Update Talk on International Marketing, Marketing Management & Strategies

There is a talk on 2nd December at MMU for MBA students. Professor Svend Hollensens of the University of Southern Denmark will give the talk. Below, you can find the detail.

Author’s biography:

Coming from industry as an International Marketing Coordinator in a large Danish multinational enterprise, Professor Svend Hollensen received his PhD from Copenhagen Business School (CBS) in 1992. He has published articles in journals and is the author of four books published with Pearson. His book on global marketing strategy, Global Marketing - A Decision Oriented Approach is one of the bestselling text on the subject and is the recommended text on many postgraduate programmes as well as being used by marketers and business owners to help them design and develop their global marketing programmes. He has received widespread praise for this book, now in its 4th Edition

-- Date & Time: 2nd Dec 2009, 3-5pm

-- Venue: FOM Main Lecture Theatre, Multimedia University, Cyberjaya Campus

-- Certificate of participation will be given to those who attend the talk.

-- Fee: RM10

-- Deadline for registration: 30, Nov, 2009

For more inquiries and registration call me at 0129156545

Companies and Rankings

2008 ranking of some of the world's largest corporations (revenue based)

Company Name -------------------------------Rank------------Country

ROYAL DUTCH SHELL--------------------------1----------NETHERLANDS
EXXON MOBIL----------------------------------2----------------U.S

WAL-MART STORES----------------------------3----------------U.S

TOTAL-------------------------------------------5--------------FRANCE

ING GROUP--------------------------------------8---------NETHERLANDS

TOYOTA MOTOR-------------------------------10---------------JAPAN

JAPAN POST HOLDING-------------------------11---------------JAPAN

GENERAL ELECTRIC---------------------------12----------------U.S

GENERAL MOTORS-----------------------------18---------------U.S

ALLIANZ-----------------------------------------20----------GERMANY

CARREFOUR------------------------------------25--------------FRANCE

PDVSA-------------------------------------------27----------VENEZUALA

AT&T--------------------------------------------29---------------U.S

BANK OF AMERICA CORP.---------------------37----------------U.S

CITIGROUP-------------------------------------39---------------U.S

NESTLE-----------------------------------------48----------SWITZERLAND

HONDA MOTOR-------------------------------- 51 -------------JAPAN

TESCO------------------------------------------ 56------------- FRANCE

PROCTER & GAMBLE-------------------------- 68--------------- U.S

LG-----------------------------------------------69--------- SOUTH KOREA

PEOGEOT-------------------------------------- 75------------- FRANCE

BMW-------------------------------------------- 78----------- GERMANY

SONY------------------------------------------- 81-------------- JAPAN

NOKIA------------------------------------------ 85------------ FINLAND

VODAFONE------------------------------------- 94------------ BRITAIN

DELL------------------------------------------- 115-------------- U.S

BOEING---------------------------------------- 116-------------- U.S

MICROSOFT----------------------------------- 117-------------- U.S

BAYER----------------------------------------- 154----------- GERMANY

FEDEX----------------------------------------- 200-------------- U.S

COCA-COLA----------------------------------- 259--------------- U.S

SHOWA SHELL SEKIYU----------------------- 266------------ JAPAN

PHILIP MORRIS INTERNATIONAL----------- 345-------------- U.S

GOOGLE--------------------------------------- 423-------------- U.S

AMAZON.COM--------------------------------- 485-------------- U.S

NIKE------------------------------------------- 497--------------- U.S

MITSUI OKS LINES--------------------------- 500------------- JAPAN

** JAPAN POST HOLDING, PDVSA, SHOWA SHELL SEKIYU, PHILIP MORRIS INTERNATIONAL, GOOGLE, AMAZON.COM and NIKE have been added to the list this year (2008)

Read more about companies, rankings, newly listed companies and their revenues on http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/global500/2009/full_list/.

Note: You have to choose 2009 to get 2008 information listed

Sponsorship

Have you ever thought about sponsorship and its reasons? How much do you think it affects sales in companies? What are outcomes for sponsors and effects on the brand?

Obviously, companies do sponsorship jobs to strengthen their brands. Most of the times sponsorship doesn't mean that you, as a sponsor, will see the results immediately.Suppose LEXUS becomes sponsor for an event. Depending on the nature of the event LEXUS plans its marketing activities. for example, there is a leadership seminar that LEXUS is sponsoring it. Most participants are middle class people. So, what can be LEXUS' rationale for this spending? Here, people will equal LEXUS as a company tailors its products for top business levels. "LEXUS is the right car for me..." are hidden words that so many CEOs there may say. Actually, by this, LEXUS has succeeded to project the image of "Top Business Level= LEXUS". Looking from another aspect, we can categorize sponsorship like this: Events that have relations with the product, or sponsorships that have nothing to do with the specific business, and in both cases you may have run the event, or just are supporting it to run properly: 1. A food distribution business runs a poverty program and feeds people there with its own products. 2. You may see the same company is the sole sponsor of a concert. 3. The mentioned company is one of 10 companies have jointly held the poverty program. 4. You will see the food company's logo in a football match or a concert together 10 different logos. Each of these have carry different advantages, but the consequence which is common in all types mentioned above is that you will be known as your industry's leader, and brand association and brand bonding of people will be stronger. But keep in mind some tips: Try to be flexible when doing sponsorship works, meaning that you have to think of critical situations. Have alternatives for your activities. Maybe something must be changed the day before the event. Also, if you are dealing with sponsors, be careful how the candidates' perceived images are in people's minds, and how the sponsored brand will affect subsequent sponsors' decisions, and vice versa, you have to be careful about what you're sponsoring. Chose an event for which you are sure the attendants and people in charge are capable of handling issues, and attenders will be served as expect.

Finally, just think whether the below companies match for sponsorship works:

PLAYBOY & Produa

PLAYBOY & Ferrari

Soft drink & religious event

Chrysler & Time magazine

DHL & tourism fair

MPH & automobile exhibition

...

Helpful resource: SME & ENTREPRENEURSHIP MAGAZINE

Top Sites

I was just comparing most visited websites in different countries. In nearly all of them google, yahoo, facebook, youtube, blogger, windows live, flickr and wikipedia are among top 20 websites. I collected these information from alexa web information company http://www.alexa.com/, where you can find many interesting things about websites related issues, from getting web trafficts to see top visited websites by both country or category to getting more elaborate information about websites. Time magazine, time.com, has listed top websites for each year. You can see them by clicking on the following link http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/0,28757,1918031,00.html pcmag.com has listed top 100 websites. it's worth checking it http://www.pcmag.com/slideshow/0,1206,l=242492&a=242570,00.asp . The interesting thing for me is the number of blog providers websites that is used by the Iranians, and they are listed among the top 20 sites. I think Iranians are heavy users of blogs. I saw blogger.com, wordpress.com, blogfa.com, persianblog.ir, blogsky.com and webgozar.com. 6 out of 20 most visited websites goes to blogging websites whereas in most countries that I checked, few blogging websites were listed at the top. That's quite interesting.

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