Latest BRANDING articles

The Chinese Multinational Brand: A Long Road to Rome

No Chinese consumer brand is ready go head-to-head against Western counterparts on the latter’s home turf, despite Lining’s open a new store in Singapore. This is true in every category, from autos to alcohol and pharmaceuticals to hotels, although some non-consumer brands (e.g., Huawei electrical components) have made significant in-roads and will continue to.

That said, many Chinese brands are making progress in emerging markets such as India, Africa and South America.

Email Etiquette for Creative Directors

For some reason creative directors have a habit, a bad habit, of not responding to emails. I’m not a creative director but I do run a company and I know tons of creative directors, many of them which run worldwide shops and I can vouch for them in the fact that they get many emails, too many emails, including hundreds from everything from photographers, filmmakers, producers, [...]

Crazy World Of Green Brands

I read an interesting anecdote the other day. The author (Joel Makower, one of the bright lights in the world of corporate green) noted that if you did a google search on the phrase ‘easy being green’, you’d post approximately 1.5 million results. To put that in context, if you searched ‘ ‘til death [...]

The Church of Branding

Some time last year I began considering about the similarities between branding loyalty and belonging to a church after an interesting conversation with Rick Poyner, the design critic and founder of Eye Magazine, who said
“Religion is now just another lifestyle option fighting for survival with all the other brands in the chaos of the marketplace.”
After [...]

Google: $ Billion Brand in Peril?

The names ‘aspirin’, ‘escalator’ and ‘windsurfer’ were once proprietary brand names, but each one lost its trademark protection because the name drifted into general usage and became generic. Is Google headed the same way?
When my wife asked me if Google could lose its trademark because it seemed to be becoming generic, I said I would [...]

Awaiting A ‘rhythmic Resurrection’ In Advertising

Advertising jingles are the ‘rhythm method’ of advertising. Done well, they add impact. So why are they out of fashion? Is this condition terminal or are we overdue for a ‘rhythmic resurrection’?
Like ‘The Da Vinci Code’, the ad jingle communicates ‘in camouflage’ imparting information indirectly. They both communicate in a [...]

Customers Are Color Blind

In today’s e-commerce age, where everyone is forced to type and to remember names with absolutely correct spellings, companies with big branding campaigns only hurt themselves with their old-fashioned, painted, colorful advice. They must all reconverge and regroup and realign their thinking to cope with today’s name-driven economy.
Contrary to branding beliefs, customers don’t really care [...]

The Black Hole Of Corporate Branding

Is this the dawning of the age of branding or just another black hole? Learn and teach new standards, lead and spread the new knowledge in your organization, break the old methods. The sooner you come out of the bondage of the old fashioned marketing and branding campaigns, the sooner you will see a new [...]

‘bonding’ Slogan To Brand

For a slogan to work, it has to be bonded to the brand. No superglue exists. If you must change slogans, here’s how wording can help.
A survey of top USA companies reveals that for the majority of slogans, less than 10% of people can identify which brand goes with which slogan.1 It is a timely [...]

MY STAY AT DAVID OGILVY’S CASTLE - PART 2

Earlier I told you that each meal was uniquely created, then presented in a unique setting. I take that back. Thankfully breakfast was in the same spot the 3 mornings we were at Touffou. On the first day, I misread the directions and nearly missed breakfast, having thoroughly lost myself within the labyrinth that was Touffou’s principle building. While we were welcome to explore, Madame did require her privacy. To keep us marketing tourists from photographing her boudoir, she sensibly had certain sections of the castle locked from our access. So she was surprised to see me emerge from a door that was only as tall as my chest, while she was discussing root vegetables with the gardener.