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Brand power comes from keeping – not only making – promises.  And to keep your brand promises, your brand and culture must be aligned and integrated.   In other words, brand-building requires brand-culture fusion. But a recent HBR article by Roger L. Martin, former dean of the Rotman School of Management, and a couple of LinkedIn […]

cantbuymelike

(“brand book bites” are book reviews that highlight the most interesting brand stories in the latest best-selling books.  Subscribe to my feed so you don’t miss these regular bulleted briefings on the books I recommend.) –  the book:  Can’t Buy Me Like:  How Authentic Customer Connections Drive Superior Results – a salty read about marketing […]

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I’ve always been fascinated by movie trailers – not for how they entice people to see movies, but for the insights they provide into how to make great ads.  After all, ads and trailers serve a similar objective:  convert viewership into action — buy a product or go see a movie. […]

brand-as-business bit:  Have you seen the latest TV commercial for Amazon?  It’s terrific!  Why? It talks about what Amazon has already done.  Unlike many technology ads that make promises about great things companies are working to make possible, this ad is basically a review of all the great things Amazon has already done. It conveys […]

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What are some of the latest developments in Facebook marketing?  How is Facebook changing the nature of brand-building? These are some of the questions I cover in today’s interview with Facebook’s head of Global Vertical Marketing, Mike Fox.  Mike’s group is charged with developing category-level marketing strategies for Facebook’s clients, so he is able to share […]

brand-as-business bit:  What makes an ad something people want to share with others?  Is there a secret formula for making ads that are most likely to be shared? The March issue of the Harvard Business Review included a report by Harvard prof Thales Teixeira who tracked viewers’ eye movements and facial expressions while watching ads.  […]

brand-as-business bit:  There’s been a lot of activity in the fast food world these days:  Burger King just launched a new menu and ad campaign, Wendy’s introduced a new tagline and campaign, and Taco Bell is experimenting with a new menu and tagline. My colleagues over at E-Poll and I thought it would be helpful […]

brand-as-business bit:  Tucked away in last week’s New York Times automotive section was a great piece about advertising.  The subject was Ed McCabe (of Scali, McCabe, Sloves fame) whose  iconoclastic approach to advertising etched into our brains safety as Volvo’s brand identity.  Three points  about Mr. McCabe’s strategy really resonated with me: “Volvo’s reputation for crash […]

brand-as-business bit:  In Fast Company’s recent write-up on Red Bull, Red Bull Media House managing director Werner Brell is quoted as saying: “[Red Bull founder Dietrich Mateschitz] knew that success would be in how you market the product as much as the product itself.” It reminds me of a favorite quote of mine from Geoffrey Frost who […]