Brands

If there's two things I love, it's sweet n' salty kettle corn and challenger upstart brands with great stories. Combine those and you get LesserEvil Snacks. The packaging caught my eye at Fresh Market so I picked it up, and the writing on the box was great. As is the fun brand story on their website: Here at LesserEvil, we are all about the snacks. We love to eat them. Love to share them. Love to think up wild new …

Continue Reading about LesserEvil Takes On The Big Boys With A Great Story →

Ad Age looks at an age old truth about mature brands. They need to get new customers in the franchise in order to survive. Talk about a marketing conundrum: Revive Colt 45 malt liquor -- once seen as an exploitative product that preyed on the urban poor -- as an edgy choice for young hipsters. But Pabst Brewing Co. is trying to do just that, with a campaign from Seattle boutique Cole & Weber. To appeal to younger …

Continue Reading about Not Billie Dee Williams’ Colt 45 →

Tyson Foods, Inc. has been touting its line of antibiotic-free chicken as part of a $70 million advertising campaign. But, competitive poultry producers are upset that the Arkansas-based company has been making false claims about its product. Calling themselves the Truthful Labeling Coalition, Perdue Farms, Sanderson Farms Inc., Gold'n Plump Poultry Inc. and Foster Poultry Farms accused Tyson of displaying …

Continue Reading about Their Chicken Ain’t All That →

Kansas City Star takes a look at Lee Jeans, a firm that ended its 18-year relationship with Minneapolis-based Fallon. The account is now at Arnold in Boston. Lee is centered on a pull, not a push, strategy. In other words, the consumer dictates needs and Lee fulfills them. Lee president Joe Dzialo said the company has undertaken extensive research to understand its customer, research that includes large-scale …

Continue Reading about Better Fitting Western Wear →

Microsoft's $240 million investment in Facebook, which bought them a paltry 1.6% of the company, might now be a model for other social media investments. According to The New York Times, Slide, the maker of applications for social networks, has raised another round of funding – $50 million from the private equity funds at Fidelity and T-Rowe Price, two major Wall Street investment houses. The firms have taken a nine …

Continue Reading about Studying Silicon Valley’s Higher Math →

According to The New York Times, Zagat Survey is for sale and may fetch as much as $200 million. The Zagats, who met at Yale Law School, could not find a publisher for their annual Manhattan restaurant rankings guide in the early 1980s, so they began publishing it themselves and delivering copies to any bookstore that would stock them. They set up a publishing company in part to get tax deductions for meals. The …

Continue Reading about Taste Makers About to Make Money Too →

Today in Sunday Styles, readers encounter one Charlotte Voisey, a “brand ambassador” at William Grant & Sons, Glenfiddich’s parent company. Turns out, she is responsible for creating a Scotch-laden libation known as "Sweet Solera." A mixture of Glenfiddich 15-Year-Old Solera Reserve, Lillet Rouge, and a winsome dash of caramel syrup, and bespangled with a maraschino cherry, the Sweet Solera is a cousin to a Rob Roy, …

Continue Reading about A 15-Year Old Single Malt Learns To Mingle →

Sorry for all the bad puns, but hey, a bad brand deserves bad puns. I wrote back in March about Circuit City's decision to fire 3000 employees, the ones who were the most knowledgeable on the sales floor. Of course, at the time, it was a way to make Wall Street happy by lowering costs and boosting profits. Well, Wall Street is not happy. From the Chicago Tribune: Shares of Circuit City Stores Inc. lost more than a …

Continue Reading about Circuit City’s Stock Price Gets Zapped. Not A Shock. →