May 2nd, 2011 by admin

The Bank of America Corp shareholders not reelect the head of the company’s audit committee at the May 11 annual meeting, according to a shareholder advisory firm.

ISS Proxy Advisory Services said shareholders should vote against the re-election of Charles Rossotti to the board of the largest U.S. bank by assets.

From in.news.yahoo.com:

Institutional and individual shareholders often use the recommendations of advisory firms to help guide their voting decisions during corporate annual meetings.

ISS also recommended that shareholders vote in favor of seven of eight shareholder proposals on the proxy ballot. BofA’s board opposes all of the shareholder proposals.

ISS argued that Rossotti, a senior adviser at private equity firm Carlyle Group , is not a fully independent director because an immediate family member is a partner in a law firm BofA retains for legal services.

In a securities filing on Thursday, BofA said ISS recommended that shareholders elect Rossotti at last year’s annual meeting, even though his immediate family member held the same post and the relationship was disclosed in that year’s proxy statement.

The shareholder advisory firm recommended shareholders vote in favor of the 12 other directors standing for re-election.

Tags: audit committee, Bank of America, private equity

April 6th, 2011 by admin

Sir Martin Sorrell’s advertising giant WPP is on the brink of losing a marketing contract worth £281m as part of a massive shake-up by the consumer products giant Unilever.

Unilever spends a staggering £2.5bn advertising household favourites from Marmite to Ben & Jerry’s ice cream every year.

From Dailymail.co.uk:

But it has launched a review of the media planning and buying service offered by top agencies WPP (up 7.5p to 604p), Omnicom and Interpublic.

It is the latest change instigated by chief executive, Paul Polman, who has turned the business on its head since joining almost 12 months ago.

Sources say Unilever is close to announcing it is replacing WPP’s Mindshare agency for its crucial mainland China account.

The business is worth £281m in annual billing and arch rival Omnicom, through its media buying agency PHD, is understood to have clinched the deal.

Unilever is a top three client of WPP and the decision could cost it between £5m to £10m in fees.

Tags: advertising, marketing, media planning

April 4th, 2011 by admin

Rupert Murdoch is expected to slash the £1.2billion annual marketing budget of BSkyB by upto a third, adding hundreds of millions of pounds to its profits at a stroke if he acquires the 61 per cent of BSkyB he does not own.

Spending of the broadcaster on marketing dwarfs that of other large companies.

From Dailymail.co.uk:

Rupert Murdoch is expected to slash BSkyB’s £1.2billion annual marketing budget by up to a third – adding hundreds of millions of pounds to its profits at a stroke if he acquires the 61 per cent of BSkyB he does not own.

One source said: ‘It makes BSkyB worth more like £12 a share rather than the 700p proposed by News Corp [where Murdoch is chairman]. BSkyB has been encouraged by News Corp to spend heavily to build its position.

But once this deal is done Rupert will say it can do the same with less and the savings will drop right to the bottom line.’ News Corp declined to comment.

Murdoch is expected by industry sources to cut the marketing budget as soon as he gains full control of the broadcaster.

Tags: BSkyB, marketing, Rupert Murdoch

March 7th, 2011 by admin

The Economic Survey presented by Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee on 26 February 2011 underlined the need for making efforts to achieve a second green revolution in the country.

The food safety net for each and every of the over a billion citizens requires improved agriculture production and productivity in the form of a second green revolution.

From in.finance.yahoo.com:

The survey points out that the country is likely to achieve a more production of wheat (81.47 million tonnes), pulses (16.51 million tonnes) and cotton (33.93 million bales of 170 kg each) this year in spite of drought in some States, cyclones, unseasonal and heavy rains and cold wave and frost condition in several parts.

Stressing on the development of infrastructure support in agriculture and allied sector, the survey said that the relative weak supply responses to price hike in agriculture commodities, specially food articles in recent brings into the focus the Central question of efficient supply management and more investment in agriculture and allied sectors with the right strategies, policies and intervention.

Pioneering efforts of agriculture scientists and farmers were able to achieve a breakthrough in the agriculture sector in the 1960s, according to the survey that also disclosed that there was need to achieve a second green revolution in the country now.

Tags: agriculture production, agriculture sector, Economic Survey, green revolution, infrastructure support

December 21st, 2010 by admin

Perfection and success is dreamt by one and all but only a few get anywhere close to them. Stay close to name, fame, and recognition by getting and staying inspired with these inspirational quotes.

Motivation is everything. You can do the work of two people, but you can’t be two people. Instead, you have to inspire the next guy down the line and get him to inspire his people. – Lido Anthony Lee Lacocca

There are no foolish questions, and no man becomes a fool until he has stopped asking questions.  – Charles Proteus Steinmetz

If you want children to keep their feet on the ground, put some responsibility on their shoulders.  – Abigail Van Buren

Yes, risk taking is inherently failure-prone.  Otherwise, it would be called sure-thing-taking.  – Tim McMahon

You have to decide what your highest priorities are and have the courage–pleasantly, smilingly, nonapologetically–to say ‘no’ to other things. And the way you do that is by having a bigger ‘yes’ burning inside. The enemy of the ‘best’ is often the ‘good.’ – Stephen Covey

The most important thing about a man is what he believes in the depth of his being. This is the thing that makes him what he is, The thing that organizes him and feeds him; the thing that keeps him going in the face of untoward circumstances; the thing that gives him resistance. – Hugh Stevenson Tigner

Curiosity is only vanity.  Most frequently we wish not to know, but to talk.  We would not take a sea voyage for the sole pleasure of seeing without hope of ever telling.  – Blaise Pascal, Pensées

The one real object of education is to have a man in the condition of continually asking questions. - Bishop Mandell Creighton

Tags: inspirational quotes, motivation, perfection, responsibility, success

July 15th, 2010 by admin

Well designed strategy should be planned to attract customers with qualified individuals to develop an affiliate program.

Affiliate program marketing is an effective way to increase web exposure to new users. This process identifies new customers and help in increasing sales through advertisements. With this marketing tool, you can keep a track of number of users who go through the ad which further lead to conversational marketing. This programming for marketing can fetch you benefits by generating customers. You can always increase the clicks such as banner ad, newsletter, text link, graphics etc to enhance your sales. You can search on Google for more such ideas. For this, you will need a well dedicated program manager, good funds, and well build strategy to earn profits.

Tags: advertisements, Affiliate program marketing, banner ad, customers, marketing tool, programming, strategy.

June 22nd, 2010 by admin

If you are an online marketer or business owner striving to promote your online business in a never-before way, you need to emphasize upon search engine marketing (SEM).

In today’s cutthroat business world, SEM acts as a savior for businesses that cannot afford to go beyond certain limits for marketing products and services.

From Bloggersandmarketers.com:

In today’s business world, hopes are endless but tools to satisfy these hopes are limited. One of these tools is search engine marketing that was been explored and is still getting explored by many small and big businesses. The concept of Search Engine Marketing, which was restricted to an elite few in the last few years, is now reaching the horizons of every modern business.

Since the Internet is the one-stop choice of one and all when it comes to finding a product or a service, there could not be any online promotional tool better than search engine marketing (SEM). This is because SEM starts its journey from the point where other web tools end their journey.

The easy-to-use yet high revenue-generating techniques of SEM are helping many small and big businesses to register triple-digit growth in terms of their returns on investments (RoI) besides maintaining an “unchallenged online presence” for these concerned businesses. This is because the techniques of SEM are highly beneficial when it comes to retaining existing and attracting new customers on an ongoing basis.

All in all, search engine marketing is one marketing tool that can easily put your business on the next level.

Tags: marketing, marketing tool, online marketer, search engine marketing, SEM

June 8th, 2010 by admin

Looking for inspiring quotations on marketing and business? Then, you will surely not be left disappointed as this blog, a compilation of motivational business quotes, will satisfy every inspirational need of yours.

I have always been amazed at the way an ordinary observer lends so much more credence and attaches so much more importance to waking events than to those occurring in dreams… Man… is above all the plaything of his memory. – Andre Breton

Happiness does not come from doing easy work but from the afterglow of satisfaction that comes after the achievement of a difficult task that demanded our best. – Theodore Isaac Rubin

I was told to avoid the business all together because of the rejection. People would say to me, ‘Don’t you want to have a normal job and a normal family?’ I guess that would be good advice for some people, but I wanted to act. – Jennifer Aniston

If you aren’t playing well, the game isn’t as much fun. When that happens I tell myself just to go out and play as I did when I was a kid. – Thomas J. Watson

If one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with success unexpected in common hours. – Henry David Thoreau

No one should negotiate their dreams. Dreams must be free to fly high. No government, no legislature, has a right to limit your dreams. You should never agree to surrender your dreams. – Jesse Jackson

So many of our dreams at first seem impossible, then they seem improbable, and then, when we summon the will, they soon become inevitable. – Christopher Reeve

It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest. – Adam Smith

We all dream; we do not understand our dreams, yet we act as if nothing strange goes on in our sleep minds, strange at least by comparison with the logical, purposeful doings of our minds when we are awake. – Erich Fromm

Tags: business quotes, inspiring quotations, marketing, motivational business quotes, quotations, Quotes

June 7th, 2010 by admin

Search engine rankings have been bothering website owners and marketing executives with equal effect. This is because it is difficult for an online business to create and maintain a distinctive online presence in the competitive world of today. Let us read on how to improve search engine rankings without making any special efforts.

In today’s web-dominated world, no business can taste success without realizing and reaping the potential of online marketing. This is because more and more customers are going online and searching for product vendors and service providers on the web itself and only online businesses can satisfy their needs related to products, services, and information. This also means that an offline business stands no chance of attaining success until it decides to go and stay online with a purpose.

In this respect, the concept of search engine optimization or SEO is worth a mention. Since optimization of a website makes it friendly to search engine spiders and eventually potential customers, every profit-motivated business must emphasize upon online marketing, particularly on SEO.

For this, a website must be regularly updated with unique, relevant, and action-provoking content. It should also have an easy functionality and a clean source code. In addition to that, content to be developed and used for promotional purposes must have the backing of SEO tools and the right keywords. One should not forget here that website and promotional content must be of interest to the targeted audience and should help them make informed decisions. It should not be ambiguous or making false claims to win customers; content with false claims can bring customers for a small time, but there is nothing but failure for sites dealing in such unethical tactics.

By observing these tips, you can easily improve search engine rankings of your site pages and attain success and prosperity in the short as well as the long run.

Tags: improve search engine rankings, marketing, Online Marketing, Online Presence, Search Engine Optimization, Search engine rankings, SEO, SEO tools

May 21st, 2010 by admin

Gaurav Mishra, CEO of 2020 Social, recently expressed his views on how Indian nonprofits can make the best use of social media tools like Twitter and Facebook to promote their causes.

Since sites such as Twitter and Facebook are free platforms for generating mass interests at almost negligible costs, nonprofits can benefit in more than just a way by opting for them.

From Livemint.com:

On Tuesday, participants at a workshop on social media for nonprofits, organized by the Nasscom Foundation and held by Gaurav Mishra, CEO of Mumbai based social media research and strategy company 2020 Social, voiced some of their doubts.

“What if I run a contest on my website and nobody participates?” asked one lady who works for an international nonprofit that uses media and communications to achieve development goals. “How do I know if our fans on Facebook are actually engaged, or whether they’re just there for the heck of it?” asked another participant who works for an international artist’s association.

In an interview with Mint, Gaurav Mishra puts things in perspective, bluntly pointing out that social media is no panacea for a struggling nonprofit’s communications problems. He underscores that the very first step for a nonprofit is to identify the cause it is working towards, and consequently who its evangelists are. Social media can then be used to organize and energize this base of people.

“Nonprofits must start outside in and not inside out,” he says. “Always start by thinking about who are the people whose lives you’re trying to change, what is the big cause you’ve committed yourself to. Start from there and then come down to the specifics.”

Mishra pointed to Pratham Books as an instance of an Indian nonprofit that has been exemplary in using social media by sharing content and engaging communities via tools such as Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter.

Tags: cricket, Facebook, Paul Collingwood, Social Media, social media research, social media tools, T20, Twenty20, Twitter, YouTube