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	<title>Barbara Stopher Blog</title>
	<link>http://blog.barbarastopher.co.uk</link>
	<description>Business Strategy Consultant</description>
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		<title>Celebrities and brands – a marriage made in heaven or a blind date disaster?</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Brand owners have long used celebrities in an ambassadorial role in an effort to associate their brand with the celebrity lifestyle and hope to reflect in their glory. Using a famous face can be a real shortcut to brand recognition and is therefore a tempting strategy. Whether it’s an A-list film star or a family [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://blog.barbarastopher.co.uk/celebrities-and-brands/</link>
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		<title>Brands put the boot in after England World Cup defeat</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Now that the much-hyped England World Cup football team have returned home after their trouncing by the Germans, brands have had to re-evaluate their planned ‘England win’ executional strategies and instead ‘put the boot on’ for the purpose of brand marketing. Jumping on the Frank Lampard goal that was not given in the England – [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://blog.barbarastopher.co.uk/world-cup/</link>
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		<title>Brands through recession</title>
		<description><![CDATA[A fascinating article in yesterday’s Guardian Money has shown how our spending habits have changed through the worldwide recession. Here are some of my favourite highlights: Women are eking out regular salon hair and beauty treatments by another couple of weeks – so good news for off-the-shelf brands – with premium health &#38; beauty brands [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://blog.barbarastopher.co.uk/brands-through-recession/</link>
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		<title>Brave new world of the freelancer</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Research for Britain’s Brain Gain by PCG (www.pcg.org.uk), the professional association supporting freelancers, contractors and consultants, shows that there are an estimated 1.4 million freelancers in the UK. Together they apparently contribute £82 billion to GDP (Gross Domestic Product) across all sectors of the economy including manufacturing, services, finance, healthcare and education. Drawing on these [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://blog.barbarastopher.co.uk/freelancer/</link>
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		<title>The future brand marketing dilemma</title>
		<description><![CDATA[We live in exciting times; this year’s election campaign showed just how marketing techniques have changed with the inaugural TV debates completely dominating the views of the electorate and causing huge changes in popularity for the party leaders that took everyone, including them, by surprise. Equally unexpected was that the impact of social media was [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://blog.barbarastopher.co.uk/brand-marketing/</link>
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		<title>Nick Clegg brand (up)rising</title>
		<description><![CDATA[The last week in UK politics has been totally fascinating – and how often have we ever been able to say that?! I’m looking at it (as objectively as possible) from a marketing standpoint. Before last Thursday we had a weakening market leader and a strong challenger brand that, between them, were confident of monopolising [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://blog.barbarastopher.co.uk/nick-clegg-brand/</link>
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		<title>Fashion brands – is your label showing?</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Following on from February’s Fashion Week, the experts believe 2010 will continue to be a challenging year for the UK fashion industry. With an inconclusive budget and the impending election, consumers are still reluctant to spend despite feeling a little more confident in making discretionary purchases. The crucial Easter trading weekend is in danger of [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://blog.barbarastopher.co.uk/fashion-brands/</link>
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		<title>How big an umbrella should brands have?</title>
		<description><![CDATA[There are many reasons why a brand that has a number of sub-brands or different brand variants needs to have an over-arching umbrella brand strategy. For one thing, it is unlikely to be economically viable to continue to individually support every part of the brand and a group strategy can achieve more competitive cut through [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://blog.barbarastopher.co.uk/umbrella-brand/</link>
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		<title>How social media can build brands</title>
		<description><![CDATA[On the basis that marketing should be all about providing an answer to a current or potential customer’s needs or wants then it seems only natural that social media can play a role in linking those customers to brand owners for a mutually beneficial dialogue. One of the latest uses of social media by forward-thinking [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://blog.barbarastopher.co.uk/how-social-media-can-build-brands/</link>
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		<title>Branding &#8211; what&#8217;s in a name?</title>
		<description><![CDATA[According to Shakespeare: &#8220;What&#8217;s in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.&#8221; Well, yes it would but how would you market it to gardeners and lovers? A name is an identifier, a shorthand designation that sets one person, product or service apart from another. And, as [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://blog.barbarastopher.co.uk/branding/</link>
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