ARE ONLINE SERVICE OR PRODUCT REVIEWS USEFUL? This is Part One of a three part series. It discusses what is, in effect, the driving force of reading online reviews of products and services – that is when money is scarce, no one wants to make a bad purchase. John Penrose thinks it’s a good idea, but do we? The new UK Government’s minister of tourism thinks that phasing out the existing star rating system for hotels makes a lot of sense because it’s “out of date” and “doesn’t reflect value for money or what guests want”. He argues that consumer-led reviews on the Internet are...

Professional services marketing (PSM) is primarily based on intangibles such as relationship and value and has four major differences from the marketing of a goods or product base business. Firstly, in PSM the client purchases are generally intangible, for example, a conveyance on a house. The client may never see the conveyance form as they will be kept as security by the mortgagor, usually a bank or building society. Secondly, the service may be based on the reputation of a single person such as a hot shot lawyer such as Nick Dawson, the highly recognised solicitor for North West England...

THE BENEFITS OF BRANDING Put simply, a brand is a name or logo that helps a consumer what to buy. In business to business commodities such as steel, that name might just differentiate one business from another – after all steel is pretty much the same wherever you buy it; price is the only discriminator. However, in consumer products, that name or logo should be a psychological symbolisation of how people think about that particular business or product. The best brands create a special relationship with customers, based on intangible qualities that evoke strong emotional responses. In...