Building Brands Through Community

Brian Morrissey over at Ad Week wrote a great article on “Building Brand Through Community.”  In it he talks about how companies like Zappos, Yelp, and Etsy have built their brands through the power of their users instead of relying on massive advertising spends.  What makes the article so informative is that Morrissey talks as someone [...]

Commit to a Personal Leadership Philosophy

When you are promoted to Brand Manager at P&G, one of the first things you do is head off to a week long Brand Manager College.  At mine I received The Leader’s Compass, a book that talks about writing your Personal Leadership Philosophy (PLP).  A PLP is a written statement of ”what you believe in”, or as the title [...]

Weekly Round-Up: 5-2-2008

Busy week and slow posting but here are some blog postings that caught my eye:

What is digital and what is traditional?: The lines are forever blurring.  Digital will soon be everything and everywhere.
Is your brand sticky or slippery?: I have been meaning to point out this post for a while.  Too many brands focus on being [...]

Which companies have the right to be VC’s?

Lately there has been some good discussions about other companies acting like Venture Capitalists, especially ad agencies.  Personally I have major concerns if an agency starts acting like a VC, especially if they are investing in New Media companies.  The potential for conflicts of interest are huge.  First, theses agencies need to be media-neutral.  I [...]

Jaffe thinks the creative function should fade away?

“Why don’t you all just fade away.” - Rex Manning, Empire Records
 I couldn’t help but think of this quote from my favorite movie when I finished reading Joseph Jaffe’s latest blog post on “Is it time to phase out the creative function“.  In one of the more provocative posts I have read in a long [...]

TAG Records might just be the answer the music industry is looking for

Yesterday saw a major announcement from TAG Body Spray (owned by P&G) and Island Def Records to start a new joint record label called TAG Records.  On their website (hosted on MySpace), the deal is described as follows:
Two titans in the industry, Jermaine Dupri and Island Def Jam Records, have partnered with TAG Body Spray to [...]

Can a brand be built by accident?

Greg Verdino has a great summary of a new book called Accidental Branding.  Based on his review, the book sounds like a must read with insight from the founders of Craigslist, Baby Einstein and Clif Bar.  All of these companies have built amazing brands without relying on the traditional “branding rules” employed by major industry [...]

If it looks like a Brand Manager and talks like a Brand Manager, that doesn’t mean it’s a Marketer.

One of the biggest misinterpretations of brand management is that being a Brand Manager and being a Marketer are one and the same.  The simple fact is they can be very different.  You can be a stellar marketer, but not a great Brand Manager.  Likewise you can be an amazing Brand Manager, but not a [...]

Being like Dad isn’t a bad thing

I’ve been a huge fan of the new Canadian Club campaign ever since it broke a few months ago.  According to the latest article from AdAge, it appears I’m not the only one.  The campaign, under the tagline of “Damn Right Your Dad Drank It” has helped Canadian Club reverse one of the longest declines [...]

Microsoft makes things right

So apparently I am little slow on picking this up, but I heard about the story of Nathaniel, a passionate Xbox gamer who suffered a serious loss when he sent his Xbox 360 into Microsoft for repair.  You can read the whole story here, including the amazing response by Bungie Studios (Makers of Halo) and [...]