1. Maria Sharapova changes her name to Maria SugarpovaTennis player Maria Sharapova recently opened her new confectionary company – selling ‘candy’ in the USA. The company’s name is Sugarpova and the marketing team have already come up with a high profile campaign to promote the brand.

During this year’s US Open tennis tournament, Maria will change her surname to Sugarpova, meaning that during introductions, addresses and match announcements she will be referred to as Maria Sugarpova.  She will also have the company’s logo – bright red lips – embroidered onto her kit during the matches.

Surprisingly, this is not the first time a sports star has changed their name for marketing. In 2005 snooker player Jimmy White changed his name to James Brown – in return for a sponsorship from HP.

2. Why IT and marketing need to collaborate

Marketing and IT departments aren’t typically perceived as being intertwined, but as technology develops, fuelling the creation of new marketing channels in the process, it is becoming increasingly important for these two departments to work closely together to make the most of these new opportunities. Whilst many perceive the role of Marketing to be largely creative, the rise of digital channels and CRM systems, to name but two areas, is resulting in marketers requiring ever more sophisticated IT systems to process, analyse and manage data like never before.

IT departments are not best placed to decide what data needs to be captured, stored and processed usefully and requires Marketing’s direction to help develop the necessary systems and processes. The phenomenal and rapid rise to prominence of digital media has meant that many businesses and marketing departments are struggling to keep up with the sheer volume of information available for capture and this is where a close relationship with IT can really come into its own.

We have found this interesting article about how and why we need to bridge the gap between IT and Marketing. To read more click here.

3. Only 31 of the top 100 brands are on Tumblr

The name Tumblr comes from the word ‘tumblelogs’, which means ‘short-form blogs’. Founder of Tumblr, David Karp, introduced the tumblelogging platform in 2007 and within two weeks Tumblr had gained 75,000 users.

In early June 2012, Tumblr launched its first major brand advertising campaign in conjunction with Adidas and since then many different brands from all over the world use Tumblr. Big brands such as Land Rover, Coca-Cola, Vans, Barbie and Disney Pixar use Tumblr well, promoting their brand and new products, as well as engaging with their customers. However, only 31 of Interbrand’s top 100 global brands have accounts on Tumblr at all, when 100% of them have Twitter and Facebook accounts.

Have a look at this article we found from Mashable with illustrates all the different statistics about brands using Tumblr.