Welcome to this summer issue of Advertising Express. This issue has four sections viz., Media, Communications, Perspective and Case. Three articles are featured under the section ‘Communications’ including the cover page article, “Digital Media: A Boon to Brand Market Through Social Networking Sites”. With digital promotions through networking sites one can get real-time results and can see if target audiences are making the buy or watching or downloading or baying whatever product or service in response to social network advertising. This research-based endeavor is to evaluate as to how the digital media helps in enhancing the concept of Brand Positioning, for different brands that exist and how it affects the consumer behavioral patterns to create a positive image. Another article in this section is “Public Relations as a New Tool: Some of World’s Best Brands Have Been Built with PR”. With rising media costs and lack of deep pockets to spend, many brands are seriously considering using PR in a big way to promote their brand in the most cost-efficient manner. More and more clients are exploring new options to seek maximum mileage and PR is one tool most of them are seriously looking at, is the gist of this article. Green Marketing is the theme of yet another article titled “Green Marketing: Opportunities and Challenges” in this section. This article discusses the phases of growth of green marketing, meaning and reasons for existence of green marketing, strategies for the development of green marketing, remarkable achievements and India’s initiatives for green marketing.

Cinema Advertising is the main idea of an article in the section ‘Media’. “Cinema Advertising: A Brand Visible Medium” is gradually evolving and getting more sophisticated. This article is a discussion on the need for an integrated marketing approach that can help increase brand awareness by using cinema advertising.

Three articles are featured in the section ‘Perspective’. One titled “Brand Failure: The Case of Aiwa” is a discussion on the popular brand Aiwa, as an example of the issues concerning brand failures. The article “Pragmatic Strategy for Banks to Counter Recession: Focus on Reticular Activity Trend and Not be Cauldron for Politicians and Bureaucrats” is an attempt to conceive a strategy that would help these institutions come out of this groove (read: recession impact) and become vibrant and healthy institutions by restoring confidence in the market. In the article “The Non-Accidental International Marketer: Harnessing Open Social Media Marketing Practice on a Global Basis” environments like Facebook, Twitter and YouTube state that advertisers and marketing executives accidentally fall into international marketing activities through the use of social media. Simply setting up a Facebook page without consideration of global and country branding impacts lead to unintended marketing consequences. This article is a discussion on issues concerning the same.

The section ‘Case’ features a piece on “Semantic Web Search: Microsoft’s Latest Plank to Take on Google?” This case tries to discuss the nuances of Microsoft Technology and its strategy vis-à-vis competition and raises a debate about its long-term sustainability.

-- Suresh Garimella