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Most trademark licensing relationships are defined and evaluated based on the terms in a license agreement contract. In the case of a brand extension license, there can be a lot at stake, including the health and wellbeing of the licensor's brand. Surprisingly, many license agreements do not include specific terms or requirements that reflect key marketing objectives.

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The act of branding has 10 different meanings, which translate into 10 different ways to create instrumentality or usefulness beyond the tangible benefits of a product/service. Following those 10 approaches will make the difference between masterful creations of brands and amateur imitation.

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A brand means much more than its product and service features. Brands are built from nothing less than the sum of a customer's experiences with a product, service or company. Customers' total brand experience will determine whether they will buy anything more from the company and, just as importantly, whether they'll spread awesome or awful word-of-mouth to friends and family.

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As service and technology firms begin to awaken from a long, recession-inspired hibernation period, they are again beginning to think about proactive lead generation. If your firm is stepping-up outbound marketing, your first step should be to re-examine your firm's thinking about what works and what doesn't. Consider the following seven service lead-generation misconceptions.

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A name change could mean disaster. How does a company regain its brand without gaining a bad reputation for the constant changes it has undergone? Also this week, read your answers to last week's query: What's the best way to access other divisions of the same company?

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Times have changed for the account service department. Our role as account executives is to lend expertise and insight as we hack the path for our clients through a post 9-11 marketing jungle.

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When your brand is highly differentiated from your peers' or competitors', it is important to fortify that differentiation through all of your brand affiliations. Be aware that such affiliations are not co-branding—sharing a product or service with two brand names. Rather, it is connecting your brand to another brand to bolster your differentiation, expand your brand attributes or increase your visibility.

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Last April, Google.com was excoriated in the press for introducing an email service in which users knowingly consent to having incoming emails scanned by machine to permit the display of targeted ads. But at the same time, another court decision, which received far less attention than Gmail, lets email providers scan their users' emails for almost any purpose, without permission. While it remains to be seen whether the logic of that decision will be widely adopted, there is little doubt that it marks a significant point in the jurisprudence of communications privacy.

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Can an effective keyword strategy improve Web site conversion rates? Absolutely. But only if your site includes the right terminology and phrases.

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This week, the SWOT Team asks: Outside of direct referrals, how do you reach other potential customers within the same company? Also this week, read your answers to the last issue's dilemma: How do you challenge the "customer is always right" policy when the customers, well...isn't?

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Great marketers figure out how to make lives better, with the goal of attracting lots of profitable and happy customers. But to measure how well marketing efforts help build a large and loyal customer base, it's essential to identify (and rely on) the metrics that matter most.

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With many companies still cost-conscious about marketing, the Web presents a perfect opportunity for marketers to maximize the power of events and quantify returns. The interactive and direct nature of the Web can help marketers to better foster, manage, qualify and follow up on interested leads from trade shows and seminars. How can marketers leverage the Web to maximize return on investment and ensure the best closed-circle interaction for potential customers?

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Branding, as you might imagine, is not typically what direct response agencies do. But some direct response agencies strongly believe in the power of branding. And smart direct marketers build their strategies squarely on the brand.

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On Wall Street, financial investors speak of CEOs improving their companies' "top line" by increasing sales volume, or upping their "bottom line" by reducing their expenses to expand the margins from their current sales volume. For Internet companies, business owners determining where to direct their improvement efforts should take a similar "top line-bottom line" approach.

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Generation Y is the segment born between 1979 and 1994. They are anextremely marketing-savvy group that understands how numerous companies actively covet their business. As a result, Gen Y-ers greet new brands with intense skepticism, making it increasingly imperative for Gen-Y businesses to focus on brand strategy.