Brand Central Station

No, it’s not a review of the CapitalOne campaign. We won’t go there right now …

Instead, the folks at Advertising/Design Goodness have provided a look at the evolution of the VISA nameplate from its start as BankAmericard to what it is today. Is it an example of great graphic design or branding … not really.

But it’s kinda interesting.

Of course the comments, written by (we assume) art directors and graphic designers, are filled with funky spelling and bad punctuation. But that kind of adds to the authenticity of the entire site.

Technorati tags: VISA Graphic Design Logos Branding

Ouch.

That lucrative field known as “custom publishing” has a major player fall, according to Rex Hammock. Although I haven’t seen any other news on this item, Rex is usually a very reliable source of information (as his the blog he writes).

For PR’s everywhere, this move underscores the inherent risks in custom publishing for clients. It looks and sounds sexy until they have to start paying what it really takes to be in the publishing business. There’s a reason a couple of thousand pubs go out of business each year.

Technorati tags: Custom Publishing PR Journalism Hearst Corporation

Debra De-Jong provides an in-depth look into the goings-on at Burberry in this post on her blog. It’s an interesting study of how a person with vision can re-invigorate a brand that had nearly collapsed in on itself.

Burberry, for those of you not familiar with it, is the vernerable maker of trench and overcoats worn by everyone from Humphrey Bogart and Kathryn Hepburn to Peter Sellers (in The Pink Panther movies).

Now, thanks to Rose Marie Bravo (brought in to oversee the re-birth of the flagging brand from her prior work at Saks Fifth Avenue), Burberry has made the transition from stodgy to suave and fashionable.

All in all, Debra does a great job with this insightful post. Interesting read on brand re-birth.

Technorati tags: Branding Fashion Burberry

Working in the marketing business, I’ve seen all kinds of bogus charges come through on AE expense reports – but nothing like this.

Savvis CEO, Robert McCormick has some ‘splainin’ to do now that he refuses to pay $241,000 in lap dances charged to his Amex Card. CNN has the whole story.

Irony is harsh, however. The next story down is about a US Senator who won nearly a million dollars in this week’s Powerball.

D’oah.

By the way, there’s no marketing lesson to learn here other than have a crisis communications plan in hand in case your CEO can’t keep it in his pants.

Technorati tags: Stripper Lap Dance Savvis Stupid

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Special Note:

This is a special weekend-only edition of “Much Ado About Marketing” – posted mostly because there were so many good articles on marketing (and one hilariously stupid article about lap dancing). Enjoy it – but please don’t get used to it. I’m not sure we’ll do it every week. – Mike

All comments (c) 2005, Brand Central Station – all rights reserved. For more information about BCS, please visit our website.

The Advertising/Design Goodness Blog has found another great campaign to showcase, this time from Australia. Touting the fact that the advertised product is sugar-free, the creative geniuses at Clemenger BBDO have been able to capture sugar cubes in the wild acting … well, wild.

Hysterically funny stuff and well done.

I want to see if there’s a tv campaign that goes with this.

Technorati tags: Creative Advertising Australia

Exclusive corporate sponsorship of a television program is not a unique concept. It’s roots run all the way back to the orginal soap operas on tv and radio and is done – from time to time – on commercial television today, usually as a PR stunt.

So what makes Philips’ decision to “buy out” a 60 Minutes telecast unique is that rather than running commercial messages in all of the available commercial space in the program, the advertiser has decided to “give back” half of the time to allow the news magazine to air longer stories.

This looks like a case of “less” definitely being “more.”

AdRants and AdPulp have both covered this item. We’ll keep our eyes open to see if this might be a trend worth watching.

Technorati tags: Advertising Media Strategy 60 Minutes Philips

John Wyckoff is featured in this post on the Small Business Trends Blog discussing a favorite subject of mine … entreprenuerial focus.

We often see clients who are too busy working “in” their business instead of “on” it. The first time I heard it (or, rather, read it) was from Michael Gerber, author of “The e-Myth” and related products. “The e-Myth” is an easy-to-read business book that offers some profound insights (I highly recommend it).

Now John Wyckoff has plumbed those depths again with this article and various other articles he’s written. If you deal with clients who own and/or manage their own businesses, this is a must read.

Technorati tags: Business Management Leadership

Congratulations to Toby Bloomberg and her Diva Marketing Blog for the recent kudo’s she received from Edelman and Intelliseek in their jointly-published white paper: “Talking from the Inside Out – The Rise of Employee Bloggers.” There’s lots of good stuff in the guide, including a recommendation for Toby’s Diva Marketing Blog.

Toby has gone one step further, though. In a recent post to her blog, she’s listed all of the recommended bloggers and created hot links to each, making it much easier to find these blogs and add them to your blogroll.

We did.

Thanks again, Toby.

Technorati tags: Edelman Intelliseek Blogging Diva Marketing

Here’s an interesting post from Doug Champigny (from Webtivity Designs) on the future of the e-newsletter.

As interesting as the technology is, though, Doug’s first recommendation is that clients start to re-evaluate how they use their newsletter and shift they way they look at them in the future.

The wind-up? Content, more now than ever, is still the king.

Long live content.

Technorati tags: e-Newsletters Online Marketing Advertising

Frederik Samuel gives a quick appraisal of the Typophile site. This looks like a great resource and probably something that should be bookmarked in every art director’s browser.

Technorati tags: Typeography Graphic Design Advertising Branding

In this recent post on his blog (Read Between The P’s), Puru Gupta fills us in on an innovative outdoor campaign for the Hutch Half Marathon. The billboard features a live person running on the board.

Very cool stuff.

We’ve just added Puru’s blog to our blogroll and will check back frequently.

Technorati tags: Outdoor Advertising Sports Marketing India

At least according to a poll conducted by business consultant, JS Logan. You can read a brief summary of the survey results by visiting his blog.

One interesting thing to note on the poll results, however … while over half of those responding said they believe direct mail still works, one in five respondents said they wanted to better understand its application. That tells me there is still plenty of education required and lots of room for error. Like every discipline in the marketing mix, evolution and specialization continues.

A great resource for information on direct marketing is the Direct Marketing Association. Also Target Marketing Magazine.

Technorati tags: Direct Mail Direct Marketing Marketing