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Friday, November 30, 2007
The Weekly B.S. is a digest of thought-provoking reports addressing brands and B.S., otherwise known as brand strategy.
The key to any effective branding effort is to change and take ownership of the conversation. You are invited to this conversation of brands and the stories they tell.
This week’s B.S.:
From Harvard Business School Working Knowledge - Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA
B2B Branding: Does it Work?
Many business-to-business (B2B) CEOs view marketing as the domain of consumer goods brands. They are wrong. Among the 10 most valuable global brands, we find Microsoft, Intel, IBM, and GE. All generate far more B2B revenues than sales to end consumers.
From TrendWatching.com - Amsterdam, The Netherlands
8 Trends to Capitalize On In 2008
Over the last 11 months, we have highlighted trends like (STILL) MADE HERE, FEMALE FEVER, TRANSPARENCY TYRANNY, TRYSUMERS and more. No doubt 2008 will be as trend-heavy; to get you going, here are eight trends to watch and capitalize on in the new year.
From the International Herald Tribune - France
Luxury no longer means loud in Russia
The most advanced Russian consumers have started to turn to less widely known brands because, more and more, luxury means having goods that distinguish you from others and not being able to immediately decipher what you are wearing.
From AdAge.com - York, Pennsylvania, USA
Survey Shows How Men and Women Approach Shopping Differently
This just in: Men and women shop differently. Shopping for a big-screen TV is an exciting process for men, who definitely find it easier than shopping for groceries or shoes. For women, it’s stress-inducing and requires careful consideration and research.
From Gulf Daily News - Manama, Bahrain
Middle East firms to develop branding
Middle East firms are expected to develop their product branding in a push to go global. Branding of local products is expected to take off as the region makes its late arrival to the same level of globalisation that the rest of the world has been enjoying
From The Wall Street Journal - USA
Extreme Makeover
Entrepreneurs have shied away from rebranding their companies. But as competition rises and costs fall, that’s starting to change.
From Seth Godin’s Blog - USA
The caricature of your brand
The best brands are caricatures of their true selves.
From The Wall Street Journal - USA
Where E-Commerce Meets Chat, Social Retailing Gains Traction
As more consumers turn to “social-shopping” sites, advertisers from Nike to American Express are targeting them with new holiday ad campaigns. There are potential risks for both the advertisers and the sites, which are still new and have yet to be fully tested. Transparency is one potential stumbling block.
From ReflectivePundit.com - USA
Marketing the American Brand: The Limits of Public Diplomacy
Just like advertising executive Charlotte Beers and former ambassador Margaret Tutweiler before her, Hughes failed to replace the image of “the ugly American” with a positive brand.
Whisper is an international brand consultancy based in the United States, Europe and Asia. Contact us to learn more of how to own the conversation® among audiences you seek to attract and influence.
[More posts about The Weekly B.S. | More posts about Brand Strategy | More posts about Brand Narrative | More posts about Own The Conversation® Strategy | More blogs about Brand Strategy]
How should any organization own the conversation about itself or its product? By paying attention to what people say about you.
One method is to understand and tap into the use of social media.
Social media can be a valuable research tool. For example, organizations can go online for real time conversation and feedback through social networking Web sites.
A report in the Chicago Tribune discusses the opportunity:
For consumers, social media “gives them an opportunity to tell us exactly what they want and what’s important to them in an uninhibited environment,” Andy Markowitz, Kraft’s director of digital media, said in an e-mail.
It also offers consumers the opportunity to tell you what is wrong—inauthentic, irrelevant, unengaging, and highly forgettable—about your product. In today’s environment, social media creates a greater accountability for organizations and their brands than ever before. Again, from the Tribune:
Deborah Schultz, who consults on social media strategies for Procter & Gamble, calls the emerging social practice “conversational marketing.”
While we appreciate the likely unintended reference to our trademark, this own the conversation strategy offers a range of benefits. For the responsible organization, blogs, social networks, and other forms of social media can be made to work for you if your organization understands the benefits of transparency. To be successful at it requires a greater emphasis on finding your brand, truly understanding it, and delivering on your promise every day.
In tapping into social media, be prepared. As with most any effort to build human connection:
“Relationships take time, and they are messy. There is a give and take, and companies have to realize it can take a long time.”
Read more in the Chicago Tribune.
Conversation, the painting shown above, is the work of British artist Barnaby Menage. You may see other works of the artist at this online gallery.
[More posts about Online Brand Strategy | More posts about Social Media | More posts about Own The Conversation® Strategy | More posts about Brand Promise | More posts about Brand Strategy | More posts about Brand Research | More posts about Social Media Strategy | More posts about Pop Culture | More posts about Brand Opportunities | More blogs about Online Brand Strategy]
To understand why the vast majority of cities fail to find their brands, understand the experience of Atlanta.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports on the latest attempt to find the brand:
Bye-bye “Everyday is an opening day.” Hello “City Lights, Southern Nights.”
Brand Atlanta, the group formed two years ago to help the city define its image, is switching from the use of slogans to sell the city to the use of themes aimed at specific demographics, Executive Director Melinda Ennis-Roughton said Thursday.
For instance, when the campaign rolls out its newest ads aimed at professionals ages 25-44 this January, the organization will use “City Lights, Southern Nights” — one of 16 tested themes — to emphasize Atlanta’s reputation as a youthful and energetic city, with great restaurants, shopping and nightlife, said Ennis-Roughton.
Whether characterized as theme or slogan — for Atlanta a distinction without a difference — neither City Lights, Southern Nights nor its predecessor, Every day is an opening day, offer the raison d’etre in support of a unique place.
In combining the names of an iconic bookstore and porn video shop to create a “theme,” Atlanta brings into sharp relief the myopia ailing far too many city tourism decision makers.
Atlanta’s myopia is revealed in the multiple messages offered by a phrase such as City Lights, Southern Nights, for example: (1) we have electricity, (2) night occurs here, (3) ignore us during daylight, (4) our insecurity prompts a reminder that we are a town of significance, (5) don’t bring the kids, and (6) rather than project confidence in our status as a world city, think of us as within a comparatively small geographic region.
City Lights, Southern Nights offers nothing uniquely ownable, when ownable is the point in building an effective destination brand. Instead Atlanta’s “theme” equally applies to any number of tourism destinations, such as Charleston (another city in the American South with electricity), or Rio de Janeiro (cities in the Southern Hemisphere also have electricity).
Brand Atlanta’s Executive Director further illustrates the lack of good critical thinking in support of Atlanta’s brand with this gem:
It’s New York with Southern manners and charm,” she said.
Reminds us of another city that devalued it’s brand by ridiculously positioning itself in relation to New York City, blowing any hope the expression of this city brand would be accepted as authentic. When their brand was introduced, the Mayor of Wichita, Kansas said the campaign would position Wichita as the “NYC of Kansas — without the high prices.”
Instead, Atlanta would have benefitted by refocusing their efforts based on these insights.
There is more to the story of the Brand Atlanta trainwreck, again as offered by the organization’s ED:
She said Brand Atlanta will reach its audience through the Internet, cable and magazines. For instance, to get the 25- to 44-year-old traveler, the plan is to advertise on Web sites such as Orbitz.com, Wikipedia.com and travel magazines, instead of using billboards and network television.
The difficulty with such a strategy? Wikipedia.com does not accept advertising.
[More posts about Brand Differentiation | More posts about Brand Positioning | More posts about Brand Promise | More posts about Destination Branding | More posts about Place Branding | More posts about Location Branding | More posts about Atlanta Brand Image | More posts about Atlanta Tourism | More posts about Brand Opportunity | More blogs about Destination Branding]
A fashion brand springs literally out of nowhere on track to register $100 million in sales this year. And, they did it without advertising. Impossible? Not at all, in the latest example of brand building without advertising in a report from the New York Times:
[L]ife is…good for Bert Jacobs…[and] his brother John…
From a single childlike drawing of a character they named Jake and their uplifting three-word slogan [the original is shown to the right], the brothers have developed a fashion brand sold in 4,500 independent retail outlets in the United States and 27 other countries…
Life is good, which rations its use of capital letters, offers one more example of a small company creating a big brand. Though most consumers associate great brands with marketing giants like Procter & Gamble, General Motors, Apple and Nike, the ability to build a powerful brand is no longer reserved for the big spenders. Small companies with great ideas and well-planned strategies — Kryptonite bicycle locks, Stonyfield Farm yogurt, Zipcar — have spawned prominent brands.
“A big brand comes from big insights about culture and consumers and what it is that they need,” said Susan Fournier, a brand expert and associate professor of marketing at the School of Management at Boston University. “To me, that has nothing to do with big budgets.”
Exactly. Building a brand into a successful business does not require the budget of a Fortune 500. If it did, of course, a Fortune 500 brand such as General Motors—with an annual advertising budget that in years past was $2.5 billion—would be assured lasting success.
The Life is good story is another example of how a cost effective brand strategy trumps an expensive advertising strategy, each and every time.
How did Life is good create an own the conversation strategy? By differentiating their brand through emotion:
“Life is good tapped into an emotional ethos that struck a chord with where the culture was at a certain point in time. That is not done by a marketing budget but by their customers who become evangelists and give the brand visibility and credibility.”
From the beginning, Life is good shunned advertising:
The Jacobs brothers considered a consumer advertising campaign several years ago but decided to wait until growth slowed to start it. Growth has never slowed. Instead of advertising, the company spends its money on charitable fund-raising festivals for children’s causes.
Read more about Jake and his dog Rocket in another brand success story at this link, and this one.
[More posts about Life is good | More posts about Life is good Brand Image | More posts about Branding Without Advertising | More posts about Growing A Business Without Advertising | More posts about Emotional Branding | More posts about Brand Strategy | More posts about Own The Conversation® Strategy | More posts about Fashion Branding | More posts about Apparel Branding | More posts about Brand Success Stories | More blogs about Branding Without Advertising]
The word brand has been defined here previously. When we find variations on this theme from others, we share them on these pages.
Such is the case in a column appearing recently in Brandweek, also offering a definition of brand:
A brand is a promise. A business’s pledge to the world that it will do a series of things and do them very well.
Read more about this definition and the excellent examples discussed by the author at this link.
[More posts about Brand Definitions | More posts about Brand Promise | More posts about Laws Of Branding | More posts about Brand Strategy | More blogs about Brand Definitions]
Yesterday a reader under perhaps the apt moniker, Angermann, posted this comment to our column discussing the differences between branding and advertising:
“Branding is just advertising re-branded. All of the elements and fundamentals are exactly the same…”
While we discuss this topic often on these pages, we want to know what you think.
Whether you agree with Angermann or take a different view, accept this invitation to pull out your keyboard and engage this audience with your valuable comments.
[More posts about Branding Without Advertising | More posts about Branding vs Advertising | More posts about Brand Strategy | More blogs about Branding Without Advertising]
For an example of a mass market restaurant brand created without television advertising, look no further than Chipotle Mexican Grill. Here’s the story of the strategy behind the growth of the brand:
Look at enough billboards for Chipotle Mexican Grill Inc., and you’ll detect an omission: They never show a bare burrito.
Instead, Chipotle displays its signature item enclosed in foil. “You can never make the perfect burrito for someone,” explains William Espey, the company’s creative-services manager. “If you keep it wrapped, it’s their perfect burrito.”
Chipotle Mexican Grill has arguably become the country’s most successful fast-food chain in recent years by rejecting almost every major technique on which the industry was built. Not only does it not show the product, it doesn’t advertise on television. It doesn’t franchise. It has some of the highest ingredient costs in the industry. And its executives aren’t especially concerned that customers wait as long as 10 minutes in lines that routinely stretch out the door.
Nonetheless, Chipotle’s shares have more than doubled in the past year, making it the best-performing publicly held U.S. restaurant chain…
The chain still relies heavily on giveaways instead of traditional ads.
Read more about the success of Chipotle at this link in The Wall Street Journal.
[More posts about Chipotle Mexican Grill | More posts about Branding Without Advertising | More posts about Brand Strategy | More posts about Food Service Branding | More posts about Restaurant Branding | More blogs about Brand Personality]
Friday, November 23, 2007
The Weekly B.S. is a digest of thought-provoking reports addressing brands and B.S., otherwise known as brand strategy.
The key to any effective branding effort is to change and take ownership of the conversation. You are invited to this conversation of brands and the stories they tell.
This week’s B.S.:
From AdAge.com - USA
Too Many Have Forgotten How to Play the Name Game: For Brands (and Agencies), the Moniker Does Matter
This week, Publicis’ shops Starcom, Leo Burnett and Digitas announced they were collaborating on a new agency that will go by the name … Insight Factory. Sounds sort of familiar? Maybe you live in the U.K., where there’s a company called The Insight Factory. Or maybe you’re getting it confused with The Idea Factory in Pollock Pines, Calif., or maybe you’re thinking of The Idea Factory from Singapore, which also has an office in San Francisco, Calif.. And then there’s Idea City, GSD&M’s new venture, which is not to be confused with Idea City (a Canadian conference) or The Idea Conference, an Ad Age event that took place last Thursday.
From the Washington Post - USA
Slicing and Dicing a Newspaper
The reinvention of the San Jose Mercury News began with an undercover operation. More than 100 staffers fanned out to places like a nearby Starbucks, asking people what they thought of the paper, disclosing only that they worked for a local media company. Now they are cooking up plans for a smaller, radically different product.
From The Wall Street Journal - USA
Disney Reaches to the Crib To Extend Princess Magic
At the recently opened Bibbidi Bobbidi Boutique at Cinderella’s castle in Walt Disney World, hordes of young girls in ball gowns jostle every day to get their hair coiffed, their nails painted and their faces plastered with make-up to imitate their favorite princess. It’s an image that’s become classic of the Walt Disney Co. Princess revolution.
From Simon Anholt
Brand Kenya Fails - Why?
When are people going to learn that building a better profile and image for a country has little or nothing to do with advertising? Countries can’t simply buy their way into a positive ‘brand image’ - especially if, like most African countries, their current image is very negative or very weak.
From Bernama.com - Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
Malaysia Urges Companies To Beef Up Branding Efforts
Malaysia’s Deputy Prime Minister urged companies to step up their branding efforts as studies show that they account for more than one third of their business value.
From The Wall Street Journal - USA
TV Campaign Is Culture Shift For Starbucks
With more than 10,000 U.S. stores, and products in shops around the globe, Starbucks Corp. has built one of the world’s best-known brands. Now, for the first time, it’s rolling that brand out on national TV. The decision is a cultural turnabout for the coffee giant, which built itself into a global chain by harnessing word-of-mouth buzz. Starbucks’s chairman, Howard Schultz, wrote a decade ago: “[B]y its very nature, national advertising fuels fears about ubiquity.”
From The Wall Street Journal - USA
Chrysler Considers Slashing Number of Car Dealers
Chrysler is considering massive branding changes that would further simplify its product portfolio while helping cut as many as 1,000 dealers.
From Financial Times/FT.com - USA
Volvo in plan to take brand upmarket
Volvo plans to push its brand further upmarket and may begin producing cars in the US within a decade as part of a strategy to boost productivity and restore profitability.
From ArabianBusiness.com - Dubai, Umm al Qaiwain, United Arab Emirates
The perfect brand
What do great brands have in common? They have a story, longevity, uniqueness, emotions, ubiquity. Unfortunately there are no top 100 brands from the Middle East. For many Middle Eastern companies, branding comes at a later stage of their development strategies. “If you go and ask the owners and chairmen of regional businesses what their most important assets are, many will say ‘our factories’ - but this is not the way to advertise.”
Whisper is an international brand consultancy based in the United States, Europe and Asia. Contact us to learn more of how to own the conversation® among audiences you seek to attract and influence.
[More posts about Brand Naming | More posts about The Weekly B.S. | More posts about Brand Strategy | More posts about Brand Narrative | More posts about Own The Conversation® Strategy | More blogs about Brand Strategy]
When attempting to unite a series of brands within a single message, an umbrella brand strategy is one way to get your consumer, audience, or constituency to make you their first choice.
An umbrella brand is a high altitude articulation of difference and benefits with several sub-conversations captured beneath. It unites a series of sub-brands with one voice, leaving room for each sub-brand to engage in sub-conversations relevant to more precisely targeted markets, through use of different products, communication channels, and promotional means.
As with all effective brand strategy, umbrella brands require a single message, an expression of a common sense benefit grounded in human emotion opening the way to own the conversation within a business category.
Umbrella brands abound in business; examples include Virgin, Kellogg’s, Apple, and location brands such as Japan, Manitoba, and St. Louis.
For example, an umbrella brand strategy will assist a nonprofit organization seeking to unite diverse local affiliate needs with a national headquarters operation, by allowing room for each affiliate to share a national brand promise while demonstrating brand relevancy to their own local markets.
Picture your nonprofit [or for-profit] organization communicating a clear, emotionally-engaging message, elevating the organization into the national consciousness. You could extend your benefits delivery, increase your resource base, and further your market penetration. Ask us about how we can help you turn this vision into a reality.
[More posts about Brand Promise | More posts about Brand Relevance | More posts about Umbrella Brand Strategy | More posts about Nonprofit Organization Branding | More posts about Umbrella Branding | More blogs about Umbrella Brand Strategy]
Former Unilever CEO, now Chairman of Reuters, Niall FitzGerald, says the poorest consumers are the most brand loyal. In a speech delivered during the Business in Africa symposium at CASS Business School in London, he offered these comments:
Unilever has invested hundreds of millions of dollars in Africa. Why? For the same reason it is investing in Europe, Asia, Latin America and North America: to do business, grow and make money.
The poorest consumers are the most brand-loyal consumers. They cannot afford to make a mistake with meagre incomes. There is no second choice. If your brand earns trust, it will be rewarded with fierce loyalty. You enter a real contract with your consumer. Deliver for them and they will stick with you.
Tell us what you think.
You can read more about Mr. FitzGerald’s comments and their context in this report from The Times.
[More posts about Brand Management | More posts about Brand Opportunity | More posts about Brand Strategy | More posts about Africa Consumer Brands | More posts about Africa Brand Image | More blogs about Brand Strategy]
Friday, November 16, 2007
The Weekly B.S. is a digest of thought-provoking reports addressing brands and B.S., otherwise known as brand strategy.
The key to any effective branding effort is to change and take ownership of the conversation. You are invited to this conversation of brands and the stories they tell.
This week’s B.S.:
From The Wall Street Journal - USA
A Damaged Brand
Founded in 1930, the Vietnamese Communist Party is struggling with its identity — and role. Take the current debate over whether to change the party’s name. This rebranding exercise stems from a recognition that the communist label is anachronistic, and reflects poorly on officials who travel abroad to pitch trade and investment.
From The Wall Street Journal - Los Angeles, USA
In West L.A., A Homeless Man Inspires New Brand
The newest sensation at the center of Hollywood’s fashion scene isn’t a famous designer or starlet. It’s a 56-year-old homeless man who spends his days dancing on roller skates. John Wesley Jermyn has been a fixture in West Los Angeles for more than 20 years. Nicknamed “The Crazy Robertson” and “The Robertson Dancer,” he is a constant presence on a stretch of Robertson Boulevard that has become the city’s trendiest shopping corridor and a prime strolling spot for tourists and movie stars. In a plot twist worthy of Tinseltown, Mr. Jermyn now has a clothing label named after him.
From the International Herald Tribune - Seattle, USA
Starbucks feels the pinch
With its affluent customer base and uncanny knack for drawing crowds, Starbucks has long seemed immune from the slowdowns that plague most retailers when the economy falters. But the king of the $4 coffee is feeling the pinch now.
From Newsweek - New York, USA
Setting a New Course
Garmin is a leader in consumer GPS technology. But it now faces plummeting prices and competition from cell phones. Can the company find its way? “That’s a key question for us,” says Chief Financial Officer Kevin Rauckman. “Can we continue to be a premium brand?”
From The Times - Johannesburg, South Africa
New logo devoid of inspiration
After 40 years of a stagnant brand, Pick ’n Pay says its customers have inspired it to keep things moving and it has invested R110-million in a complete overhaul on its branding and packaging. But a marketing specialist says he would not have paid more than R5000 for the new Pick ’n Pay logo.
From the New York Times - Casa Grande, Arizona, USA
In Eco-Friendly Factory, Low-Guilt Potato Chips
At Frito-Lay’s factory here, more than 500,000 pounds of potatoes arrive every day from New Mexico to be washed, sliced, fried, seasoned and portioned into bags of Lay’s and Ruffles chips. The process devours enormous amounts of energy, and creates vast amounts of wastewater, starch and potato peelings. Now, Frito-Lay is embarking on an ambitious plan to change the way this factory operates, and in the process, create a new type of snack: the environmentally benign chip.
From Sunday Herald - Glasgow, Scotland, UK
Must-have message is the secret of Apple’s success
Concentrated not on what they were to trying to sell, but who they were trying to sell it to.
From AdAge.com - New York, USA
What Wal-Mart Savings Claim Doesn’t Tell You
Consumers aren’t buying Wal-Mart’s new “Save Money. Live Better” campaign, according to a survey to be released today by Wal-Mart Watch, which found that only 4% of people believe that Wal-Mart saves the average family $2,500 annually.
From Executive Magazine - København, Denmark
The Knot: Word-of-mouth marketing phenomenon
We came out with a brand that was so offbeat — calling it The Knot. People have a strong affinity to the brand. They feel like they belong there. Part of it is simply the name. It sounds like a secret club that you have to tell other people about.
From Council on Foreign Relations - New York, USA
The ‘Nation Brand’ Marketplace
“Nation branding” has established itself as a hip new field, both in academia and consulting.
From CNNMoney.com - USA
Dove Provides Reality Check on Beauty, Boys and Body Image
The Dove Campaign for Real Beauty is a global effort that is intended to serve as a starting point for societal change and act as a catalyst for widening the definition and discussion of beauty. The campaign was created in 2004 after the brand commissioned a global study that found that only two percent of women around the world describe themselves as beautiful.
From the New York Times - USA
‘Seaweed’ Clothing Has None, Tests Show
Lululemon Athletica has been a standout performer on Wall Street since it went public in July, thanks to the popularity of its costly yoga and other workout clothes, which are made with unusual materials, including bamboo, silver, charcoal, coconut and soybeans. One of its lines is called VitaSea, and the company says it is made with seaweed. The fabric, according to product tags, “releases marine amino acids, minerals and vitamins into the skin upon contact with moisture.” There is one problem with its VitaSea claims, however. Some of them may not be true.
Whisper is an international brand consultancy based in the United States, Europe and Asia. Contact us to learn more of how to own the conversation® among audiences you seek to attract and influence.
Conversation, the painting shown above, is the work of Dutch artist Piet Noest. Since 1981 a resident of Australia, his work is available through Galeria Aniela.
[More posts about Brand Naming | More posts about The Weekly B.S. | More posts about Brand Strategy | More posts about Brand Narrative | More posts about Own The Conversation® Strategy | More blogs about Brand Strategy]
The Los Angeles Times reports on the success of Alibaba:
Alibaba.com was founded in June 1999 by Jack Ma, who saw an opportunity to play matchmaker for small and medium-size Chinese manufacturers, which lacked access to global markets for products as varied as bamboo toothpicks, bath towels and machine tools. Likewise, international buyers interested in goods from manufacturers in China lacked the communications channels to find them.
Ma established two websites to address those markets: one in English to facilitate international trades (alibaba.com) and one in simplified Chinese for domestic business (china.alibaba.com), from which the company derives more than 70% of its revenue.
Alibaba.com Ltd. shares began trading on the Hong Kong exchange Tuesday and tripled in value by end of the day.
There is, however, an interesting backstory to Alibaba, and that is how the company acquired its name. Our sister naming group, Igor, offers the story on the brand name, Alibaba.
[More posts about Brand Naming | More posts about Brand Positioning | More posts about Brand Narrative | More posts about Brand Strategy | More posts about Branding Companies | More posts about Branding Technology | More posts about China Brands | More posts about Alibaba Brand Image | More blogs about Brand Naming]
Friday, November 9, 2007
The Weekly B.S. is a digest of thought-provoking reports addressing brands and further B.S., otherwise known as brand strategy.
The key to any effective branding effort is to change and take ownership of the conversation. You are invited to this conversation of brands and the stories they tell.
This week’s B.S.:
From CNET News.com - San Francisco, California, USA
Bad branding infects tech
Last week, I explained why high tech isn’t known for its stellar marketing. Well, if you’ll permit me to continue to throw stones from the comfort of my glass house, I’d say its branding isn’t worth a damn, either.
From AdAge.com - New York, USA
Facebook’s Big Ad Plan: If Users Like You, They’ll Be Your Campaign
Sharing in the brand engagement…the idea is that communication moves not from the brand to the consumer but from the consumer to his or her friends and family.
From Russia Journal - Moscow, Russia; and International Relations and Security Network - Zurich, Switzerland
The Rebranding of Russia
How is Russia being rebranded? In a February 2006 speech, Vladislav Surkov, Putin’s deputy chief of staff and main ideologist, laid out much of the vision.
From brandsizzle - Atlanta, Georgia, USA
The Bounty Hunter’s Troubles and What He Confirms about Brand Essence
The mistake that Duane ‘Dog’ Chapman made was thinking he could maintain the dissonance between the brand manifestation and brand essence. But that balancing act was doomed to fail because the essence is the heart and soul of the brand, and it can’t be faked forever.
From AdAge.com - New York, USA
Microsoft Changes Its Marketing Tune for Lackluster Zune
Outgunned 8-to-1 in share by the unstoppable iPod, Microsoft is overturning its marketing strategy for Zune — and will rely more on traditional media to go after the white blight. Microsoft is shifting Zune’s branding focus away from sharing. Good luck.
From International Herald Tribune - France
The risks of playing with a brand’s ‘look’
Why do so many companies risk destroying their design heritage - one of their most valuable assets? Would it make commercial sense for Vogue to change its title typeface? For Tiffany to pick a new color for its bags and boxes? For the Four Seasons Restaurant in Manhattan to jettison its Philip Johnson interior? Or for Michelin to dump Monsieur Bibendum? Of course not, yet Morgans has done just that at the Royalton by destroying one of the most famous foyers in hotel history.
From Calcutta Telegraph - Calcutta, India
FADING OF A PIONEER - Hindustan Lever Ltd is unlikely to regain its old iconic status
In 1888, Lever Brothers, England exported the first crates of Sunlight soap bars to India, followed by other now famous brands — Lifebuoy, Pears, Lux and Vim. Hindustan Vanaspati Manufacturing Company set up in 1931 was the first Lever Company in India, followed by a soap company, Lever Brothers, and a toilet (skin) preparations company, United Traders Limited. They merged to form Hindustan Lever Ltd in 1956.
From Bangkok Post - Thailand
Building a rice brand
A few Thai brands have become well recognised in foreign countries, among them the energy drink Red Bull, Singha and Chang beers. Unfortunately, Thai rice brands have a much lower profile, even though the country has been the world’s biggest rice exporter for many decades.
From Toronto Star - Ontario, Canada
Store soundtracks music to shoppers’ ears
It’s a powerful way to forge another level of branding the shopper can relate to.
From The Kansas City Star - USA
For universities, names are a serious game
Across the country, higher education institutions are shedding provincial labels to enhance their image and better compete for top students and faculty and donor dollars.
Whisper is an international brand consultancy based in the United States, Europe and Asia. Contact us to learn more of how to own the conversation® among audiences you seek to attract and influence.
Conversation, the painting shown above, is the work of Dutch artist Piet Noest. Since 1981 a resident of Australia, his work is available through Galeria Aniela.
[More posts about Brand Naming | More posts about The Weekly B.S. | More posts about Brand Strategy | More posts about Brand Narrative | More posts about Own The Conversation® Strategy | More blogs about Brand Strategy]
The most effective brands demonstrate their value, knowledge and understanding of consumer wants and needs rather than explaining themselves.
An example of the difference between a demonstration and explanation comes from Eskom, a South African electricity supply public utility:
[More posts about Brand Demonstration | More posts about Brand Strategy | More posts about Eskom Brand Image | More blogs about Brand Demonstration]
A blog can be a powerful brand builder.
We brand by blog, as do others.
This story from USA Today discusses another example of an organization relying upon a brand by blog strategy, based upon this business plan:
[S]tart an online news site, fueled by blog reports from her celebrity and influential friends. And have them all work for free, in exchange for using her bully pulpit.
The blog that has become a brand? This one.
[More posts about Online Branding | More posts about Online Brand Strategy | More posts about Blog Strategy | More posts about Brand Management | More posts about Brand Opportunities | More blogs about Online Brand Strategy]
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