THE AUSTRALIAN BUSINESS:
WARREN Buffett says the US economy has “fallen off a cliff”, describing the crisis as “an economic Pearl Harbour”, as concern spread about the US administration’s fitful attempts to halt the collapse of the US banking sector.

The leading investor, an informal adviser to President Barack Obama, whose financial diagnoses are widely respected — although he conceded he failed to predict the severity of the crisis — said the economy had come “close to the worst case” imagined, and that recovery would be slow.

Mr Buffett, one of the wealthiest men in the world, said the entire banking sector had been hours from collapse in September, and would have imploded without the $US700billion ($1trillion) Wall Street emergency bailout.

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From Martin Lindstrom, author of Buyology:
NeuroMarketing is where science and marketing meet. Buyology bears witness to an historic meeting between neuroscientists and marketing experts, a union that sheds new light on how we make decisions about what we buy — everything from food, to cell phones, to cigarettes, to political candidates — and why.

A research discipline that’s still in its infancy, NeuroMarketing uses high–tech brain scanning techniques, such as fMRI and EEG, to investigate brain activity. This neuro–imaging hardware enables us to examine and analyze what really drives our behavior, our opinions, our preference for Corona over Budweiser, iPods over Zunes, or McDonald’s over Wendy’s.

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One of the most interesting things about electors is that they are also customers, too.

It was Professor George Gallup, one of the world’s greatest leaders of change, who discovered the power of this strategy and invented market research and the Gallup Poll at Princeton.

Both Kevin Rudd and Barack Obama are well aware of this fact and are deliberately exploiting the power of this insight in the design of their recession solutions.

Prime Minister Rudd is going to gamble 42 billion Australian dollars on this strategy and President Obama will gamble a trillion US dollars on the same strategy.

This will be one of the most remarkable experiments in the history of both governments. The world awaits with breath abated!

FORTUNE:

From tech (Larry Page) to Wall Street (Peter G. Peterson) to the military (David Petraeus) to entertainment (Tina Fey), accomplished people tell Fortune about the advice that most influenced their lives.

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Trendhunter.com: A successful rebranding campaign quickly separates marketing lightweights from heavyweights.

It’s no easy feat to mess with all of the hallmarks and associations a company has with its target market, and yet the entities in this slideshow have done so masterfully.

Fast food has taken a beating from a consumer base that is increasingly focused on health. McDonald’s and Burger King have each taken significant steps to separate their respective restaurants from the negative connotations of fast food, implementing luxurious restaurants that are every bit as aesthetically-appealing as their four-star counterparts.

Google has been the master of logo changes. The holiday logo changes that appear on Google.com have been celebrated, captured and archived by millions of Web users. Click here and check out some of the other companies that get it right …

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Trendwatching: Has there ever been more urgency for corporations to ditch the greed and embrace generosity?

It’s something that countless individuals have already started doing, of course: giving is the new taking, and sharing is the new giving.

And yes, we do realize that this month’s Trend Briefing is massive, but in this business climate, can you really afford not to spend some time figuring out how to get a little closer to your customers?

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Michael Hewitt Gleeson — On Sale!! « Speakers & Entertainers Blog
Michael Hewitt Gleeson — On Sale!! Internationally renowned speaker, Michael Hewitt Gleeson, is doing his bit to help businesses adapt and deal with the extraordinary economic times we’re experiencing. …

TIMES ONLINE: Steve Jobs, Apple’s chief executive, is likely to be suffering from a recurrent cancer tumour of the pancreas or complications relating to his earlier surgery to deal with the disease, doctors said today.

Speculation is rife about the cause of the “hormone imbalance” that he says is forcing him to take a leave of absence from his role as head of the iconic technology firm.

But doctors said today that, given the length of time Mr Jobs is planning to take off, and his own opaque description of symptoms, persistent rumours that he has experienced a recurrence of cancer or could be facing surgery to remove his pancreas were the simplest explanations for his illness.

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What does your marketing program smell like?

If you have difficulty answering that question, you need to get up to speed on the powerful impact that’s possible by activating your customers’ olfactory nerves.

(Web-only marketers won’t have to worry about this yet, but retail marketers and even those who use print media, direct mail, and the like can read on.)

When it comes to smells, Gobe thinks every brand should have one. He points out the success of firms who incorporate scent into their branding approach to build a deeper emotional bond with the consumer.

Thomas Pink, a London-based shirt seller, scents its stores with “line-dried linen.” Even individual spaces, like sections of a department store or individual displays, may get a scent boost.

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Many countries, many cultures — all celebrating a year’s worth of milestones and memories. See what sorts of topics rose to the top this year in the different corners of the world.

“Fastest rising” means we looked at the most popular searches conducted for 11 months of 2008 (we compile this list by early December) and then ranked them based on how much their popularity increased compared to 2007. “Most popular” searches are ranked in order of the queries with the largest volume of searches for 2008.