Branding

Laura Ries (branding expert) has changed her company name to Ries’ Pieces. Ah, huh? This is the first thought that came to my mind when I saw the new name: Here’s a snippet of why she made the name change: Last week it occurred to me what the perfect name would be. Ries’ Pieces. Pieces is a great triple entendre that describes my blog posts, TV appearances as well as the correct pronunciation of my name. Now I must say that I’m a big fan of Laura but this name change is weird to me. What’s her brand identity or positioning? Certainly not the fact that she’s a…

One of my very loyal readers (there’s him, my wife and loving mother) asked me to post his experience with HP. Here’s David Howse’s wonderful adventure and opinions with HP: Yesterday I bought a HP 3600N color laser printer which comes with a full 4-color toner set. It cost me $380 (in Canada). I ran a job that day of 1900 copies. This morning I ran out of black. To buy a toner set will cost $520us or over $600 in Canada. So, who’s good at math? Should I buy the toner set or a new printer? I called HP Canada to help me with the math and they confirmed that $380 was…

I mean BIG! Here’s your chance to show some love for the BIG Kahuna (s). Just click and vote for us. As you know we’ve been a virtual business since 2002 and we all love the fact that we have no formal office. We get more done and can enjoy the things in life we love most. For me it’s the beach and sun and for April it’s taking her son to ball games. We all have our unique reasons for working from home but we all share one thing in common…we’re all very happy. So vote for us today!

As Yoda would say “hmmm, ruining brand I am”. I’m a HUGE JetBlue fan but lately they’re screwing up…bad. I’ve been reading My JetBlue Lawsuitfrom afar and it’s starting to really get some traction. JetBlue screwed with Bill Baker a witty, funny, smart blogger. Read his saga here. Anyway, Bill has been really turning the screws to JetBlue so they invited him to a dress rehearsal of their new terminal at JFK airport on August 23. Here’s what one gets by taking part in JetBlue’s gig: Click to enlarge Here’s what JetBlue is…

I wrote several blog articles on Magellan GPS. None of them were flattering based on my personal experience with them. In this article (written in September 2007): Nelson Chan - Magellan GPS Navigation - Not A CEO Concerned With Branding we had 836 visits to the page and counting and 39 comments. Just do a search in Google for “Nelson Chan - Magellan GPS Navigation”. Here is the quick Google result: http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&ie=UTF-8&rls=GGLG,GGLG:2006-18,GGLG:en&q=Nelson+Chan+%2d+Magellan+GPS+Navigation As you can see if you put the CEOs name…

Today's modern marketplace is complex and ever changing. And growing an enduring and profitable brand in this environment is much more challenging than most would have you believe. How do you keep up with it all?  For example, here's some information that appears relevant to marketplace success.  And a clear analysis against some guiding principles would certainly enhance its relevance to you. Google, Apple Defy Declining Customer-Satisfaction Trends It's herd mentality, not eco-principles, that leads patrons on a greener path What Apple Knows That Facebook Doesn't Procter &…

Some marketers believe you should never let the facts get in the way of a good story. If a statement sounds good, they don’t care if it doesn’t really say anything of substance. Their job is to sell the sizzle and let someone else worry about the steak. Marketing is all about creative license; let the bean counters worry about the facts. Rainmaking marketers believe otherwise. To them, facts constitute the backbone of a good story. Without them, stories are amorphous and blob-like. Facts provide stories with the ability to stand on their own and, in the process, transform puffery into…

Have you ever received one of these lame direct mail pieces (click to enlarge) that are designed to look like a heartfelt note from a long lost friend?  Each envelope is painstakingly addressed by hand in imperfect (human) handwriting, which compels you to open it.  Ten points for step one of any  piece of marketing, which is to gain attention. Inside is what looks like a page ripped out of a newspaper with a sticky note attached that reads: [Your first name],  Check this out!!   - J It creates curiosity, right?  Who the hell is J?  Is it John?

Bob Costas knows baseball, but by evidence of his statements to Shawn Johnson and Nastia Liukin - U.S. Olympic silver and gold medalists, teammates, friends and Beijing roommates - he really doesn't get gymnastics:"You have to compete and you have to compete fiercely, but from what I've been able to determine this friendship and this mutual respect is very genuine."Why was his question misguided?  Simple.  Gymnasts don't compete against each other. Neither do great brands. Later in the interview, Costas pressed Shawn and asked whether she had changed her approach to her…

Phil Fragasso is an experienced marketer, author of the engaging new book Marketing for Rainmakers: 52 Rules of Engagement to Attract and Retain Customers for Life, and a good friend.  For the next few weeks, I'm going to choose one of Phil's  "rules" to share with you all.  And I'm doing it on Friday, because I'm apt to alliterate in August. :)  I hope you enjoy them as much as I did. ROE #40  Choose to Lose The 14th century French philosopher Jean Buridan created a paradoxical analogy to illustrate the perils of choice. He told the story of an ass standing…

Stick and Stone Throwing Our latest list of inane musings from the Brainstorm office white board: Top 20 New Olympic Sports Running with Scissors Unsportsman-like Conduct Regrouping Conclusion Jumping Cornhole Tic-Tac-Toe Texting Social Networking Baton Passing Stick and Stone Throwing Super Mario Watching Olympic Coverage Blogging One-Handed Clap Offs SEO Converting an 8 Pager from a 6 Pager to an 8 Pager Sitting Rock, Scissors, Paper Prison Baggo Hot Dog Eating Contest See the entire board [Image: JudeanPeoplesFront]

With this week’s Sirius-XM merger approval, we take a nostalgic look back at our XM packaging experience. About the Project Packaging is a part of modern life. This article, an insight into the design of a consumer package for satellite radio provider XM, includes many aspects of a typical package development process. In the interest of time, we’ll skip research, diagnostic and technical methodology phases and concentrate on the basic iterative process steps in this article. Contracted as a co-branded piece with equipment manufacturer, Delphi, the XM package is designed to contain a…

Huggies: Nothing stops leaks better Sell the Benefit When it comes to conveying a message about your company, product or service, keep it succinct. Humor and hyperbole are great devices for memorability — as long as your core benefits are readily understood. We think you’ll agree, the core benefit Huggies® hoped to convey in this 30 second spot is readily understood by anyone who has ever changed a diaper.

“…a showcase of the best in sustainability, technology and design.” Living Wright WIRED and LivingHomes magazine produced the WIRED Home, what they call “…a showcase of the best in sustainability, technology and design.” Constructed in-factory and erected in an upscale area of Los Angeles in just two and a half days, the home represents a convergence of aesthetic and eco-awareness. WIRED’s Smart Home harkens back to Frank Lloyd Wright’s Usonian concepts and organic design principles - with added technological advancements. One hundred years…

Give it to Freddie or Fannie. Our latest list of inane musings from the Brainstorm office white board: Top 20 Uses for a Tax Stimulus Check Lottery tickets (21st century retirement plan) Buy a heart monitor Fund my HSA Take an IRS agent to lunch – figure out what they find stimulating Fund the office snack bar for a year Pay back-taxes Buy a discount Halloween costume, scare someone, see what happens Travel to the south of France Fill up an H2 gas tank Have Village Health tap my knee at 3am one night Give it to Freddie or Fannie Fund a tax deductible 529 College Fund Buy magic beans Buy…

By John Furgurson A couple years ago, when my kids were just 9 and ll years old, the subject of insurance came up at the dinner table. God only knows why. My kids could recite — and often sing — the slogans of every major insurance company in the country. They had been exposed to so many commercials, they knew ‘em all… “Nationwide is on your side.” “Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there.” “You’re in good hands, with Allstate.” Prudential. “ Like a rock.” As a parent, I was a aghast. As a branding professional, I was amused, and a bit curious. Why would the…

By John Furgurson In the 1970’s Al Ries and Jack Trout popularized the concept of positioning. Since then, they’ve written dozens of books between them and have made a fortune on the speaking circuit. Still, you could have a roomful of MBA’s and no two would agree on what positioning really means. Many people can’t even decide if the word is an active verb or a proper noun. Most people think of positioning as a simple step ladder. The cheapest, lowest-end products are “positioned” at the bottom of the ladder, and the best, most expensive products are on the top shelf, if…

by John Furgurson Every year, millions of dollars are wasted on advertising that is well-produced, but not very well thought-out. Kind of like a supermodel… nice to look at, but there’s just no substance there. I was talking with a restauranteur the other day about this very subject. No, not the models. He had retained an ad agency to help promote his launch, but after our hour-long conversation, he had talked himself into never going back. The agency in question produced a website, some print ads and a slogan without having a single, meaningful conversation with him about his business.

How stock photos can hurt your brand image. by John Furgurson How many times have you heard this cliché on a local radio ad… “our friendly, courteous staff is here to help with all your _______ needs, blah, blah, blah.” Chances are, you changed the channel before they could finish the sentence. Crummy stock photos have the same effect on people. How many times have you seen this image on a corporate website? It’s the classic, customer service visual cliché, and it’s just as bad for business as the blather you hear on weekend radio commercials. Unfortunately, images like this are a…

Notice anything different at your local Starbucks lately? I sure have. The familiar green and white logo on the cups is missing. It’s a travesty to brand-conscious graphic designers everywhere. At first glance I thought maybe it was just a corporate cost-cutting measure — the result of tremendous Wall Street pressure to improve performance. But once I looked a little closer, I noticed something even more revealing: Starbuck has bared her breasts! The mermaid that’s been the Starbucks icon from day one, has gone back to her topless, hippy roots. There are a lot of other changes going on…

Don’t blame you if you think there aren't any more start-ups left -- but there are. Now, more than ever, you can establish the brand you've dreamed of. It's cheap. It's easy to harness communications channels. Consumers are keenly attentive to anything new. Cheap?How can you establish a dream brand if you're not equipped with a wallet as heavy as Coca-Cola's and a communications network as expansive as AOL Time Warner's??

When a customer complains about your product, service, guarantee, or Web site, it's not always because the quality was lousy. It may have been because you didn't manage that customer's expectations.

We've all done it. We've entered a store planning to purchase a single item -- a set of bags for the vacuum cleaner or perhaps some tomato paste. Then, before you know it, we're at the checkout with vacuum cleaner bags, a new vacuum cleaner, extension cords, optional attachments, an extra two-year warrantee, and maybe some tomato paste.

Recently I was in a Copenhagen taxi, heading for the citys airport. My co-passenger was a lady who carried a fancy bag. A very nice bag, Im sure, but what interested me was the combination of brands it represented. The bag was produced by Samsonite. No surprise there, as Samsonite is the worlds largest luggage manufacturer. This Samsonite bag also represented Philippe Starck, a designer known for his work with furniture who, in this case, had designed the bag for Samsonite.

In the good old days, recognition was something customers were able to establish with their favoured stores over time. I'm sure you know the feeling. It's that special warm feeling you get when you're remembered by name, and by your usual purchase, when you enter a store. Well, being remembered is still common today -- on the Web, that is. The personal touch has been transferred to the Web and, sure, the old trick gets some of us. But does it really inspire customer loyalty?

The next installment of the Post2Post Virtual Book Tour features Tom Fishburne talking about his new book: "This One Time, at Brand Camp." Tom is Senior Marketing Director of Europe for method as well as an author and cartoonist. The tour kicks off today with Tom talking to Chris Wilson at The Marketing Fresh Peel.Here's the rest of the schedule:Tue, Aug 26th: Church of the Customer Blog by Jackie Huba & Ben McConnell Wed, Aug 27th: Brand Autopsy by John Moore Thu, Aug 28th: Digital Roam blog by Dan Roam Fri, Aug 29th: Seth's Blog by Seth Godin Links:1) Paul Williams is the organizer of…

Here's my weekly summary of interesting and entertaining posts and articles. Mostly about the Olympics again this week:1) Who's on First in Medals Race? Wall Street JournalThe answer to a question I've had in my head for a long time. Why doesn't the medal table make sense? Some medal tables rank countries by total medals won. Others by number of golds. The obvious answer would be to give a "gold" more points than silver and silver more than bronze. And, it turns out, that system was implemented as early as 1908. But, it also turns out, that the IOC is officially against all such tables and…

Brand Mix is one year old today! 245 posts. Not bad. Some of my favorite posts from Year One:1) Trouble in Paradise: The very first post about Fiji water. The challenges of the bottled water industry facing a eco-led consumer backlash became a frequent topic through the year.2) Hertz values (mostly) represented by LAX bus driver: This was one time when I was really happy that I had a blog to be able to relay the unfortunate opinions of a Hertz bus driver.3) Choice of beverages: The difference between Coke and Sprite as heard on a plane flight.4) Now it's Greenpeace's turn to attack the Dove:…

Great commercials, innovative ways to reduce customer stress. Shouldn't the airlines get credit for things they're doing right at the moment? It's a sign of how deep a hole they've dug for themselves that even their best endeavors are criticized or arouse suspicion.You'd think, for example, United Airlines would get praise for this commercial airing during the Olympics that continues the beautiful animation of previous spots and features, as ever, Gershwin’s “Rhapsody in Blue” music. Instead, people question whether United should be airing ads at all given the average customer's flying…

Here's my weekly summary of interesting and entertaining posts and articles. More posts at the bottom of the page in "Martin's Shared Items:"1) Why does India win so few Olympic medals? Marginal RevolutionNo cricket is one reason. Now that there's one new version of cricket that's doesn't take any longer than baseball, there's a push to get it into the Olympics. Of course, baseball is on the way out so still little chance.2) time to rework your ad schedules: xmas is here: Brand Flakes For BreakfastOne thing that I love about Thanskgiving is that blocks the too-early start of the Xmas season.

When your product is so hotly anticipated and your brand such an iconic and successful one - anything you do or say is bound to be criticised, as Apple is finding out. The Apple iPhone, the most hotly anticipated technology launch of the past two years, has its first television ad campaign banned by the UK advertising watchdog for being misleading. Not exactly a good start considering the handset will set you back a hefty £240. It’s a lot of money for a product that can’t deliver on its advertising promise. Further damage to the brand stems from a class action lawsuit that was lodged in…

Brand Strategy wrote earlier this month about attending the V Festival. Now those lovely folks at Virgin Radio have kindly given us a selection of branded goodies from their corporate partners to give away to Brand Strategy Blog readers. We’ve already distributed a few of these goodies to our readers who send us regular feedback, including some Liz Earle skincare products, Jose Cuervo tequila, some Johnnie Loves Rosie hair items and James Brown hair products and a cheeky silver bullet from Ann Summers but we kept a few in reserve for our blog fans. So what’s on offer? A cosmetics…

You’d be hard pushed to find a business or sector that hasn’t been affected by the credit crunch in some way - however, despite their high cost and premium labels energy drinks are soaring in popularity. Could it be all that extra work we’re doing because we can’t afford to do anything else? Drinks are hot - even when its not a really hot summer. A recent report from research firm Mindbranch found that the UK has the largest European food and drink sales through convenience stores with a value of £21.9 billion. Meanwhile, market research firm Mintel reports that the retail market for…

We hear that what with all the doomy, gloomy recession stuff hanging over the US, nostalgia is coming back (ha!) in a big way. Now we hear via blog Gawker that in America, marketers are considering bringing back brands including: Kellogg’s Hydrox, a type of biscuits competing with Oreos, discontinued in 2003 Eagle snacks, now set to appear in vending machines But as yet, the report says the caffeine-free coffee substitute Postum which was discontinued last year after starting production in 1895 has yet to make a confirmed comeback…. For more on this area, read this New York Times…

Breast Cancer Care has announced a Gala Dinner to raise funds with participation from some of the top brand leaders: Allan Leighton (Royal Mail), Sir Stuart Rose (Marks & Spencer), Jacqueline Gold (Ann Summers) and Val Gooding (BUPA). The dinner takes place at London InterContinental Hotel, Park Lane, on Thursday 27 November. In their own no-nonsense words, all speakers will share their remarkable stories including the challenges, successes and setbacks they’ve faced to get to where they are today. Single tickets are priced at £250 and tables of ten are priced at £2,250, meaning the…

Burning Man is only a few days away, and there's a load of media for you to enjoy from the safety of your living room or home office. Start with the clip above, which documents some of the (amazing) artists that converge in Black Rock City prior to the weekend, to setup their massive installations. Then follow the coverage on Current TV.Check out the Burning Man blog or all of the kabillion Flickr photo sets that will be uploaded over the next days. Or the Flickr map of Black Rock City. Or the live video stream of the playa.Inspired, and want to get ready for next year? Subscribe to the…

Just tolerate the first 60 seconds of this video, and you'll be thankful. And then you'll want to watch it again and again, and sing along. And maybe work on a dance routine. Yes, it's over a year old - but canvas bags are really important now and Tim Minchin was just ahead of his time back in 2007.

The Denver Egotist is collecting pics of the street art that's popping up all over Denver during the Democratic National Convention. Because those delegates in silly hats are secretly street artists at night. Don't let the old ladies fool you. There's spray paint cans hidden in those silly red, white and blue cowboy hats.

You'd think that just about everything has been done in the world of snowboard videos. And that watching dudes ride rails would get boring after a while. Mike Benson proves otherwise, and re-imagines the snowboard video by adding a single wonderous effect. Totally, totally awesome.

We've posted before about the MadMen using "tools of the future." You've got to start following the cast. This is becoming more entertaining by the minute. Alan Wolk reports that it's not an AMC project. And that characters are being taken down, likely at the request of AMC. (Like my girl @peggyolsen - who has re-appeared as @peggy_olsen. Because she's got tenacity like that.)Perhaps it's all the work of a fan? If that's the case, AMC needs to admit they missed the opportunity and let it go. Punishing the fans for doing what you could have been doing in the first place won't make it better.

In the pivotal scene of the epic movie Spartacus, Kirk Douglas, playing the eponymous renegade hero who has led an uprising of his fellow slaves against their Roman masters, now faces defeat at the hands of the Roman army. The Roman general announces that if Spartacus identifies himself, he will be crucified, but his fellow warriors will be spared. As Spartacus begins to step forward, a slave next to him announces 'I am Spartacus', then another and another, until the whole battlefield echoes with the cry. Spartacus surveys the tragic scene with a mixture of wonder and doom. Everyone will be…

Not too long ago Management Consulting News asked my opinion on business strategy and the consulting industry. Maybe you will share my opinions. Maybe you won't.So much has been written about business strategy that it’s hard to sort through—what is your definition of strategy?There’s no end to the jargon-rich writing on business strategy, so I like to keep my definition simple. Your strategy describes what makes your business unique, and what is the best way to get that difference into the minds of your clients and prospects.  How you would assess the state of strategy in the…

From the moment the fireworks exploded over Beijing at the Olympics' opening ceremony, you knew something fantastic was taking place. But you'd have been forgiven for underestimating just how truly fantastic those fireworks were, because many of them did not actually occur. They were digitally enhanced video effects superimposed onto the Beijing night sky by a team of special-effects experts headed by Gao Xiaolong. 'Most of the audience thought the display was filmed live, so that was mission accomplished,' smiled a clearly delighted Mr Gao after the event. Meanwhile, equally fantastical…

We're actually taking a break! Branding Strategy Insider will be back in a week. A warm thanks for your loyal readership and participation in this conversation about brands and branding. Best wishes, Derrick Daye

2) Define your brands “Whiff Factor” In the context of multi-sensory marketing, audio and visual stimuli combined account for 87% of a brand’s communication with the consumer. The next best option is to exploit the olfactory properties of your product. Touch and taste, the remaining two senses, apply to an even lesser degree to most brands and products. Think about what you already have included in your marketing plan and a scent marketing consultant will be able to explain (and execute) how you can use scent to enhance your: •    Marketing collateral (business cards,…

Seek and ye shall find. Marketers seeking an even better way to hone the right message to the right person at the right time need seek no further than Google’s newest service called Insights for Search. As a marketer, I’m fascinated by this latest tool of the trade which allows us to analyze search engine queries to help determine who’s buying what, where, when, and why. As a brand professional, I’m fascinated by Google’s ability to continue to hone its simple brand promise to “organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful.” It’s a branding…

Perhaps no industry has been transformed more quickly by digital technology than the music industry. From the CD to the introduction of the MP3 player to cell phones with the ability to upload and download new tunes at Starbucks, the tools of this trade have been forever changed. This is one of the reasons the musician Neil Young was a featured speaker at the recent Fortune Brainstorm: Tech conference. While he applauded the fact that digital technology has made it easier for more people to listen to their favorite music whenever and wherever the spirit moved them, he wasn’t quite as…

So many brands today spend so much time searching for new and different ways to promote their products, they often overlook a core brand equity that’s right in front of their nose, or taste buds, as the case may be. Not McDonald’s. In its most recent branding efforts, the company decided to serve up its iconic Big Mac sandwich by reintroducing the spirited jingle: “Two all beef patties, special sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles, onions, on a sesame seed bun.” Taking advantage of many digital tools and tactics available to marketers today, the company has asked consumers to write their…

I’m looking at the June 2nd cover story of Business Week which is titled “Beyond Blogs; What Business Needs to Know about YouTube, Facebook and Social Media and Media Spending.” In addition to being a fascinating read, this article is also a perfect segue for why I’m changing the header of my blogYou see, in September of this year I will be releasing my newest book, titled BrandDigital. The purpose of the book is to help marketers understand the dramatic way the Internet and other forms of digital technology are changing the way businesses need to look at building brands. Much like my…

Instead of hanging out on my own blog site these past few months I’ve been hanging out in a number of other online spaces, blog and otherwise, doing research for my new book, BrandDigital, which I hope will demystify this potentially mystifying marketing space. In order to help others make sense of the digital territory I’ve had to make sense of it for myself which has meant, in part, creating personal profiles on a couple of the online networking sites of which there are many, LinkedIn, Ryze, Friendster, Spoke, MySpace, Facebook, Twitter, and EntreMate, to name just a few. Since…

I wrote a while ago about my wife's car accident, and how rotten our insurance coverage turned out to be. Well, it has just gotten worse, pretty much every step of the way, and I'm torn between my frustration as an abused customer, and my fascination as a professional marketer. From a marketing perspective, it seems that most all of the auto and home insurance companies made the strategic decision years ago to forsake communicating any meaningful value.    Let's face it: insurance only matters if your house burns down or you wreck your car, so forget about trying to brand those…

There's a row underway in the UK right now over a TV commercial for Orangina, a fruity-flavored soda-pop, that features anthropomorphized animals cavorting as if they were at a strip club in Vegas. Bears get lap-dances from octopuses.  Deer can barely keep their bikinis on.  Orangina  bottles explode between the thighs of zebras, and squirt onto the breasts of gazelles as they writhe provocatively. It would be a colossal bit of surreal nonsense if it weren't an ad created with the intention of somehow benefiting Orangina. There’s scant explanation from the corporate Mother…

It turns out that the luxury consumer businesses are feeling the pinch of recession, and I think they only have themselves to blame for hurting their brands. The purchase habits of the well-to-do were supposed to be inured to the ups and downs of the economy in which the rest of us live.  They could afford expensive stuff, or so the brutal logic went, so they would keep buying zillion-dollar handbags, watches, and yachts, while we scrimped on the mac & cheese. Only not so much. Category growth slowing: It'll shrink to 2% this year from 6.5% a year ago, according to one management…

Revelers who were at the quadrennial branding bacchanal otherwise known as the Olympics are already waking up to what I'd expect are gold medal-winning hangovers. Considering the fact that 1/3 of the largest corporations behind the 2008 games have already dropped out of sponsoring London in 2012, I'd say there’s also a lot of embarrassed remorse going on.  Thank goodness there aren't any pictures or records of what went on during the party...er...oops...there's actually lots of evidence to prompt two basic questions: Are the branding associations with the Olympics believable or…

How come it seems like even the coolest new marketing strategies are chasing trends instead of inventing them? Rob Walker, who writes a column on consumer culture called Consumed in the New York Times magazine (it's dim bulb quality stuff), seems to be a firm believer in marketers' ability to do otherwise.  His new book, enttitled "Buying In: The Secret Dialogue Between What We Buy and Who We Are"gives mucho credit to members of our guild, citing an innovation he calls murketing as our latest and greatest trade secret. Murketing is the delivery of branding in a consciously non,…

In this episode of ‘Biz Growth Live’, I am joined by Stephanie Booth who has been successfully developing joint venture partnerships with leading experts in social media and entrepreneurship and who have collaborated with her in the development of a conference for solopreneurs and freelancers - Going Solo. What I can tell you is that Stephanie is a straight talker and she will let us know exactly what it takes to run live events - not only in your own country but also overseas - she lives in Switzerland and her next conference is taking place in the UK! This is definitely a…

Did you miss our live ‘Biz Growth Live Masterclass’ about Gravitational Marketing? Last week on ‘Biz Growth Live’, I was joined by LinkedIn expert Chuck Hester who will be sharing strategies and ideas to boost your business results through LinkedIn. We shared specific actions you can take to will help you raise your profile and attract the opportunities we are looking for – be that a new client, business partner or career move. You can now access the live streaming or download the interview. Be sure to take notes as we provided some invaluable advice building your…

In this episode of ‘Biz Growth Live’, I am joined by coach and author Elizabeth Marshall who has been successfully developing joint venture partnerships with leading experts in marketing and sales. We will be discussing ideas and strategies about how to enhance our business results by collaborating and developing effective joint ventures. You can access Elizabeth’s soon to be published book which she co-authored with best selling author Michael Port HERE Here are the details of the Masterclass: DATE OF THE JOINT VENTURE MASTERCLASS: Monday 11 August 2008 TIME OF THE JOINT…

Here is a summary of news and articles from around the web that has caught my attention in this week’s social media digest. The Irish Sunday Business Post featured dbTwang, a new social media site based in Ireland, who are currently looking fr investors. The site is for guitar enthusiasts whose ambitions are to have 700,000 registered users and generate turnover of €3 million within five years with their business model being a combination of sponsorship and recurring monthly subscriptions, initially focusing on the US and Japan. Microsoft research indicates that the theory that we all…

Did you miss our live ‘Biz Growth Live Masterclass’ about Gravitational Marketing? Last week on ‘Biz Growth Live’, my guests were Jimmy Vee and Travis Miller who shared strategies and ideas to attract clients naturally. You can now access the live streaming or download the interview. Be sure to take notes as Jimmy and Travis provided some invaluable advice about direct mail and advertising. SHOW NOTES 00:52      Show begins 05:30      The power of gravity in marketing and why it’s an important concept at times of economic uncertainty and recession…

Little surprised that a convention pushing $120 million would settle for a house band. What, Bono or the Boss didn’t feel like lending a few songs for the week? Why not. They seem to lend them for everything else. Not that the band is bad, it just comes off as a little cheap, especially when Bill finishes his speech to the sounds of a Don’t Stop cover. RNC, please, spring for the dj. The Four Freshmen will suck as it is—I don’t need to hear a cover band playing them.(Image via.)Tags: DNC

Very cool animation work for Amnesty International. (Via ALR.)

It’s not that I disagree with the message in this new cancerproject.org spot. Hot dogs do have a lot of crap in them—literally. (Can’t help it though. Red onions and chili on top. Unbeatable!) And it’s not that the American Cancer Society may be hedging either when they see no problem in the occasional dog. (Really though, kids and people in general don’t ever just have one hot dog ‘occasionally,’ do they?) But here we go again. No childhood metaphor left behind as kids are once again used as pawns in ads.Ain’t it cool how the only polarizing tactic PSAs ever employ is the…

Insert euro right side up for raw French milk.“He’s fleein’ the commercial!” Dog attempted-suicide is not funny. Wait, yes it is.Brilliant. (Okay, a cure for cancer would be brilliant, a blog based on George Orwell’s diaries is still pretty good.) Recyclables you want to use.No comp-sci degree? No dinner for you!“If you’re toothless and you know it, vote out loud.”Glamour Pet Inc™, can I help you?Trouble sheeping?Candidate playlists.Damn him for reminding me because every one of these is true.

I’ve discovered a new species previously unbeknownst to MTLB readers: The elusive funeral home spot and its subspecies the cremation service. Both have been hunted to the brink of extinction, but thanks to the efforts of YouTube, its numbers are now making a comebackLike the recently discovered jungle tribe, it still hasn’t been viewed much though. Won’t you please help?

As you walk through the hallways of your company today...stop people at random.  Everyone from the CEO to the part-time mail room clerk and everyone in between.  Ask them this: Why does this company exist? Note two things: How many different answers you get How many times you hear...to make money A company that exists primarily to make money cannot hope to build loyalty among customers, employees or even vendors.  Of course, you should be profitable -- but that shouldn't be why you exist. You make money so you can keep fulfilling the reason you exist.  Unless of…

Did you read the paper today?  Or watch TV?  Spend any time on Facebook or some other website?  Did you see an ad for something you wanted?  Or read an article about a service provider you'd been considering? Did you leap up from your chair, rush to the car and go immediately to that store or business to make a purchase? I doubt it.  That's not the way advertising works.  It's not instantaneous.  It is also not a one time shot.  If you're thinking of running an ad (any ad) just once and expecting people to show up -- guess again.  If you're not in…

Do you consider yourself a writer?  Either because it's a part of your very being or maybe just because your job demands it of you? In either case (or anywhere in between) if you haven't discovered Joanna Young's blog, Confident Writing, you should.  Joanna writes about the power of the written word and how to best capture and use that power to serve your purposes. Her posts are usually both practical and thought-provoking, which for a writer is the perfect one-two punch. One of Joanna's gifts is her ability to teach through word pictures.  One of my favorite of her posts talks…

Drew's Note:  As I try to do every Friday, I'm pleased to bring you a guest post.  Meet another  thought leader who shares his insights via the blogosphere. So without further ado...Efrain Mendicuti.  Again. Enjoy! Yesterday, as I was delivering a marketing workshop for a very important company in the Entertainment industry worldwide, their CMO asked a great and tough to answer question: "Aside from all you are showing us today, I'd like you to share with the whole team one critical advise that should help us improve the way we do our marketing."Now, how exactly…

Many of you, in the comments section and via e-mail, have been asking about the back story of this campaign.  Quite honestly -- I didn't know it.  I had stumbled upon the creative years ago and used it as an example of "go ahead, break the rules" kind of thinking. But, all of that has changed. A few weeks ago, I commented that one of my favorite things about blogging is that it allows me to meet some amazing people.  More proof coming up. I published the post about the Garcia's outdoor campaign in the morning and by mid-afternoon, I had an e-mail from Rich Spears who…

   No, I’m not talking politics, I’m talking branding. And I’m talking specifically about my brand, my blog brand. Branding is not easy. Sometimes you don’t get it right and you need to make a change. For me, the time for change has come. Let me chronicle for you how, when and why I made the change and why you might need to make a branding change, too. The beginning In the beginning, many companies are so excited about the potential for their new product or service they believe the name won’t matter. As long as they have the latest and best technology, beverage, service or…

There is one thing for sure, nothing is for sure when it comes to the Olympics. The Olympics is a place where even the best laid plans can collapse in under a tenth of a second, by the whim of a judge or by a nagging injury. Like its sporting counterpart, Olympic marketing is an expensive gamble that sometimes pays off big but many times doesn’t at all. For all the happy faces going home with gold around their necks there are many more heads hanging low. The Olympics are a winner takes all competition, where second place is no place because winning silver really means losing gold. But as…

It has been over a year since the launch of the much ballyhooed iPhone. Much has been said. Many have been bought. Let’s take a look back and a look ahead.   First there is a difference between a brand having loyal enthusiastic following and becoming a blockbuster mass market success. Second there is a difference between making a better product and winning in marketplace.   Being better isn’t enough   In fact, the reality is the better product often doesn’t win. Just look at Macintosh. There is little dispute that Mac is better than Windows. Yet Microsoft has a worldwide…

The word “branding” comes from the cattle ranching days of the Old West. The branding of livestock was a rigidly-enforced practice that helped to keep life peaceful and orderly.   All cattle look pretty much the same. Without a brand, no cowboy would know whose cattle are whose. Determining ownership would be a nightmare.   In the American West, cattle still graze freely and branding allows ranchers to easily identify their animals especially during the fall roundup.   (Of course, some ranchers keep their herds on fenced lots and in that case branding isn’t required…

The way to build a powerful brand is not by emulating the leader and trying to be better. History proves time and again that the best strategy for going against the leader is to do the opposite.   Since the rise of MySpace we have seen hundreds of copycat social networking sites popup. They all target the same juicy younger demographic. A better idea is do the opposite. If MySpace is for younger, cool kids; make your brand for older, geeky adults. That is exactly what LinkedIn did.   But first let’s look back to see how the social network category started. MySpace got into the…

Image via Wikipedia You get to meet some fine inspiring people in the world that is social networking! Take for example, Stephen Collins (@Trib on twitter) who I ‘happened’ across via LinkedIn at first (those who have read my recent post on 40 Ways to get More Business Using LinkedIn will know I am in the middle of a LinkedIn love in right now!)..@Trib and I have also been swapping tweets for sometime as well! We got talking about “Personal Brands” and how to generate a little more business and get one’s brand in the market!  The conversation turned to…

Who is giving Jennifer Hawkins ‘brand’ advice? If there is such a person…they should consider looking for work elsewhere. If any of you have watched Jens latest venture on Channel 7 - “Make me a Super Model”, then you will know what I am talking about. Now Jennifer may have been Miss Universe, and may be infamous for that “wardrobe malfunction” but… ..when I think of Jennifer Hawkins I think of; Fun Down to Earth Beautiful Natural Kind Apart from the fact that Jennifer has NEVER been a super model, when I watch 10 minutes of this show, I see…

Image by .jon’s photos. via Flickr Social networking is a fantastic way to meet new people or reconnect…but If you love people and hate the Internet, then how about some old fashioned face to face networking! So, after hitting out with 40 ways to generate more business using LinkedIn - I was conscious of the ‘information overload’…as one reader wrote to me… I looked at those 40 items, was so exhausted by about number 8 that I had to go and lie down in a darkened room for several hours afterwards As not to disappoint my readers, through this post I thought I…

Image via CrunchBase, source unknown I think what I love most about social media is the ‘fight’. The fight for positioning and success amongst social media companies, such as Facebook, MySpace, Twitter and LinkedIn means that they just keep raising the bar! And the biggest winners here are US (you and me). Well, LinkedIn has recently landed back on the agenda (especially amongst my network), and so I thought it would be a good time to revisit LinkedIn and how to get the best out of it! Let’s start off slowly with the ‘40 things you must do on LinkedIn to build your…

I have to thank Dan Thornton for the inspiration for this simple little post.. I met Dan over at Twitter and in between discussing the ethics of Tweeting, I was looking for some blogspiration (inspiration on what to blog about next)…a good video or photo was suggested. This video captures a whole heap of the concepts I have been speaking about all week with clients and at presentations - Web 2.0 connects us.  Web 2.0 makes developing and projecting your Personal Brand so much more important; enjoy! Related articles by Zemanta How to use twitter Scaling Web 2.0 - Reaching The Limits

I'm glad to share that my new book, This One Time, at Brand Camp, is ready at last. Just in time for the Post2Post Virtual Book Tour, where my book is the featured book this month.  Hosted by Paul Williams (from Idea Sandbox), I'll visit 5 marketing blogs over the next week. Kind of like a real book tour, but I don't have to travel and I won't need a Sharpie. The tour kicks off with this nice interview with Chris Wilson at The Marketing Fresh Peel and continues through the week at some of my favorite blogs:Mon, Aug 25th: Marketing Fresh Peel by Chris Wilson Tue, Aug 26th: Church of the…

This cartoon was inspired by a question from Jackie Huba and Ben McConnell.  Jackie and Ben are interviewing me as part of the Post2Post blogging book tour I'm doing this week.  They asked: " Is branding dead and if so, where do we bury the body?" I definitely don't think branding is extinct, but I do think it's evolved.  So, I decided to use the evolution metaphor to play with a couple stereotypes in the noble profession of marketing. Doctors have Hippocrates.  Even lawyers have Atticus Finch.  But, ask most consumers what archetypes they think of for…

With the credit crunch brewing, there's a lot of pressure to ramp up your price promotions.  There certainly is a short-term argument (sales are down, consumers are increasingly price-sensitive, and price promotions are a predictable way to drive volume).  But, in the long-run, I think it can start to train your consumers to only buy you on deal (like the Pavlovian response in this cartoon). It reminds me of my time on Haagen-Dazs.  Years ago, Haagen-Dazs and Ben & Jerry's had a good thing going.  They co-existed peacefully (promotion-wise), rarely promoting like the…

Hot diggity, it's nearly ready.  I'm launching my new cartoon book in a couple weeks, and just received a few advance copies.  As you can see, my 5 year old was particularly excited by her choice in bedtime reading. I set aside a signed advance copy to the reader who can write the funniest one-liner ending to this sentence: "This one time, at Brand Camp, I ... " Think about a true marketing-related example from your experience in brand team or agency life that shows how bizarre marketing can sometimes be. Just post your answer as a comment to this blog post by August 20th,…

We all work in a fishbowl. I was thinking about how my favorite brands are marketed from the inside out.  There's a philosophy at the core that becomes ultimately reflected through everything they do.  These brands view everything as marketing and everyone in the company as working in marketing (even if they work in the mailroom).  When consumers poke and prod, it all hangs together consistently. If you visit Fruit Towers (the headquarters for innocent), which they invite you to do on every bottle, it feels exactly as you'd expect from them.  And everyone you meet seems…

Recently, I interviewed TuckerMax and it was hell! I actually learned a lot from Mr. Tucker and you will too if you read this interview. He’s not about products or services, but about being his transparent self. The result is that he is a bestselling author, movie producer, blogger, and business owner. Not too many people can get away with what he’s done, so kudos to him. Throughout the interview, I was trying to figure out what role branding played a role in his life and it doesn’t look at it that way (we know it’s all about branding). Enjoy the interview! Why brand…

I first become very interested in Ning when I interviewed Gina Bianchini (the co-founder) for the 3rd issue of Personal Branding Magazine. Ning hosts more than 275,000 networks. I’ve joined quite a few in the past 6-8 months and, to be honest, the usage rates aren’t that impressive. Most people just create Ning networks around a specific topic and abandon them or only have 10 active users because they don’t promote them. I’ve found two great examples of big “personal brand names” that are using Ning correctly. Have a look… Seth Godin's Ning…

If you’ve read my blog for at least a month, you’ll know that I despise resumes. They are important and the standard documents for recruitment, but they don’t do anyone justice. Colleges need to stop passing out standard templates because, let’s face it, students are more interested in partying than developing a resume to get a job. Even if their intent is great, the aftermath is thousands upon thousands of students with the same looking resume and similar experience. Well today it’s time to break resumes down and tell you how to use them for differentiation.

Today I interviewed Jon Wuebben, who is an expert in website copywriting. It is a very important topic today because SEO is how we position our own brands in search engines, so we’re found. Before you even start writing a blog post, you need to think of an SEO strategy. This means that you must disperse keywords throughout your writing for the search engines. Enjoy the interview. What is more important content or communication? Do you need both or will be just find you if you produce remarkable or unique content? You really need both..”content” are the words that make up…

I’ve been very interested in mobile branding for the past year and got the chance to speak with Rick Mathieson about the topic today. He is extremely knowledgeable and passionate about mobile branding and I certainly learned a lot. I’ve blogged about this topic a few times already. This interview serves as a great resource for you. How do you define mobile marketing? Mobile marketing is marketing via the most measurable, personal and direct link to consumers ever created: The mobile phone. But that description is just the beginning. In BRANDING UNBOUND, I put forth a concept I…

Schlitz Beer, a brand once known for making Milwaukee famous, has been dormant since the early 1980s. However, if a brand establishes a solid foundation on quality and reliability of services and products, consumers may remain loyal even after dry spells. This is proving to be true for Schlitz Beer, which is making a steady comeback with the help of the current brand owner, Pabst Brewing Company.

As companies and brands grow in size, market share, and audience, the following question is always a possibility: Is our brand image still relevant, or have we evolved to the point of needing a brand revision? The Catch-22 of evolving a brand image out of the interest of the company and its investors can threaten the consumer loyalty. For example, would changing the Sci-Fi Channel brand better embody its “What if?” theme, or would it merely dilute the Sci-Fi Channel brand and result in audience defection?

The classic story of the tortoise and the hare is an iconic children’s fable with a solid business moral. In today’s world, the parable of “slow and steady wins the race” is rarely exemplified. In fact, it closely resembles a frantic game of Monopoly – buy now or pay rent to someone else.

With global stock markets officially in bear territory and the mortgage crisis continuing to roil world economies, it would be easy to say that there’s no good news on the business pages. Look again.

As Windows XP is reaching the last months of its marketing life, after several extensions due to consumer demand, is it finally time for Windows Vista to shine? Speculation says, unlikely. Windows Vista, despite its various upgrades and improvements over its XP predecessor, has been underwhelming in the market. Consumers still “downgrade” new computers to Windows XP, from Vista. What image does that give to a product, when the predecessor is in more demand?

“So, rumor has it,” she says, as she leans toward the camera drawing you in to learn a secret about China and the Beijing Olympics – insider information she delivers in just 12 seconds. She is Christine Lu, Chairman and cofounder of The China Business Network, and creator and host of The China Business Show. Although she’s lived most of her life in Los Angeles, Christine describes herself as a “social media addict who grew up in cyberspace.” She has a strong online presence not only on her business websites but also across a range of social media, including Twitter, FriendFeed,…

Over the course of my life, I've come to regard bold claims of being "better than" as the last refuge for people who are afraid they lack in some way. Unfair? Yes, I suppose it is. We live in a comparative and competitive world where actually being better can lead to visibility and success. After all, in the current climate of the 2008 Olympics, there is plenty of evidence for that. It’s the fastest swimmer or the fastest sprinter who wins the gold medal. Beyond highly specific contexts, however, things get fuzzier. For example, is a MacBook better than a VAIO notebook? The real…

Sometimes an expat will come to me and say that they need a job quickly in their current location or country of choice.  After explaining my approach to building a career abroad based on personal branding, some of them tell me they are not interested in a comprehensive look at managing their career. They tell me that personal branding sounds like a great idea, but they are trying to be "practical" or "realistic" about their situation and don't have the time for anything but getting their CV or resume in order so they can get on with their job search. After asking some…

Career and job search mistakes abound, which results in valuable time being lost in your job search – time in which you could have been earning a salary. Wouldn’t it be great if you had a “short-cut” to shaving time off your job search by eliminating costly mistakes? Well, there is! Learning from others’ job search mistakes is the central theme of Job Search Bloopers: Every Mistake You Can Make on the Road to Career Suicide…and How to Avoid Them, which I (Susan Guarneri) co-authored with Laura DeCarlo. Here's some what career industry gurus are saying: Joyce Lain Kennedy, the…

Messaging is critical to personal branding and career success. Yet, in the early stages of developing and using clear and consistent messages, it’s all too easy to rely on scripted talking points the way a trapeze artist relies on a net. However, as life coach Gail Blanke points out in the August 2008 issue of Real Simple magazine, “we live in an unscripted world.” Drawing from the many rules of improv, in her article, “How to Think on Your Feet,” Gail cites three core principles with examples of how to apply them. They are: The “yes…and” technique. Here partners in a dialogue…

Email copywriting is probably the one aspect of actually doing email marketing that people either fuss over or neglect. People either doubt their abilities in this area, don’t think about it or over estimate. Bloggers, being writers, would expect to be ahead of the game, but sadly that is not always the case. While a couple of years ago it was common to see newsletter writers brag that they write 50 or so articles a year, a blogger today probably writes as many in a couple of months or less. So there is a practice-makes-perfect advantage in favor of bloggers, but writing a blog post is…

Photo by strawbleu The first Northern UK Bloggers Meet-up took place last friday at the Old Broadcasting House, Leeds. Well, half of it, the other half was in the Dry Dock pub (see a picture of the Dry Dock in daylight) - great venues, both! I think it is fair to say a good time was had by all. Jamie did an excellent talk about Woopra and gave out beta invites (which it seems we might not be able to legally use due to some UK/European privacy and data protection regulations, but I don’t think that is going to stop anyone). After we ooh’ed and aah’ed over Woopra and debated…

Testing, experimenting and tweaking are essential if you are going to be effective in your email efforts. In the previous entry of this Email Marketing Tips for Bloggers series we looked at email effectiveness tracking metrics. While looking at the stats tells you a lot, it is not going to give you the whole story and they will not make the improvements for you. You need to actively pursue and encourage the results you hope for. Our last look at emails was to work out which worked best and how. This article is all about trying to work out why. Before we get in to exactly how you do that, I…

Email Marketing advice usually targets attracting more new email subscribers and email copywriting, but there is an aspect of email marketing that is just as powerful but much overlooked. Email Marketing Metrics! Any decent email service like Aweber will give you a wealth of email metric reports. This is valuable information because it tells you how well you are doing, the health of your list. I know why it is overlooked, it feels like math, and not many of us are good at math. Good news though, it’s not really, in fact I can deal with these numbers without getting any nose bleeds at…

Growing an email list is a critical part of email marketing success. The more people you have to talk to, the more chance you have of getting a good number of people to do what you want them to do, be that click, comment or buy. In the previous article of this email marketing series we looked at getting started in email marketing, now we will look at how you can grow your list from a few to thousands of subscribers. Size Is Not Everything First a some caution is necessary. Size is not the main goal. Aim to build a good quality relationship with people who want to hear from you rather than…

Formally called “Xosphere”, they came to us for a re-name. From the Whoop site: Whoop makes it easy for every company, agency or individual to create, publish and share rich mobile content to almost every mobile device. Not just text, but pictures, videos and, well, everything imaginable for mobile entertainment, marketing, communications, commerce and social networking. With Whoop, you can share your stuff with more than 3.5 billion phones in every country on the planet. Whoop. Everything mobile. Did we mention we named Whoop? O.K., we are done here.

Amidst the McCain-Obama-Paris-Britney bullying, and in effort to garnish a previous Dove “Chocolate Skin?” post, we bring you Schwan’s UGLY Pizza. Just when you caught onto “looks aren’t everything” in the dating arena, and more recently in the democratic arena, it’s gone deeper into the dining arena. Much like Dove’s approach to “Campaign for Real Beauty” Schwan markets their latest pizza shedding light on healthy foods, in a less-than-glamorous package. And much like McCain’s recent celeb-based mudslinging tv spot, the new…

del.icio.us is simply delicious. The "del.icio.us" domain name was an example of a domain hack, an unconventional combination of letters to form a word or phrase. Del.icio.us, though not the first domain of this nature, is the best-known and most frequently-accessed domain hack. Del.icio.us and delicio.us now redirect to the new domain, delicious.com. In an interview, Schacter explained how he chose the name: "I'd registered the domain when .us opened the registry, and a quick test showed me the six letter suffixes that let me generate the most words. In early discussions, a friend referred…

Congress Struggles To Come Up With Cool Name For Anti-Drug Initiative

Or is it a parody? Domino’s Scientists Test Limits Of What Humans Will Eat

Recently the guys over at Mr Youth, sent me a paper they wrote on Consumer 2.0 and the 5 Rules to Engage a New Breed of Consumer.  Accordingly to them, the following 5 rules dictate how brands should interact with a new breed of “connected” consumers. Authenticity Trumps Celebrity - Consumer 2.0 responds to honest, relevant messaging from peers over marketing speak and celebrity endorsements Niche is the New Norm - Consumers 2.0 do not form a mass market. They relish in choices and look for products and services that speak to them personally Bite-Size Communication Dominates -…

Just about every Brand Manager I know at P&G is a regular reader of Tom Fishburne.  Like Dilbert to engineers, Fishburne is to marketers worldwide.  His sarcastic and witty cartoons bring to life what day to day life is really like for a Brand Manager.  Probably once a week I see a PowerPoint using one of his cartoons to poke fun at how we act in our jobs. Ironically, despite the fact I have been reading his cartoons for over 5 years, I never took the time to learn about who the man is behind the pen.  Turns out he has been a marketer at General Mills and Nestle, now working at…

DKnoxMU Del.icio.us Even though del.icio.us launched over 4 years ago in 2004 (and got bought by Yahoo), I never really got into the site until now.  I guess I never really understood the concept of “portable bookmarks.”  Well that has changed now thanks to blogging and WordPress.  You see, WordPress offers a neat little widget where my latest del.icio.us bookmarks appear on the right hand column of this blog.  Thanks to this feature, my use of del.icio.us has skyrocketed recently.   It’s a way to quickly share articles/posts I find interesting and remind myself of…

Another crazy week of travels, this time to Cincinnati for house-hunting and some really interesting digital meetings/trainings.  In the meantime, here is what caught my eyes the past couple of days: CPG Brands Better Buy Paid Search- Yahoo and Mediavest just released a study that said “brands generated an average 160% increase in unaided awareness by being present in standard sponsored-text search results compared with when consumers weren’t exposed to their search ads.”  This backs up results released by Google a couple of weeks ago as well. Map of Pop vs Soda vs Coke in…

The folks over at ShareThis posted a very interesting chart detailing the “sharing activities” of their users.  While it may come to a shock to some, e-mail is still king and is used by 35% of ShareThis users when they want to pass along an interesting online article or post.  In fact, e-mail is used the same as the top 6 major Social Media sites combined (Facebook, MySpace, digg, del.icio.us, StumbleUpon & Reddit).  Lesson to Brand Managers:  Social Media is a rising force in the digital world.  But don’t forget that traditional digital like e-mail is still a very,…

Any brand is human. A brand fire is started by a person. It comes from a human spirit and mind: it’s made for humans. Human brand. Interestingly enough, this simple equation is sometimes forgotten. People focus on transactions, engineering commerce — and they just forget about the genetics of heart and emotion, foundation and connectivity. [...]

8*8*8*8 — weaving numbers & ideas, energy & good fortune, art & architecture. Reflections on the design of Herzog & DeMeuron and the Asian Basket collection at Girvin | Seattle. I’ve made some notes in the past on the concept of the bird’s nest — but not so much, alone, the idea of the nest of [...]

Examining the identity, specificity in design, architectures of light — and the creation of place-making: holding and containment in space. This blog is a journey. I find myself exploring architecture a great deal. Pretty much, all the time. What I’m curious about is the idea of containment. Containment, the word, the concept, is an interesting world. [...]

Examining the line between design, fragrance and the mystery of making. There’s a mystery between the concept of design, creativity and the magic of concocting and sequencing outcomes, whether in the visualization of clothing, style, or in the mystery of scentmaking. Some reference, to personal storytelling: Just last week, I was working with some clients on a [...]

I went to see what Christian Chabot, CEO of Tableau Software, has been thinking about [see his speech here: http://www.ustream.tv/]. Someone in the blogosphere alluded to Tableau becoming the new Apple. What’s that? But rather, I believe that it is the attitude of Apple — that’s new. It’s always new. And others struggle against it [http://www.macrumors.com/microsoft-shifting-strategy/]. But [...]

I’m writing an article that you’ll see here in the next few weeks about Stories and how they play a role in your branding. I recently had a great story created for me by Our House, an AIDS Hospice Non-profit I was doing some pro-bono work for. As with most non-profits, ...