.  Enter China’s Changzhou Asian Endergonic Electronic Technology and the Züuma brand developed by its U.S. partners.  The company makes a dashboard mount for a GPS device.  This article, “Chinese Firm Meets Global Branding” (Wall Street Journal, July 25, 2010, non-subscribers click here)  offers a nice mini-case to discuss in class.  If students read the article — or you describe it in class — you could then ask them why Jack Yang (the protagonist) would want to brand his product?  Why is he using U.S. partners?  Do you think he will be successful?  Why or why not?  You could even ask your students how they would brand the mount?

In this post at her Ries’ Pieces blog (March 8, 2010), Laura Ries includes a link to an interview on Fox Business news.  Ries makes some excellent marketing points (see “Experience the Focus“). The interview may be a bit long for class – I find students get bored quickly with talking heads.  Plus, I find the video player Fox uses a hassle to work with — I hope you have better luck).  It might make a nice post to an online course to give it some life.  We use the soap market as an example of positioning in chapter 4 of our books.  This might also be a nice example to use with brand management and of course it makes a strong case for the importance of the unique selling proposition.

As some of you may know, I have done a  fair amount of academic research on trust.  I believe that trust is a very important factor in marketing.  This article cites a recent study on trusted brands, “Study: Amazon.com is most trusted brand in U.S.” (CNET News, February 22, 2010).

Brand Keys has released its “2010 Customer Loyalty Engagement Index.”   It is interesting to see the winners and losers in 2010 given last year’s economy.  Hyundai, whom we have talked about before, leaped to the top of the automobile ranking (from the bottom third in 2009).  We talk about customer equity and lifetime value of customers in chapter 2 in our books.

The annual Brand Keys Customer Loyalty Engagement Winners are those brands best able to engage consumers and create loyal customers. Initiated in 1997, the Brand Keys Customer Loyalty Engagement Index is fielded annually in the spring and fall. The current Index examines customers’ relationships with 518 brands in 71 categories.

You can read what Brandweek has to say at “Report:  Starbucks, Wells Fargo Surge in Customer Loyalty,” (January 30, 2010).