Brand Central Station

Sure, JibJab produced Office Max’s new “Elf Yourself” viral (at no charge, according to trade reports), but it’s been done.  The new fun holiday viral comes from the folks at McDonald’s: the coffee ring snowflake.  Users can create their own snowflakes (see the one I made over Thanksgiving) and then have them posted to an online gallery.

Have a great holiday weekend!

When you ask an art director or designer to create a logo, they all seem to have a different way of doing it.  Whether their “method” involves sitting down with a bunch of design annuals and looking at what other people are creating or taking pictures of the client’s “environment” from which they can draw inspiration – everyone has their own method.

This post, by Chuck Green, provides insight into his methodology.  A key observation, though, can be found from this quote:

To my way of thinking, designs emerge from concepts, concepts do not emerge from designs. My goal in creating a logo is, at best, to demonstrate the benefit of using the product or service and at minimum to create a visual symbol of the subject matter.

The value of a well-prepared brief for a creative team – whether they’re working on an advertising campaign, a brochure or an identity – can’t be underestimated for developing a clear position and concepts that are strategically on-target.

While social mega-networks like Facebook and MySpace have their own drawbacks from a growth and advertising activation/conversion standpoint, growth in the social networking space is coming from niche networks (easy to create via services like Ning and Freewebs).  And among niche networks, you’d be hard-pressed to find a niche more expansive (or lucrative) than those nets appealing to women.

So a special “thanks” to Toby Bloomberg, the Marketing Diva, for her list of top social networks for women.  She’s done a lot of work here and I’m just going to re-publish her list – but for those of you who may be familiar with other networks (or have developed one of your own) focusing on the women’s market, please let me know about it for a follow-up post at some point in the future.

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TNS, the world’s largest provider of custom research and analysis, recently published their list of the top 1,000 brands in the Asia-Pacific Region (more details on the study).  Japanese brand, SONY, came in at number one displacing Canon, the leader of last year’s list.  US-based Nike came in third.

In fact, the top ten list showed the depth and influence of US brands in Asia by occupying five of the spots on the list.

The top ten brands for 2008 include:

• Sony
• Canon
• Nike
• Google
• Hewelett-Packard
• Coca Cola
• Adidas
• Samsung
• 7-Eleven
• Yahoo!

It’s the holidays and we’re on vacation – so here’s a link to a great post on the history of punctuation.

Enjoy.

Earlier this week, we ran an article that featured some brand-awareness research conducted by Mintel International.  We’ve had an opportunity to correspond with the Mintel folks again and they sent us this additional information on a consumer study they conducted that spotlights retail opportunities this “economically-challenged” holiday shopping season. 

For retailers of all size, this report is worth reading:

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Giant book publisher, Random House, announced on Monday (11/24/08) that it had digitized an additional 8,000 titles, bringing its electronic library to nearly 15,000 properties.  Although digital books only account for approximately 1% of the publishing market, growth of the segment has taken off due to the agressive sales of the Kindle reader from Amazon.

So, from a consumer’s point of view, what are the advantages of ebooks versus the non-virtual product made of paper, ink and binding glue?  According to Random House, the advantages include:

Portability: You can download several eBooks to your handheld for vacations and business trips.

Convenience: You can download hundreds of eBooks to your computer and create a library specific to your own interests.

Special features: eBooks have searching capabilities that print books do not. You can electronically underline, highlight, and search for specific words and terms.

Cost: eBooks are priced less than their print equivalent.

Instant gratification: eBooks are delivered instantaneously. You can search for an eBook, purchase it, and download it all in a matter minutes or even seconds.

But what about for marketers? 

First off, the ebook format reduces the “friction” associated with self-publishing.  There are plenty of bloggers and other experts who have generated enough content that a little editing is all that’s needed to have a manuscript ready to be turned into an ebook.

On the other hand, though, marketers may find the ebook format offering additional possibilities for clients: mainstream ebooks may start to contain more “product placements” (i.e. mentions of a product along with a bit of detail of how the product is used) or streaming or updatable content to keep them current (via RSS or other syndication technology).

That same kind of updatable content may form the basis for ecatalogs whose content and prices may change based on stock availability.  Social media mechanisms like user feedback and consumer reviews may be built into travel or consumer product ebooks down the road.

The point is this: consumer adoption of these marketable extensions of the ebook depends on one, major thing – the circulation of popular titles in the ebook format.  Random House appears to have made a significant step in that direction.

What do you think?

If you’re going to speak on behalf of a client or your company, you have to make sure nothing gets in the way of your message.  And that includes your fashion sense (or lack thereof).

Tami Kou, the lead media trainer at LaBreche in Minneapolis recently contributed a piece on what to wear (and what not to wear) to PRNews.  Here are a summary of her tips:

• Avoid small-checkered patterned prints. The camera has a difficult time focusing on the print, making it hard for viewers to look at.
• Don’t wear large, flashy or clunky jewelry. Oversized jewelry not only overshadow your message, the noise of it can be picked up on your microphone.
• If you’re wearing a jacket, pull it tight and sit on the back of it. This gives you a much sleeker look and more polished presence.
• Not sure what color to wear? Stay away from white, unless you’re wearing a colored jacket on top. White tends to wash you out. Instead opt for French blue. There’s a reason why it is the backdrop for nearly all presidential debates. That’s because it looks great on all. 

Tami also reminds us:

Television is a visual medium and people are listening with their eyes just as much, if not more so, than they are with their ears. [So,] remember that you’re representing your company’s brand and first impressions count. Make sure that your attire reflects that. If you have a hip and trendy message, then a traditional navy blue suit isn’t the outfit that is going to convey that message. What does your outfit say about you before you utter a word? Are you traditional and conservative or innovative and edgy?

Think this is all a bunch of nonsense?  Just remember how the press obsessed over the wardrobe of candidates Hillary Clinton and Sarah Palin during the primaries and election. 

And for men – think back on the number of times some rube in a ball cap and wife beater t-shirt was interviewed on the devastating impact of a flood or hurricane.  Was his message as effective as the golf shirt-wearing state officials or uniform-clad emergency responders?  Which guy gets lampooned on Leno or Conan?

Tami is right when she says people “listen with their eyes” when it comes to television. 

And for those of you who want to be company spokesmen but can’t pull off the clean dress shirt look?  Stick to radio.

No, we’re not talking about Presidential politics or economic meltdowns.  We’ll leave that for the straight news.  What’s interesting to note is that according to a recent study by by Boston public relations company Schneider Associates; Mintel International, the London division of Chicago research company Mintel; and Chicago research company Information Resources Inc., 2008 was so full of distractions that not many new products or innovations are on the tops of consumers’ minds.

Check out the video summary of the study here.

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Here’s a GM brand spot from the 1950′s – you know, back in the days when GM still had over 50% market share.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BeHFErgTYfg]

And, oh yeah, gas was only 20-cents (or so) a gallon and none of these cars were expected to get more than 8-10 miles to the gallon.

I doubt there’s any sized bailout that can bring these days back.

From the Animal blog by way of Copyranter.  See other newspaper objects d’art here and here.

I’ve received some positive feedback on this article posted nearly two weeks ago about what businesses need to do to market themselves effectively in an economic recession.  Over the weekend, I found this post on Dave Lakhani’s Bold Approach blog.

In it, Dave rants on about people who are keeping their head stuck in the ground when it comes to addressing the very real business issues that are brought on by an economic recession:

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