ANDREW MELSOM offers a selection of opening lines to get you started in any digital conversation. After that, good luck, you’re on your own.

This is an edited version of the Spencer Stuart CMO Summit held in the US, Summer 2007  

Judie Lannon interviews MIKE HOBAN, customer and brand marketing director of Scottish Widows, about his experience of bringing marketing to life in side a successful financial services organisation.  

I've just had a sneak preview of the first draft of next year's Conservative party election manifesto. It was a card left on my table at a restaurant in London W1.

Consuming in the analogue world is easy. If I want to try Ariel instead of my usual Persil, Kenco instead of Nescafé, or Tesco's brand instead of Andrex, all I have to do is nudge my hand further along the supermarket shelf.

As the world of brands becomes ever more cluttered and competitive, the marketer’s task of building and maintaining strong brands becomes increasingly difficult. Senior management wants concrete evidence of return on marketing investment.

When consumers like a particular campaign, it is facetiously observed that they are ‘buying the advertising’ as well as the brand.

Over the last 18 months, social networking has entered mainstream consciousness, with many brands experiencing explosive growth and mass press coverage.Vogt and Knapman draw on a major research programme conducted by Microsoft to descr

A social media strategy has become an essential part of a wider communications strategy. Julian Saunders describes why

Melanie Howard looks at how the necessity for companies to offer value for money during the recession has developed into the trend of ‘maximising’