10 Great Marketing Companies

Steve Tobak is genious : sometimes he is hugely right and sometimes he is horribly wrong. But the feloow is original. The following is his piece. I am merely reproducing it.

This is my definition of marketing : It creates and promotes products (services) customers will pay for. Great marketing does it consistently better than the competition

1. Apple. Apple (AAPL) stands as the one technology company that truly gets marketing. It defines the next big thing and creates game-changers in existing markets before people themselves even know what they want. It doesn't use focus groups or research; Apple is its own focus group. It controls its channel and message better than any company on earth. Not to mention the 1984 Super Bowl, Think Different, and iPod silhouette ad campaigns.
2. Nike. Let's face it: Nike (NKE) is a sneaker business that somehow became the world's largest sports footwear and apparel company, one of the top brands in the world, and a $48 billion S&P 500 component. How? Great marketing: the swoosh logo, "word of foot" advertising, and, of course, sponsoring athletes. I don't know, I guess Nike Just Did It.
3. Geico. The road from the niche Government Employees Insurance Company to 10 million policyholders, $28 billion in assets, and one of the most widely recognized insurance brands in the world, is all about two things: Warren Buffet and marketing. Geico also has some of the best ad concepts on the planet: The Gekko, the Caveman, the little piggy, and my current favorite, the electricity-generating guinea pigs in a rowboat: "It's kind of strange. Such a simple word. Row."
4. Budweiser. There's simply no other way to explain how such a horrendously bad product -- in my sole and humble opinion and with all due respect to anyone who actually likes the stuff -- became an American institution and perhaps the most powerful and successful alcoholic beverage brand of all time.
5. FedEx. Commentators are forever saying how dumb corporate name and logo changes are. Well, they're clueless. As with anything else, name changes range from dumb to brilliant and everything in between. Adopting the viral conjunction "FedEx" allowed Federal Express (FDX) to capitalize on its leadership in express mail while diversifying into ground and other business services. It was brilliant. And its advertising has been groundbreaking, as well.
6. Southwest Airlines. By focusing on the customer, doing things the right way instead of the way they've traditionally been done, allowing its staff to have a little fun on the job, flying short-haul routes to regional airports, and becoming the first no-frills carrier, Herb Kelleher broke the airline industry mold and made deregulated air travel profitable. Southwest (LUV) broke the mold. And not only that, but hey, Bags Fly Free.
7. IBM. I never thought I'd say this, but the evidence is irrefutable. When Big Blue avoided bankruptcy by combining its hardware, software and consulting businesses to become the world's first vertically integrated IT services e-everything company, by creating a ginormous market out of thin air, IBM (IBM) became a de facto marketing company and an awesome one at that. After all, who doesn't want a smarter planet?
8. Adobe. Few software companies survived and thrived through Microsoft's (MSFT) predatory onslaught: IBM/Lotus, Oracle (ORCL), Apple, SAP (SAP), and Adobe (ADBE). Somehow, this relatively small company has come up with products that practically every "knowledge worker" needs to use on a daily basis. It should come as no surprise that its current marketing chief, Ann Lewnes, launched Intel's (INTC) vaunted Pentium product brand and managed the "Intel Inside" program. Also, its founders are great guys.
9. Toyota. By launching the Lexus brand, beating Mercedes and BMW at their own game, bringing "ergonomics" into our vocabulary, marketing "quiet," and making the dealership experience something more pleasurable than getting a root canal, Toyota (TM) became a great marketing company. It also popularized the luxury crossover SUV (Lexus RX), took the world by storm with the Prius hybrid, and aggressively integrated hybrid technology into many of its vehicles. The company that began life as Toyoda Automatic Loom Works in 1926 became the world's top automobile maker in 2010.
10. Samsung. The Korean company has slowly and steadily grown to become a premier consumer electronics brand. It used to have annual strategy sessions where all its top executives got to spend time with the best competitive products they were up against from the likes of Sony (SNE), Nokia (NOK), Panasonic (PC), and Apple. I don't know if it still does that, but from day one, Samsung eschewed the traditional technology-driven Asian model in favor of becoming a market-driven and market-leading company.