3.302012
March Brand-As-Business Buffet
Between spring break, March Madness, and primary season, there’s been a lot going on outside the brand world this month. But there’s also been a flurry of new brand-building content going around. Here’s a handy recap of what I contributed to the conversation:
brand-building:
- Steve Jobs on Brand-Building — a slide show of what Walter Isaacson’s biography of Steve Jobs teaches about brand-building
- 5 Lessons from NBC’s ‘The Voice’ on How to Differentiate Your Brand — my OPEN Forum column on increasing brand differentiation with approaches used by the contenders on NBC’s The Voice
- Start Strong, Stay Strong, Finish Strong — more important lessons for marketers from The Voice
- Marketing As Product and Profit — a bit about how Red Bull has transformed content from a marketing tactic into a business unit and from a loss leader into a profit-center
- Apple Brand Magic – my “brand-as-business brief” on how everything Apple does its magic
restaurants and retail:
- Radical Differentiation at Lululemon — a blogpost on the “mystery” behind Lululemon’s phenomenal growth
- How to Succeed in the Restaurant Business — wise advice and juicy tidbits from restaurant leaders at the California Restaurant Association Orange County Chapter’s CEO/President’s Panel
- Brand Experience Briefs — videos of insights, analysis, and images of the brand experiences at Uniqlo‘s Herald Square megastore, and The Habit Burger Grill, a 50-unit quick serve burger chain
- The Sales Associate of Tomorrow — a post about the evolving role of the retail sales associate role
- Retail Tensions — a post based on Interbrand’s Best Retail Brands 2012 report about the tensions that now define retail
business and strategy:
- Professor Peter Fader on Customer Centricity — my interview with Wharton Professor Peter S. Fader about the myths about customer centricity
- Best Brands and Companies Lists — a comparison of popular best lists including Interbrand’s Best Global Brands, Fortune 500, Most Admired Companies, Best Companies to Work For, and Most Innovative Companies
- The Challenge of Companies and Rock Bands — a bit from Switchfoot band leader John Foreman about the bellcurve of a song which mirrors that of a company’s lifecycle
marketing tactics:
- 3 Ways to Improve Local Marketing – my QSR Magazine column on the three P’s of effective local marketing
- Taco Bell Wins in Co-Brand with Doritos — data from ePoll that shows Taco Bell brand stands to gain significantly from its new Doritos Loco Taco — but what’s in it for Doritos?
- Why Would Anyone Buy Naming Rights to a Highway? — insights quoted in BBC News about how companies would consider highway naming rights just to be different