Branding

The brand does not stop with the product

May 19, 2011

I had a marketing visit from my son’s friend who has a summer job selling kitchen cutlery for an international company. It’s an excellent product, a well-known brand and is about 20 times more expensive than the average knife set you buy from the store. It was a good sales call but it got me [...]

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How green is your marketing?

April 14, 2011

Marketing communication that misleads buyers in to thinking that your product is environmentally friendly, when it’s not, is called “greenwashing”. An Ottawa-based company, TerraChoice, lists its 7 sins of greenwashing. Sin of the Hidden Trade-off. Suggesting a product is “green” based on an unreasonably narrow set of attributes without attention to other important environmental issues. [...]

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Advertising is poison gas

March 14, 2011

The movie Art & Copy is a powerful film about advertising and inspiration. It reminded me why I love the world of marketing and the opportunity to create change. “Advertising is poison gas” is a line from the movie by George Lois who launched “I want my MTV” and Tommy Hilfiger. It’s supposed to make [...]

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I love my Blackberry Bold, but…

March 3, 2011

A short marketing message appeared on my Blackberry the other day asking if I wanted to upgrade the software on my Smartphone. This is normal. I do it all the time. I clicked on the link and it went off and did its thing. I did not pay it any attention until I went to [...]

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When renaming an iconic brand is a mistake

February 8, 2011

When is renaming an iconic Ottawa brand a mistake? When the brand is The Bear radio station. Two years ago, in December 2008, 106.9FM The Bear decided to take on the mantle of Virgin Radio, after 14 years of rock. The new owners, Astral Radio, were looking for a way to announce a fresh style [...]

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Is your online brand being hurt by your offline performance?

January 11, 2011

What happens to the value of a strong market brand when it’s thrown on your doorstep and moved, unopened, to the recycling bin? I can’t be alone in never opening a Yellow Pages print directory these days. A long time ago, Yellow Pages was to print what Google is to the internet today. It’s where [...]

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How to kill your brand with lazy marketing

December 13, 2010

I took a call from my internet service provider last week inviting me to bundle various services with them (Internet + Phone + TV). It was a distant voice from a distant land. When I explained that my TV service was with a cable company and that I had no wish to change, he hung [...]

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How to market the Olympics

December 8, 2010

Canada’s success at marketing the 2010 winter Olympics came from considering the event as a platform from which to market the whole of Canada. According to Michele McKenzie, CEO at the Canadian Tourism Commission, it had a four-year tourism strategy which is only now entering its final phase. In her words, “First, paint enticing pictures [...]

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Are gift cards a good marketing idea?

December 6, 2010

66% of Ottawa residents did not use the full amount of the Christmas gift cards they received last year. This is a bonanza for local stores – you get paid up-front for merchandise, which is never collected. Fantastic cash flow, but is this great marketing? Is this about business development? It’s like seeing someone drop [...]

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The difference between knowing stuff and being able to communicate it

November 23, 2010

There’s a great article on the BBC web site about diagrams that changed the world. It shows how complex ideas have been explained through pictures that transformed the way people looked at things. From Copernicus’ diagram that visually put the sun at the centre of the universe – a revolutionary idea at the time, to [...]

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