Brand Central Station

This is a great post in the BrandXpress Blog that explains why brand loyalty matters to a business.

This piece can serve as the foundation for discussions with clients who “just don’t get it.” Highly recommend.

Technorati tags: Branding Brand Loyalty Marketing

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

There’s a word for an idea that works on parents through their kids.

Around our house, it’s a four-letter word.

But in this particular case, the American Dairy Council has managed to produce a tapeful of songs that teach a few important lessons and get kids interested in milk in the process.

Fun stuff. Pass the milk, please.

From the Marketing Geniuses at Maple Creative.

Technorati tags: Advertising Direct Marketing

The Decent Marketing Blog’s Katherine Stone writes about a new blog she’s found about marketing, advertising and more in India. Given the fact that India is quickly becoming one of the leading economic engines in the 21st century world, it’s probably worth spending some time with this blog and others like it a few times a week.

I know we will.

Technorati tags: Marketing Blogging Advertising India

Yeah, I had to read this twice to make sure I was seeing it right. I can’t believe it either.

Blogger Peter Shankman offers up a classic example of what NOT to do when it comes to managing a PR effort. Peter provides a copy of an e-mail from a PR flack that tries to use the disaster wrought by Hurricane Katrina to flog a new book by her client.

Bad idea. And even poorer taste.

Thanks, Peter!

Technorati tags: PR Journalism Marketing

MicroPersuasion’s Steve Rubel points to a piece that says a consumer advocacy group has asked the FTC to investigate “stealth” marketing campaigns that use blogs which appear to be from ordinary people but are really written by corporate marketing flacks. Another version of this story can be found on ZDNet.

The response from the Word Of Mouth Marketing Association (WOMMA) can be found on their website.

Technorati tags: Marketing Advertising Branding Buzz Marketing

Jon Fine blogs about the challenges facing magazines when it comes to re-defining the line between editorial and advertising and, more specifically, the value of embedding product placements in magazine articles. Fine writes about media for BusinessWeek Magazine.

Technorati tags: Advertising Media Journalism Product Placement

Frederik Samuel does it again, this time providing us with a great example of branding continuity for, of all things, a dentist.

Great work to be found on the Advertising/Design Goodness Blog.

So, what’s the big deal about branding work for a dentist? The work is noteworthy not just because it’s good but because it proves the “scalability” of a branding essential: creative continuity.

In this particular case, everything from direct mail pieces and business cards to the handle of the front door carries a familiar bite mark.

Technorati tags: Branding Graphic Design Identity

Peter Brady (no, not this Peter Brady) publishes the Ads on Blogs Blog, a new addition to the “Much Ado …” blogroll. It’s a good read overall, but we found this post to be of particular interest.

If you write/edit a blog and are considering carrying advertising, there are alternatives to Google AdSense – and Peter goes into them in this post.

Technorati tags: Advertising Blogging Online Media

Steve Hall and the AdRants Blog reports that Infinity Broadcasting, the company that brought us Howard Stern is now getting ready to launch a network of “free” FM radio stations.

The report that ran in FMBQ goes on to explain that several of Infinity’s FM Talk stations appear to be ready to take on the “Free” label, but doesn’t tip us off as to exactly what a radio station “free”.

The branding challenges appear to be significant on this one, folks. We’ll see if Infinity can break from the norm for media properties and manage to establish a clear USP in their respective markets.

Technorati tags: Advertising Radio Howard Stern

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

Frederik Samuel found a great game and shared it on his Advertising/Design Goodness Blog.

Here’s what he had to say:
“So you think you know all the brands don’t you? Here is a great website, that displays parts of logos, and it’s your job to guess which letter belongs to what logo. It’s not as easy as it might look. Good Luck.”

Start guessing and let me know when you’re done.

Technorati tags: Branding Advertising Promotion

Thanks to the folks at AdPulp Blog for this tip. It’s good to see the folks at Liggett-Stashower have not let their creative juices escape completely.

(Note: Be sure to hold each key down long enough to get the full, musical effect.)

Technorati tags: Flatulance Advertising Trends

Mike Driehorst blasts another one of those “Blogs are the future of PR” posts, this time from Dave Taylor of Intuitive Systems.

I have to tell you, I can appreciate a guy who calls them like he sees them – and that’s Mike’s point. (In fact, “Mike’s Points” is the name of his blog.) But what’s even more telling is the back and forth between Mike and Dave in the Comments section of the post.

And that, my friends, IS the future of PR.

While Dave is busy trying to convince us the news release is dead and Mike is trying to get Dave to see that traditional media venues aren’t just going to go away – they demonstrate that PR can get very personal and intimate via the Blogosphere.

The earth-shaking idea here may not be the use of blogs, podcasts and other social media to effect change in the mainstream media but to have the ability to circumvent it all together and take the message directly to the customer, one person at a time.

Look for a post on that subject in the next week on our own Brand Central Station blog.

Technorati tags: Social Media PR Journalism Trends