Category: News

New York, NY (January 30, 2015) – Original article at: Business Observer

Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is often confused with other terms such as sustainability, good corporate citizenship, ethical business practices, environmental responsibility, philanthropy, charitable giving, etc. Although each of these is a form of CSR, they are collectively a set of tools available to convey a leadership mindset focused on managing a corporation as part of a larger social fabric.

Even the term itself, “Corporate Social Responsibility” sounds like a nuisance that those who are too busy with running a small business may prefer to avoid if possible. But when CSR is woven into your corporate DNA, you will find it one of the best ways to build your corporate brand and customer loyalty.

In an excellent article entitled, “The path to best in class CSR: Deloitte” published in the Jan. 10 issue of Business & Leadership, Deloitte managing partner Brendan Jennings captures the essence of the issue. “What I don’t want is for our staff to hear CSR and just think of volunteering or something relating to the environment. Those things are all very important, and our people want to do them, but CSR is a much broader concept than that.”

For Jennings, Deloitte’s CSR positioning is a key component of its business strategy. “Organizations that are clear in their purpose achieve more. Our purpose is to be a quality provider of services … one that does its best for its clients, its people and the wider community, and one that can stand over everything it does.”

Jennings goes on to say, “In relation to the clients we serve, it means doing our very best, for a fair fee. When it comes to our people, who are our greatest and, indeed, only asset, if they believe in doing things the right way, good corporate governance is easier to ensure.”

To identify the kind of CSR projects that bring measurable ROI to your company, you need to give it the same kind of thought that goes into building a marketing plan or a media strategy. You need to be certain that it fits within your larger business strategy. Think about the essence of your company. What does it stand for? What do you believe in? Do some CSR programs resonate better than others? Is there one that clearly fits your business model? If you are lucky enough to find the perfect CSR fit, then you need to develop a plan to create differentiated positioning — after all the key to branding your company is differentiation.

Consistency, commitment, and communications are also important to getting the most value back for the effort you make in CSR. I worked with The Reader’s Digest Association prior to its initial public offering and reviewed its many and generous CSR activities. One example is, the company provided funding for the massive beautiful vase of flowers at the entrance of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York — but it never attached its name to the action. I pointed out that while an anonymous gift is admirable, it is also somewhat selfish. Even a small unobtrusive plaque in my opinion is generating goodwill among key audiences such as employees who would also like to share in the good feeling achieved by your company’s CSR program.

CSR benefits to remember:

Employees care about your CSR programs and want to be involved;

Include CSR activities as part of your recruitment package to help to attract the most desirable candidates;

Consumers are increasingly aware of sustainable business practices;

Consistent CSR practices lead to customer loyalty;

If possible, you should own (brand) your signature CSR activity;

Know your suppliers and their CSR policies to avoid issues that could reflect poorly on your company;

Monitor social media to understand how your company’s CSR policies are seen by others; and

Train your management and employees how to speak about your CSR programs to maximize the goodwill created by these activities.

Deloitte’s strategy was summed up: “When your people know why they are doing what they do, that helps protect not just the organization but the brand and the client, too. That is what makes CSR so hugely powerful, and about far more than fundraising or volunteering.”’

Corporate Social Responsibility is a key component of the best long-term business strategies for companies of any size. Corporations must be ever mindful of the impact they have on the world in which we live. Understanding the immediacy of communications today and the impact that they can have on your corporate brand means that CSR needs to be a fundamental part of your communications platform and your corporate DNA.

New York, NY (January 29, 2015) – Original article at: The Price of Business

After interviewing James Gregory in December 2014, I was able to follow up with him to better understand the Value of Marketing in Brands.

John Wanamaker said, “I get half of my business is from my advertising but, just haven’t figured out which half.” Mr. Wanamaker discovered this dilemma when he opened his first store in 1861 in Philadelphia. Considered an early marketing genius, Mr. Wanamaker used advertising to drive traffic to his stores. The statement that he made regarding his dilemma has negatively impacted the world of advertising and marketing over the years. Wanamaker’s statement leaves the impression that half of the money that is spent on advertising goes to waste; this is not an accurate observation.

Advertising builds awareness and if it is not creating the effects that you want to see immediately, it is still creating an impression about the business that you are advertising. Studies have shown that over 80 percent of advertising yields measurable results.

As part of the Marketing Accountability Standards Board (MASB), James Gregory is bringing together top academic professionals and senior business leaders from around the world to discuss the significance of value for brands and how it is reported in company financials. While owning a consulting firm for numerous years, he decided to get involved with MASB after witnessing first hand the destructive effects of insufficient advertising budgets in cases where the value of the brand was not fully understood by senior level management. As the residing co-chair of MASB’s Improving Financial Reporting (IFR) committee, he stands by what MASB can do for our industry. James was the first in his industry to open up our company’s brand valuation model known as the “black box” to be the subject of MASB’s audit, something he is very proud of.

MASB‘s mission is to “establish marketing measurement and accountability standards across industry domain for continuous improvement of financial performance, to encourage the guidance and education of decision makers as well as users of performance and financial information”. Two game changing innovations are The Brand Investment & Valuation (BIV) project and the Improving Financial Reporting (project). MASB, a dynamic organization currently has 7 additional projects underway.

We need an organization like MASB because it is a purpose-driven non-profit that focuses on understanding and proving how brands create value. Once value has been proven, MASB changes the way it is accounted for within the corporation. Both fiance and marketing are brought to the same table to discuss the issue of how intangible assets can be measured and valued over time. Of course, that which can be measured and valued can surely be managed. This may seem like common sense but, there has been a tremendous gap between marketing and finance for well over 100 years. MASB is bringing the two sides together for an invaluable experience that will benefit every corporation.

MASB originated from the need of both marketing and finance to work together in order to create a solution for budgeting constraints and marketing dilemmas. Many times, marketing and advertising budgets are drawn from educated guesses of what it would take to do a job versus being treated like additional business assets. Understanding a precise and consistent method of valuing the potential ROI for marketing programs is a critical goal of the effort.

In figuring out the strengths of a corporate brand, it is necessary to understand that corporate brands represent one aspect of creating brand value. James Gregory’s company was challenged by GE in the early 1990s to develop a model for evaluating how advertising impacted the company’s image while also identifying the value created. As one of the oldest, continuous, quantitative benchmark research projects, the study known as the CoreBrand Index^® is used in over 1,000 companies across 50 different industries.

In activities such as advertising, marketing, public relations, and investor relations, an organization can track how their branding strategies affect the corporate brand in several ways. When there is a continuous quantitative, benchmark tracking system in place, communication activities have a cumulative effect that can be identified. Massive data on many companies allows them to run regression models on what actually drives value. At Tenet Partners, Gregory is always tracking the image of 1,000 companies and communicating results on a quarterly basis.

After over 25 years of research, he has determined that everything a company says and does will have an impact on the image of a company and how it is perceived. These actions are measurable and will impact both the revenue and stock of the company. It may sound cliché but people like to do business and own stock with companies that they know and trust.

Because a brand is an intangible, it is not usually on the balance sheet and by the Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP), it cannot be placed on a balance sheet unless it has been bought or sold. Because of this, intangible assets grown internally are often represented as having no value. In 1975, intangible assets represented 20 percent of total enterprise value. Today, the numbers are different; tangible assets are well over 80 percent of the value of the company. This dynamic presents a problem for marketers who are seeking to grow their assets. In one scenario, marketers are working to grow the value of the brand however, the CFO does not see value being created because the brand is not on the balance sheet. This creates a unique challenge for marketers and it is obstacle to corporate growth.

If brands are on the balance sheet, there would be a consistent measure for each and every constituency to evaluate where marketing dollars have been invested and if they have been invested wisely. Mr. Wanamaker would be able to approach this impact from both sides of the investment…revenue and enterprise value. For marketers, the argument changes from “if we should advertise” to “here is the potential ROI of our campaign budget”.

Based on James’ research, approximately 70 percent of marketing budgets are below optimal levels and 20 percent are over optimal levels; this prevents marketing activities from being funded properly. There are actually only about 10 percent of marketers that get a maximum ROI. Marketers must benchmark track their brands in order to have a greater understanding of the value being created. They must also develop ROI models that project the kind of value available through marketing. Through companies like his, these models do exist as well as through competitors or by creating their own model.

The gap between marketing efforts and financial outcomes goes back to Mr. Wanamaker’s initial dilemma. If your thought process is that you are going to waste half of your budget then, you are going to reduce your overall budget; this is a losing proposition to confront year after year. The “GAAP” became institutionalized, setting the standard for organizations and accounting firms, giving them no incentive to fix what is clearly broken. MASB is the one organization that challenged this issue head-on and continues to work on fixing it in a methodical and intelligent manner

We can sometimes lose sight of all of the progress that we have made in fostering the dialogue between fiance and those setting the standards of accountability in marketing. With regards to measuring and planning, we have come a long way but, until the standards are indeed changed, we should continue to pursue and persuade whenever possible and the best way that we can. At MASB they appreciate additional input shared by business leaders who are as intrigued as James was by this crucial subject.

The key to unlocking the value of marketing is to understand that it adds value to both brands and corporations. Although it is a tough argument, it is a worthy cause and for this reason James Gregory joined MASB.

New York, NY (January 09, 2015) – Original article at: Business 2 Community

The new high ground for the CMO

Tenet Partners research shows that brands with high familiarity and favorability, combined with a rich customer experience, can have a brand value more than 40% higher than their competitors. Consumers are more likely to trust, respect and recommend these brands, creating a virtuous cycle for customers and shareholders. Customer experience, then, is an increasingly important point of differentiation. Yet, many companies still fail to deliver the experiences their customers expect. Why?

In the 2014 Tenet Partners consumer experience study, 56% of customers cited a poor service experience as the reason that they left a brand. What would you do if half the customers abandoning your brand did so because someone on the front lines delivered a bad experience? I imagine that most CMOs would say that they would do whatever it takes to treat their customers better.

The problem is that the CMO has not traditionally been responsible for designing, delivering and managing the customer experience. This is changing rapidly thanks to digital platforms that are remaking marketing, communications and the delivery of customer experiences. CMOs at leading brands and forward-thinking companies are being asked to step into new operational areas to help craft and deliver the customer experience. In large part, the digital transformation of business models – and the resulting integration of brands into digital and physical touch points – is enabling and accelerating this shift in role.

Yet, few executives stepping up to this new business challenge are truly prepared to tackle this domain because marketing has been isolated from operations. Traditional marketing has focused expressly on advertising and communications rather than the overall experience. Fortunately, driving customer experience in a digitally charged world leverages capabilities marketers already possess – specifically, the ability to gather market insights and develop brands that reposition companies toward market opportunity. But today, more skills are needed to successfully address the bigger picture.

Marketers need to become engaged in – and adept at – developing business strategy, driving innovation and implementing systems that shape the actions of entire organizations. These three dimensions, combined with a strong understanding of the brand, are the tools for driving growth. By engaging with their peers in the design of the business and digital platforms, CMOs help align the business model, culture and operations to the brand. Companies that do this well have a unique opportunity to deliver compelling customer experiences and create enormous competitive advantage.

American Express is one of the strongest brands, according to the 30 years of historical data contained within the Tenet BrandPower Database; it also scored well in our customer experience study. The story, especially versus Capital One, is very compelling. The research results show higher levels of trust among Amex users, which is an essential element for brand loyalty. At a tactical level, the research also suggests that Amex, to a greater degree than Capital One (and most other brands in the study regardless of industry, for that matter) provides the knowledgeable help its customers expect. In addition, Amex engages with customers in a way that respects their unique needs. This includes orchestrating touch points across all channels, including digital. All of these activities are essential to providing a satisfactory experience.

A closer look reveals the impact of other innovations that Amex is driving across its platform. From everyday membership benefits to shaping mobile payment systems and driving fresh innovations to new markets, the company is steadily creating deeper levels of customer engagement. This in turn raises barriers to competing firms.

Bottom line: American Express focuses on the value that it delivers through a highly tailored customer experience that is tightly aligned to its brand attributes. When compared to Capital One, which focuses its primary investment on growing its credit card share through advertising, American Express is winning the battle for the best, most loyal customers.

The lesson is clear. The tried and true pillars of service, value and quality that are aligned to your brand and business model are still the most important. When CMOs concern themselves with value creation by delivering and managing a rich customer experience, they are not only driving marketing, they are driving competitive advantage and enterprise value.

New York, NY (November 28, 2014) – Original article at: Business Observer

We like to think that great CEOs have steel in their veins, but there are many other qualities associated with great leaders, such as the ability to delegate and inspire confidence. Other essential qualities include trustworthiness, visionary leadership, financial acuity and the ability to communicate clearly. Of all these qualities, the most important is the ability to communicate. That, more than any other, is a CEO tool by which all other qualities are distributed. The distribution system is called “corporate branding,” and a CEO who masters that is a true leader.

A great CEO has brand foresight. While many great ideas come from below, the most famous and admirable brand strategies start at the top. Leaders of enormous vision and enthusiasm who are willing to take calculated risks and allow their brands to stand for more than utility. A brand is more than a soft drink. A brand is more than a car. A brand is more than a jet engine. It’s what turns those products into a pause that refreshes, the ultimate driving machine, or imagination at work. These are not just empty slogans: They represent the core values that companies and their leaders were willing to stake out and claim.

Creating a brilliant corporate brand requires leaders with great will and courage. The CEO must have the foresight to actively communicate the brand’s strengths to every key audience, including customers, employees, investors, and the board of directors. Each audience represents one facet of the brand’s overall strength, and the CEO must ensure each is well managed and carefully articulated.

Resist the status quo
Without a strong sense of mission and the courage to carry it out, no CEO is equipped to handle the complexities of growth management. Leading a company to brand brilliance requires great imagination and forward thinking and a willingness to jettison an outdated philosophy and complacence from past successes. The true leader is never satisfied with the status quo. Brands constantly move, grow, adapt, and respond — or fade into mediocrity. But that inherent motivation to build a new brand needs to be balanced with an understanding and respect for the heritage where the underlying brand equity resides. That balancing act is what separates the merely good from the great leaders.

Great leaders make their brands extensions of themselves — they embody the spirit of the company and make customer satisfaction in their products a personal mission. They impart their enthusiasm for and commitment to the brand across the entire enterprise, from the boardroom to the executive suite, from the production floor to the delivery door, from the salesperson to the end user. When they do, their brands can become icons such as Coke, Apple, Virgin, Ben & Jerry’s, Macy’s, Ford, Amazon, Google, Starbucks, and of course, Berkshire Hathaway.

Accountability starts at the top
So how does a company move toward a superior corporate brand? Here are moves the CEO can take to lead his firm there.

The CEO must monitor the corporate brand for strength, weakness, and any opportunity for change that could positively (or negatively) affect corporate health and vitality of the company.

The board should tie the CEO’s compensation to the growth of the corporate brand because it is a bellwether of the company and it impacts so many aspects of the company’s performance. The CEO should report on the corporate brand to the board each quarter.

Despite the corporate brand being an intangible asset, the CEO should encourage and embrace the valuation of it to understand the financial importance of this growth generator.

The CEO should evaluate marketing communications budgets based on the potential ROI and according to the company’s long-term goals and vitality of the corporate brand.

To continuously guide long-term strategic planning, the CEO must have empirical data and insights into industry, technology, and consumer preferences that affect brand strength and/or brand equity.

The CEO must hold his senior management team accountable to exhibit the same high level of commitment to the corporate brand.

Employee engagement must be assured through professional training and motivation.

Bear the flag
Like it or not, the CEO is the brand’s chief flag bearer. A short-term attitude will not make for a brand of enduring strength. Brilliant brands require long-term commitment to investment and change.

Great CEOs know this and invest accordingly. They are ardent champions of constant growth and evolutionary change. They encourage operational improvement and direct corporate restructuring before outside forces such as technological advancement and consumer evolution leave them in the dust.

They are at the vanguard of industry change, not bringing up the rear — and they invest the capital and time needed to ensure that their brands remain at the forefront.

Host Kevin Price, Co-Host Jason Smith, and Guest Jim Gregory discuss “How to Make ALL of Your Advertising Work for Your Business” on this segment of the Price of Business.

New York, NY (November 20, 2014) – Original article at: The Street

They may not be the most popular toys this holiday season – little boys are asking Santa for LEGO toys, while little girls want Frozen dolls – but board games are still in demand.

Compared to 2013, Amazon’s (AMZN) board games sales are up 30% year-to-date. Hasbro (HAS) , which produces games including both Monopoly and Scrabble, says revenues are up 2% in the third quarter of 2014 to $395.2 million.

Even with new and cooler toys being introduced year in and year out, old-fashioned board games are not going away, says Jim Silver, CEO of toy industry site TTPM. Monopoly and Scrabble, which have been around since the 1930s, remain prominently displayed in the games aisles of major toy retailers.

“These games are so special in that they are able to gather the whole family or a group of friends around one table, exchanging laughs and physically interacting with each other,” says Silver. “The Sony (SNE) PlayStation, Microsoft (MSFT) Xbox and Apple (AAPL) iPad can’t really give children and adults that same experience.”

Aside from being gender neutral, board games are unique in that they offer the same level of enjoyment to both children and adults.

“My little girl loves playing with her doll but I could never have as much fun as she’s having. With board games, we can compete and have fun at the same time,” Silver said.

This year, Monopoly and Scrabble are introducing new features to keep people excited about the games.

Hasbro has launched the My Monopoly app, which allows players to customize property spaces, game tokens, Chance Cards and Community Chest Cards to include their favorite people, places and things. Using the app (or the My Monopoly site), users can gather photos, print them out on personalized game stickers and stick them onto the game pieces.

Scrabble, on the other hand, has added a new electronic scoring tool. Instead of keeping a printed scorecard, players just dial-in their scores on a handheld unit. It includes a timer option and a highest-word-score feature that lets players know when the highest scoring word has been reached.

“They certainly know how to innovate and they’ve been utilizing social media to get their customers involved in making product enhancements,” says James Cerruti, head of research and strategy at Tenet Partners, a brand innovation and marketing consultancy.

Last year, Hasbro conducted a “Save Your Token” campaign on Facebook (FB) , where fans from 185 countries voted the Cat as the newest Monopoly token, replacing the iron. The new token was included in the Monopoly game released in mid-2013.

This year, Hasbro crowdsourced new “house rules” for Monopoly, which will be included as optional rules in all Monopoly games starting in 2015. A debate was held on the Monopoly Facebook page from March to April and called on the brand’s more than 11.5 million global Facebook fans to discuss 10 “house rules,” including one that said mom can always get out of jail free.

Early this year, Hasbro also asked Scrabble fans to pick the newest word – geocache – through a Facebook vote. This marks the dictionary’s first major update in nearly a decade and the first time the dictionary has ever included a word that was voted on by fans.

“Game board makers like Hasbro have learned from the experiences of other forms of media like newspapers and books,” says Cerruti. “They realize that if they don’t become active on social media, get on with digital apps and be able to offer varieties of play in other platforms, they will become obsolete.”

Digital versions of Monopoly and Scrabble are available through many platforms such as mobile, console and online through collaborations with licensees with Ubisoft (UBSFY) and Electronic Arts (EA) , among others.

The Hasbro Game Channel from Ubisoft is a destination for family game entertainment on consoles. It features Monopoly and other Hasbro games such as Risk and Trivial Pursuit. Mobile games from Electronic Arts include Classic Monopoly and Monopoly Slots. Scrabble for Facebook, iOS and Android is also hugely popular.

Despite the evolution of Monopoly and Scrabble and their availability on various high-tech platforms and channels, Silver says the old-fashioned board games are here to stay.

“There’s more to Monopoly and Scrabble than just cardboards and plastic pieces or tokens,” says toy expert Silver. “These games are selling the idea of family time, togetherness and social interaction. Parents are more than willing to pay a small price to keep these values alive.”

New York, NY (November 20, 2014) – Complete a five-minute survey on your computer or mobile device. Get started [here](http://www.tenetpartners.com/cxsurvey). A real-time look at consumers’ perceptions of each brand will be available after you complete the survey.

Unhelpful, uninformed and uncaring customer service can cause lasting damage to a brand, according to a new study from Tenet Partners. Among consumers who said they stopped using a brand more than six months ago due to problems, two out of three (67 percent) did so because they no longer felt they were getting sufficient value for their money. More than half of these consumers (56 percent) blamed customer service for their defection. One in four of them (24 percent) cited product quality as the reason they left.

“Customer experience significantly influences brand strength and brand value,” said Hampton Bridwell, CEO of Tenet Partners, the new brand innovation and marketing firm created from the merger of Brandlogic and CoreBrand. “It takes years and significant financial investment to build a strong consumer brand, but all that time, money and effort is wasted every time a customer has a bad interaction. Over time, those are costs companies cannot afford.”

Tenet’s study links newly-fielded consumer research with CoreBrand’s heritage of corporate brand data to understand the impact of the customer experience on brand value. The findings demonstrate the powerful financial implications of poor customer experiences on corporate brands, particularly in the consumer products, financial services, technology, food and beverage, and retail industries.

Across these industries, the study found that brands can have more than a 40 percent higher brand value when customers perceive them as helpful, knowledgeable and caring. Consumers are also more likely to trust, respect and recommend these brands, creating a virtuous cycle for customers and shareholders. The study strongly shows that tried and true pillars of service, value and quality are still most important to building brand value.

“For two decades, CoreBrand’s data has been providing an accurate measure of brand value and performance. For this reason, CoreBrand Analytics remains a vital practice within Tenet,” explained Tenet Partners Chairman Jim Gregory. “This study is breaking new ground by using this same data to help inform how to implement better customer experiences to protect and grow corporate brand value.”

When Innovation Pays Off

In addition to exploring what causes the most harm to brands, the Tenet Partners study also examined the role of innovation in building them up.

“Innovation is a term leaders must challenge their organizations to think of in broader terms. Companies and shareholders get the greatest return from innovation that is brand-led and enhances the overall customer experience. This embodies the sum of business processes, service culture and communication touchpoints of an organization,” added Tenet Partners CEO Bridwell.

“Apple, American Express and Starbucks stand out as brands that get it right,” he said. “They don’t innovate solely for the sake of innovation or introduce new products or services in knee-jerk reaction to their competitors. Instead, they have an incredibly deep understanding of who they are as companies, who their customers are, and what they want today and in the future. These best-in-class companies pursue focused innovations that are in service of their customer experience.”

Participate in the study

To further its understanding of the connection between customer experience and brand value, Tenet is asking consumers to provide feedback on their real-life experiences with different brands. Complete a five-minute survey on your computer or mobile device by going to http://www.tenetpartners.com/cxsurvey. A real-time look at consumers’ perceptions of each brand will be available immediately following at http://www.tenetpartners.com/cxsurvey-dashboard2014. Take the survey and review the data as many times as you have an experience with the included brands.

Methodology

The Tenet Partners study surveyed more than 1,000 consumers, comparing the stated performance of select household brands in the consumer products, financial services, technology, food and beverage and retail industries to identify the drivers of customer experience. These measures were then correlated to BrandPower, an aggregate measure of Familiarity and Favorability used by the CoreBrand Analytics team as an indicator of monetary brand value and performance for more than 1,000 companies across 50 industries.

The CoreBrand Analytics practice of Tenet Partners focuses on marketing decision support and investment return optimization. With the only continuous survey of nearly 25 years, CoreBrand continues to examine the corporate reputations and brand value of major public companies by annually surveying more than 10,000 opinion elites from the top 20 percent of U.S. businesses.

About Tenet Partners℠

Formed from the merger of Brandlogic and CoreBrand, Tenet Partners is a brand innovation and marketing consultancy that helps companies create brand value and unearth business opportunities by putting customers at the center of their business strategies.

New York, NY (November 18, 2014) – Brand and marketing consultancies Brandlogic and CoreBrand, which joined forces earlier this year, today re-launched the combined entity as Tenet Partners, a brand innovation and marketing consultancy.

“Marketing has entered a new era. To grow a business and drive revenues, you need a new set of principles that put customers at the center of business strategy,” said Tenet Partners CEO Hampton Bridwell. “The central principle of marketing now is building brand experiences around customers, not merely attracting customers to a brand. CMOs today are wrestling with the challenges of forging authentic connections with new generations of empowered customers.”

“Brandlogic and CoreBrand have similar heritages and cultures, both of which have always emphasized a human-centered approach to brand building,” said Tenet Partners Chairman Jim Gregory. “By joining forces as Tenet Partners, we’re collectively better positioned to help clients grow their businesses by creating experiences that strengthen the bonds between brands, their customers and their employees.”

Tenet Partners brings together the complementary skills of the Brandlogic and CoreBrand teams, creating an employee-owned organization of researchers, strategists, writers, designers, technologists and thought leaders across four offices in New York City, Los Angeles, Rochester, N.Y., and Wilton, Conn.

The firm’s services include customer experience design, insights, branding, technology development, employee engagement, digital and content marketing. CoreBrand Analytics remains an integrated practice within Tenet Partners, focusing on marketing decision support and investment return optimization by leveraging nearly 25 years of data collected on 1,000 U.S. companies.

Tenet Partners client history includes more than 200 high-profile global businesses, 90 percent of which are Fortune 500 corporations in the financial services, health care, industrial, pharmaceuticals, technology, insurance, transportation, consumer goods, education, energy, information services, non-profit, professional services and telecom industries.

About Tenet Partners℠

Formed from the merger of Brandlogic and CoreBrand, Tenet Partners is a brand innovation and marketing consultancy that helps companies create brand value and unearth business opportunities by putting customers at the center of their business strategies.

New York, NY (November 18, 2014) – Original article at: CS Monitor

On Tuesday, the district attorneys for both Los Angeles and San Francisco filed lawsuits against Uber alleging it misled customers about its background checks. How much regulation can ride-sharing firms absorb before they become simply another taxi or livery service?

The upstart ride-sharing industry hit some bumps in the road this week. On Tuesday, the district attorneys for both Los Angeles and San Francisco filed lawsuits against the $40 billion giant, Uber, alleging a slew of unlawful business practices.

These include: misleading consumers about the nature of their driver background checks, collecting but not turning over airport fees, and using fare calculations that have not been approved by the state of California.

At the same time, Lyft, a competitor that was also sued for similar violations, agreed to settle for $500,000 in civil penalties, abide by airport regulations, and submit its phone app to the state for verification of accuracy in calculating fares.

Pushback is nothing new to this nascent industry, but the growing force has some questioning how much regulation the new sharing economy model can absorb before these firms become simply another taxi or livery service.

On the one hand, researchers suggest the industry is simply undergoing a predictable evolution. Research of shared-use mobility services – car-sharing, bike-sharing, ride-sharing – have shown that companies “can continue to maintain their roots in the sharing economy while complying with regulations,” says Susan Shaheen, co-director of the Transportation Sustainability Research Center at the University of California at Berkeley.

Regulations will be able to find a middle ground for transportation network companies, she says, “to remain distinct from taxi services over time.”

But that middle ground so far appears elusive for the new industry. The California lawsuits come at a moment when Uber faces a number of challenges in the more than 250 cities in which it operates around the globe. The company is also facing a lawsuit in Portland, Ore. Madrid recently issued a cease and desist order on the company, while Delhi and Bangkok banned its operation. Meanwhile, Uber drivers in a number of US cities have begun seeking to unionize to strengthen their demands for better working conditions and pay.

Uber also did not help its cause in November, after an eyebrow-raising Buzzfeed report about a senior executive at a dinner in New York who proposed that the company spend $1 million to hire a team of opposition researchers to “dig up dirt” on media critics. The company subsequently said it does not and will not investigate journalists.

Some critics suggest that these ride-sharing firms are destined to return to the regulatory fold of existing livery services.

Uber is not a ride share company, as it claims to be, says Arthur Goldstein, partner at Davidoff Hutcher & Citron a law firm that represents the Taxicab Service Association.

“They are no different than any other car service company that dispatches drivers to pick up a passenger. Instead of a dispatcher using a two-way radio they use a smart phone,” he notes via e-mail.

Mr. Goldstein says many car services have drivers that own their own cars just as Uber drivers do. “They are a car service company and should comply with all rules, regulations and local laws just like everyone else does,” he adds.

In response to a request for comment, Uber spokeswoman Eva Behrend e-mailed the following: “Uber is an integral, safe, and established part of the transportation ecosystem in the Golden State. Uber has met with the District Attorneys to address their concerns regarding airport operations … background checks, and operation of the app. We will continue to engage in discussions with the District Attorneys.”

**As an extension of the sharing economy model, Uber is a disruptive business model, points out Jim Gregory, chairman of Tenet Partners, a brand innovation and marketing firm in New York.

“It is a threat to the traditional taxi businesses around the world. The success of Uber in metropolitan communities such as New York City indicates a huge demand for such an innovative business. When consumer demand is combined with the deep pockets of a well-financed start-up, the odds are in favor of the new company to win the battle of the brands,” he says.

However, he points out that while Uber needs to comply with the local, state, and government laws regarding transporting of passengers, “if they are morphed into becoming a traditional taxi company, then they have lost the branding edge that they enjoy now.”**

The jury is out on the future of this particular insurgency, says Jonathan Askin, professor at the Brooklyn Law School in New York.

“It’s embarrassingly easy for an insurgent, unfettered by regulation, to step into any state-supported, quasi-monopolistic or cartel-like industry, to bring a few newfangled tech tricks and tools, to cherry pick customers, and to stomp all over a tired industry that never had much incentive to innovate,” he says via e-mail.

But innovation needs to be balanced with protecting consumers, and not all regulations are created equal, others add.

Some regulations are designed to benefit consumers, such as disability requirements, insurance coverage, and driver background checks, points out Michael Risch, a professor at the Villanova University School of Law. Some regulations, even when applied to taxis as well, “are unnecessary and costly,” he says via e-mail.

It is difficult to answer what effect enforcing regulations will have on car services, he says. But competition is a good thing, he adds, and better service and modern technology, such as that employed by Uber and Lyft, never go out of style.

On the other hand, Professor Risch says, “New ideas in the sharing economy always seem great if you don’t have to follow the same rules that your competitors do.”

This process is a tricky balancing act, says Jim Fiske, senior vice president at Chubb Personal Insurance in Whitehouse Station, N.J.

“We are all trying to achieve a balance between the entrepreneurial spirit of capitalism and protecting consumers,” he says.

New York, NY (October 31, 2014) – Original article at: Business Observer

There is no product more of a commodity than salt, which is a simple chemical compound. Morton Salt, which is celebrating its 100th birthday this year, created the Morton Salt Girl along with the tagline “When It Rains It Pours.” It then launched it in a national advertising campaign to illustrate that Morton Salt would flow freely even in damp weather. Morton became a brand and enjoyed preference and premium pricing over all other salt products for 100 years.

Despite being in a highly creative business, there was a point where we were perceived to be a commodity. Years ago I owned a firm in the creative services industry, which was exciting except there were so many other creative service firms that we were perceived as one of many vendors.

To generate business, we were forced to go hat in hand to prospective clients seeking any work available rather than to pitch areas where we excelled. We were sure that our work was as good if not better than any competitor, but the perception others had of us was our reality.

The result of being a commodity is a downward pressure on pricing until you can no longer make a profit. When we did land a piece of business, the fee was so low I didn’t feel like being very creative. When this happens, you must find a way to leverage your talents and build on your strengths to improve the price and perception of your firm.

Create the strategy
When we were perceived to be a commodity, I determined to do three things: 1) I wanted to break out of the perception of being a local business; 2) I wanted our services to be in demand on a global basis; 3) I wanted to charge a premium price for our creativity. In pursuing this strategy, I learned the following lessons:

Find your expertise
Find something that you really love within the field you have chosen because you love it. I chose advertising because I loved the field. I chose corporate branding because I felt that I could really move mountains by helping CEOs brand their company.

Become an expert
I really knew my business, but not everyone knew that I knew my business. When my first book was published I instantly had expert credentials in my field because…I wrote the book. This was a turning point in my career.

Change quickly
Changes begin immediately when you develop the strategy because you begin to think differently about everything from your sales pitch to your own personal brand. After the book is published, a total internal transformation happened, and within three years we had completely changed our model for business. You should be able to see progress toward your goals within six months from the time you begin to implement the plan.

Measure progress
It is hard to see progress when you are embroiled in the day-to-day battle to succeed. But if you look back over your successes periodically (every six months) you should be able to see a pattern of growth that cannot be denied. Benchmarking where you are consistently through research or other specific measures will tell you how far you’ve come over that time. The most obvious benchmark is revenue, but you can also benchmark the number of times your company is mentioned in the media, or the number of employees hired, new customers, or more conventional research among key constituencies. Take the time to reflect and to celebrate your progress.

Stay the course
There are a thousand reasons to back off a strategy. It is often easier to retrench to the old ways of doing business simply because they are familiar. But, you will never achieve the levels of success that staying on the new course will give you.

Leverage your success
Make sure that achieving your goals leads to new goals. When I wrote my first book, it was the accomplishment of a huge goal. I could have coasted for years, but instead I saw that it opened up new business opportunities that I had not previously expected. I immediately started my second book. Taking advantage of your accomplishments is as important as achieving them.

Create an expectation
Being an expert creates an expectation. It’s not always what you are expert in that helps your business grow. Sometimes its just being the best in your particular area that leads to other opportunities. For example, we have a particular expertise in measuring ROI for advertising. Quite often we get unrelated assignments simply because we understand ROI. People make their own connections and rationale for hiring you, but you need to be ready to move when called upon.

Never rest on your laurels
With The Morton Girl now 100 years old, the company has announced plans to reinvigorate the brand. It has done so carefully and with great respect to its heritage, but its focus is on the next 100 years. To see how, visit its anniversary website: mortonsaltgirl100.com.