News industry analyst, Ken Doctor, believes ‘conventional wisdoms are odd things.” Who, for instance, would have thought that the Social Network movie would propel Mark Zuckerberg to new heights of respect?
Doctor points out 11 conventional wisdoms on his Newsonomics site, one of which I’ve selected for you to consider here:
Brand is everything. Certainly, we see the re-ascendance of Big Brands, from Comcast, Netflix and HBO to Amazon, Apple and News Corp. Given the economic cycle, that’s entirely predictable: big companies usually have the cushion, if they act smartly, to sustain recession damage, and grab market and mind share. In fact, I think we are seeing greater value of big brands, for instance in tablet news product innovation. Who’s there early on? The big guys: Reuters, BBC, WSJ, NYT, Bloomberg, Guardian and more, while the little guys are largely sitting on the sidelines “assessing the market.” Counterpoint: Flipboard, small and VC-funded, has broken through noise, based mainly on good thinking and real innovation — and now has its brand certified by Apple, which picked it App o’ the year.
“Brand is everything” is likely a different discussion in most advertising circles. What does it mean to you?