Brands and branding have endured for years, centuries in fact. And despite dire predictions from some pundits, there really is no reason to expect that brands cannot continue to thrive for years to come.

Billions of consumers and business customers, in every region of the world, from cities to remote rural areas, buy global brands.

Writer, Fritz Dressler said: 'Predicting the future is easy. It's trying to figure out what's going on now that's hard.' This is especially true in a recession.

Judie Lannon talks to Jill McDonald, the Marketing Society’s Marketer of the Year, about how McDonald’s learned to listen.

Marketing is about two things. First, the marketing concept: 'Marketing is not a specialised business activity.

When I first became a brand manager in 1978 I knew what marketing did. The brand manager's job was to manage and develop the company's most important and valuable assets – its brands.

I started in marketing 50 years ago, joining Procter & Gamble in 1959, the year The Marketing Society was founded.

THE MARKETING SOCIETY was formed in the drab, post-war wreck of Britain's 1950s. At the time, America seemed the exact opposite: an exciting and progressive place. It had blue jeans, enormous fridges, jazz and consumer marketing.

Virtually all organisations from IBM to HP to Unilever to CitiGroup, are collections of silos – organisational units that have their own management team.

Winners of the Grand Prix and the Marketing Capabilities award in the Marketing Society Awards for Excellence 2008, this case history (jointly submitted by ICI and Brand Learning) is an impressive illustration of the planning and imple