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Commodities
Yesterday, I was sitting in a coffee shop chatting when I ran into the most interesting issue. The woman at the table next to us was on the phone, and her conversation became a little heated. Since it was a personal call, she decided to excuse herself from the shop and finish the call outside. […]
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Brand Managers Anonymous
“My name’s Ralph, and no one knows my brand…” Unfortunately for us, there are quite a few Ralphs in the world. The problem is that they don’t have a Brand Managers Anonymous support group to attend – many are left to fend for themselves. In a market as harsh as today’s, that can be a […]
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Biscuits & Gravy
Biscuits and gravy, biscuits and gravy Get ’em all over your shirt! Biscuits and gravy, biscuits and gravy Eat ’em ’til it hurts! This is a song, well, more of a chant that we used to do at summer camp a few years ago. Every Wednesday for breakfast we would have biscuits and gravy. I […]
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Marketing to Disaster
One of my professors in business school utterly despised marketers. We were responsible, according to him, for every great disaster in business. Ironically, he ended up being one of my favorite professors in the program. Oddly enough, he might have even been right. Gas prices are higher today than any time in history. Sadly, they […]
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Logos and Avatars
Some time ago, I referred to logos as avatars. Since then, many people have asked me why a different term is necessary – isn’t “logo” descriptive enough? A logo, according to Wikipedia for one, “is a graphical element.” That’s it. A logo is just a graphic, a picture, nothing more. In reality, the “logos” we […]
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Defending the Brand
It came to my attention the other day that Louis Vuitton is seeking damages from an artist who apparently infringed on their brand in a recent campaign to raise money for Darfur through the sale of t-shirts. Instead, let’s spend a minute looking at what happened and why. An artist named Nadia wanted to make […]
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What’s in a name?
Would a rose by any other name smell as sweet? Would a Mac by any other name be as cool? Is Mac just another brand of PC, albeit with superior brand awareness and advertising? I asked several people this question over the past week and I can tell you, to the average consumer, everything is […]
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Segmented Advertising
A few weeks ago, I saw a great advertisement for the History Channel at the movie theater. It highlighted most of their major shows and announced the new season for all of my favorite things. The unfortunate thing was that it also upset a LOT of people in the movie theater. Last season, the History Channel […]
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What’s your worst table?
I was forwarded a post from Seth Godin’s blog this morning about his recent visit to a new restaurant. He reflected on the fact that, despite the relative vacancy of the dining room, his party was seated at the worst table available. The “best” tables were apparently reserved for regular customers. I worked in retail […]