When the credit crisis hit during the back end of 2007, it generated much talk on its likely impact on retail sales. One of our clients, a high-street fashion retailer, expected an impact on sales volumes and wanted to be in pole position to be able to combat the anticipated drop. Now we have passed the one-year anniversary of the financial markets crisis, and parts of the retail sector are, indeed, seeing a negative impact. However, our client, with the intelligent use of database marketing and loyalty activity, has been able to address it in an effective way.

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A growing number of businesses in the United Kingdom are adding executive positions overseeing CRM, according to a TotalDM survey of the United Kingdom's top 500 companies.

In keeping with recent research showing that the CRM landscape has changed significantly in the last four or five years, this finding shows a strong commitment to customer relationship management—despite the glib mantra of marketing in the past years claiming that CRM initiatives don't produce measurable payback.

One-off technology costs can be written off; ongoing people costs cannot. Therefore, the penetration of heads of CRM shows a commitment by these large industry sectors not only to the notion of CRM but also to its successful practice and its permanence within the organization.

Consider these recent findings:

• Research from the Lloyd James Group, in an April 2005 report titled In Search of Quality, indicates a 5 percent to 10 percent drop in available data on the market.
  
  
• In the United Kingdom, opt-out rates from the Electoral Register (a major prospecting resource for marketers) now stand at 29 percent, according to Experian in a Jan. 21, 2005, article titled Electoral Register Fully Loaded .
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The power of a strong brand is such that consumers will happily pay 37 percent more for their preferred, established brand, according to Simon Broadbent of the Leo Burnett Brand Consultancy. Brand managers are seemingly relentless in their search for new ways of exploiting consumers' voracious appetite for spending. The ubiquitous practice of extending the products or services offered by a company or—in jargon—"stretching the brand," has become an exceedingly popular means of growing both immediate and long-term revenue without the risks and costs associated with creating a new brand from scratch. Yet, approximately one in every two brand extensions fail—better odds than a start-up but worryingly high, nonetheless. So, what is it that makes a brand extension succeed or fail?

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