The surge in social media’s popularity has led to some brands using it dishonestly to promote their goods, but as a result the whole marketing industry is being undermined and consumers are losing trust. As marketers try to develop the most business benefit from using social media, another challenge is coming their way. Brands’ dishonest practices on social media may be undermining the entire marketing industry, according to a study by the Chartered Institute of Marketing (CIM).MasterCard came under fire earlier this year for trying to bribe a journalist to send promotional tweets, while Samsung was fined in Taiwan for posting fake online reviews. Last year, Channel 4’s documentary Celebs, Brands and Fake Fans revealed just how easy it is to fraudulently increase social media audiences by buying followers from ‘click farms’ in countries such as Bangladesh.Such questionable behaviour is unsurprisingly having a big effect on consumer confidence. Almost half (44 per cent) of those surveyed in CIM’s Keeping Social Honest study find it difficult to trust brands on social networks. It spoke to 3,000 people across the UK, and 1,150 marketers from businesses of all sizes, in partnership with YouGov and Bloomberg.Sadly, the above examples of underhand brand behaviour are not isolated cases. The research, shared exclusively with Marketing Week , finds that 51 per cent of marketers have seen questionable content from brands on social media in the past six months. However, although more than half admit there is a problem and 52 per cent agree that the effectiveness of the channel as a marketing platform is at risk due to dishonest behaviour, nearly all deny having anything to do with it.Only 2.1 per cent admit to faking reviews on social media, 2.3 per cent say they have bought ‘fans’ and 1.5 per cent admit to falsifying user-generated…

In a career spanning almost 40 years, Maureen McGuire, chief marketing officer at Bloomberg believes there is no road map to becoming a CMO, but instead shows how common sense has helped her to top roles at IBM, Sears and now at the financial information giant. Bloomberg is on a mission. Most famous for the financial systems terminal invented by Michael Bloomberg in the 1980s, its aim is to ‘become the indispensable source of information for the world’s most influential people’.Helping to lead that charge is Maureen McGuire, Bloomberg’s first ever chief marketing officer, tasked with reaching new markets and capitalising on data and digital opportunities.“We are already strong in the financial markets and people give us credit for being able to report in those markets,” says McGuire. Earlier this month, the media side of the Bloomberg empire launched the first in a series of multi-platform brands, Bloomberg Politics, and hired Guardian News & Media executive Adam Freeman to run media for the EMEA region.“We want to be just as important for people in a more general business sense – not just financial – reporting on companies and people that are of interest or issues in the business population and expanding the Bloomberg brand,” says McGuire.Knowing how she had helped the failing IBM turn itself around in the 1990s during a 30-year career at the company, McGuire’s former boss Abby Kohnstamm asked her to join her on a consulting project at Bloomberg in 2009.The duo designed a marketing organisation for a company that had never had one and began vetting candidates for the CMO role. After six months, Bloomberg chief executive Dan Doctoroff and chairman Peter Grauer decided that McGuire herself would be the best person for the job. But it was not an easy start. “The first day I…

This year’s BrandZ list of the 100 most valuable global brands sees Google knock the crown off long time holder Apple, Ford make a comeback after a six-year absence and combined value hit nearly $3trn. Click here to view the full list of the 100 most valuable brands. [1]The economic recovery, rising consumer confidence and sophisticated marketing techniques have helped to push up the combined value of the top 100 most valuable global brands to nearly $3trn (£1.8trn), according to this year’s BrandZ list compiled by Millward Brown. As brand values continue to rise, established players are cementing their market dominance and making it difficult for smaller brands to break through. Google[2] ’s value rise is one of the biggest – up 40 per cent this year to a breathtaking $158.8bn, overtaking Apple[3] from second place to claim the top spot for the first time since 2010. Apple is valued at $147.9bn, down 20 per cent from last year and Amazon ($64.3bn) has risen to 10th place at the expense of China Mobile ($49.9bn). There are only seven new brands in the top 100 this year, the lowest number of new entrants since the ranking began in 2006.This includes the debut of two giant tech brands: Twitter[4] comes in at number 71 with a value of $13.8bn while LinkedIn enters at 78 ($12.4bn).The brands that are most successful are gaining ‘share of life’ - they are making themselves essential to people in new ways“Brands are getting better, stronger and more focused on their consumers, so it’s becoming tougher to get into the ranking,” says global BrandZ director Peter Walshe. “The bar is continuing to rise. Brands need to connect with consumers in meaningful and different ways to be successful.”Millward Brown Optimor creates the BrandZ list by taking the financial value…