1) Don't stop advertising because economy is sluggish - increase it, as many of your competitors are foolishly slowing down and you can grab market share! Look at what Dell has done to Gateway in last eighteen months – Gateway has lost 10-20% of their market share and are pulling in their horns, while Dell's slice of pie has grown bigger.

2) Negotiate aggressively with media sources – its tough right now for online and offline publishers to generate advertising revenue and they are being forced to consider any and all deals. Note number of "house ads" being run by major portals like Yahoo and Internet.com, 20-30% of their banner ads or sponsorship buttons are promoting their own businesses.

3) It's no secret that many ecommerce sites look like Amazon.com – it pays to mirror existing market leaders' web site design. People always resist change and familiarity is one of key reasons why they shop on and offline in same stores.

4) Niche marketing has almost become a homily – but it enables your company to leverage your marketing expenditures and R&D costs by concentrating on a narrow market segment. ToolLogic, Inc. (www.toollogic.com) is a wonderful example of a company that created/found a niche and then dominated it.

Let's, just for fun, say product was from Switzerland. Now, what would your impression of this product be? I bet, even now, as part of this hypothetical situation I'm posing, be able to tell me something mystery product's likely price level, its probable quality and reputation it most likely enjoyed. Such assumptions would be inspired by preconceptions you, as a consumer, hold about country in question. Country branding means much more than adhering a "Made in XXX" label to a product. Origin constitutes an important piece of branding which, in many cases, can be so influential that it overtakes brand's other reputation builders.

If I were to tell you that next supercar were to come from Germany, you probably wouldn't be surprised. You would probably be immediately curious about it, expecting fictional vehicle to be of high engineering and design quality, expensive and solid. Now imagine I did surprise you by revealing that forthcoming supercar was actually to be a product of Greece. Your impressions of likely product would be totally changed, your assumptions inspired by apparent personality country of origin communicates to your perceptions.