Brands

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 …

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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, …

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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 …

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According to The New York Times, Portugal is spending over $4 million dollars to rework and bolster its image in the international business community. Manuel Pinho, Portugal’s minister for the economy and innovation said that 19 percent of the country’s power comes from renewable sources like the wind or the sun, putting Portugal in third place in Europe, behind Sweden and Austria. That might come as something of a …

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Barkley's Sonic Drive-In TV spot for cranberry iced tea was one of the most highly recalled restaurant commercials of the year, according to an IAG Research report. The No. 1 most-recalled spot according to the report was a Subway spot featuring Jared and Philadelphia Phillies slugger Ryan Howard, while the Sonic spot tied for second with another Subway spot, one featuring Jared and New Orleans running back Reggie …

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According to Media Post's Marketing Daily, ConAgra—the nation's largest popcorn maker—will use an integrated campaign to tout the fact that its reformulated Orville Redenbacher and ACT II microwave brands no longer contain added diacetyl, a creamy, buttery flavoring. Other popcorn makers have already made similar moves, following the discovery in 2002 that diacetyl was making popcorn factory workers ill. ConAgra says …

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USA Today knows how to write a lead. There's a new twist on consumer-generated marketing: Ellen DeGeneres-generated marketing. Chris Bryant, 23, now starring in his own Nike ad, got the gig thanks to the funny woman's interest in his unusual abilities. With Bryant appearing as a guest on her show, she rang Nike CEO Mark Parker during the broadcast and pushed the company to make an ad. The rest, as they say, is …

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I happened to stumble upon the following passage from Douglas Holt's book, How Brands Become Icons: The Principle of Cultural Branding today. To systematically build iconic brands, companies must reinvent their marketing function. They must assemble cultural knowledge, rather than knowledge about individual consumers. They must strategize according to cultural branding principles, rather than apply the abstracted and …

Continue Reading about Ditch The Portfolio. What You Need Is A Scrapbook of Cultural Activity. →