Internet is becoming a more and more popular space for promoting products and building strong ties with target consumer groups. Brands know it, and people know that brands know it and they do not mind to be part of this ‘game.’ On the contrary, users are actively getting engaged into the digital activity of the global companies and easily adopt new ways of communicating with brands and enrich their experience as iConsumers. Why is it so important for brands, how can they benefit from it and what ways do they choose to get people connecting with them online? This is the theme of our today’s review.

Nearly 40% of entrepreneurs are developing ‘knowledge-as-a-service’ businesses

Entrepreneurs are rapidly adopting sourcing as a method to jump-start their projects, according to a recent study by blur Group, the world’s largest Creative Services Exchange. blur Group surveyed 1,546 members of Innovatrs, an Innovation Exchange™  where corporations worldwide can discover, partner with or invest in innovative startups and entrepreneurs.  The findings show that nearly 40% of entrepreneurs are developing ‘knowledge-as-service’ business models.

Keeping up to current trends is essential for companies, which strive to be relevant to the fast-pace world and meet ever-changing consumer demands. In this piece, which is an abridged version of ANTHEM SIGHTINGS, Vol. 2, 2011,  the most notable trends of today are covered—some of them root in old approaches, and some seem to be completely new, but all of them are shaping modern marketing efforts and influencing our perception of brands. The author of the paper, Kathy Oneto, Vice President, Brand Strategy in the San Francisco office of Anthem Worldwide, made a list of ten current trends and their examples from all around the globe, demonstrating the processes redefining the marketing industry right at the moment.

Brands come and brands go. Some of them evolve, get iconic and celebrate anniversaries of successful business like Coca-Cola and Mercedes-Benz, and some have to move out of the market, giving space to more innovative and ambitious competitors. In this review we at Popsop will try to figure out if the 10 troubled brands, which according to 24/7 Wall St., “will disappear in 2012,” are really doomed. What they say really makes sense and should be taken seriously: for instance, last year, they predicted that T-Mobile won’t do on its own the following year, and in early March, “AT&T Inc. rose after agreeing to buy T-Mobile USA from Deutsche Telekom AG for $39 billion in cash and stock to create America’s largest mobile-phone company,” as Bloomberg reports. Still, they did wrong predictions for other companies including Kia and BP, which managed to do much better than it was expected (maybe, the predictions will turn to be correct, but over a longer period of time than stated).