The Google experience over the last week—and I can say ‘week’ because there were still a few browsers showing blocks yesterday—reminds me of how brands can be resilient. First, I know it’s hard for most people to believe that Google is so incompetent—or even downright corrupt, when it came to its bypassing Safari users’ […]
Category: branding
Brand strategy, the practice of branding, identity, brand equity and related matters.
What Is a Brand? Well, there is one we’ve relaunched …
My good friend and colleague Stanley Moss has written a new book, What Is a Brand?, which provokes some thought on the question in the title. Those who know Stanley and have followed his work know that each year, he issues a Brand Letter, which closes with various definitions of branding. If […]
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Fifty-three years of the Nissan Bluebird: a long-lived model line comes to an end
I’m not the biggest fan of the Nissan Bluebird, but a milestone happened earlier this month that a lot of the motoring press seems to have missed: the demise of this 53-year-old nameplate. Starting in 1959, Bluebird has been a mainstay of the Nissan line-up, and even when the traditional Bluebird line finished in […]
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Leaders need to be humble if co-creation is to be effective
I’d been meaning to refer readers to this for a few weeks (it has appeared on my Facebook pages, including the “fan” page—a good place to go if you prefer my musings filtered, without the minutiæ and without clogging up your feeds). My friend and colleague, Dr Nicholas Ind, has been writing about leadership and […]
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The fall of Facebook advertising and the rise of something else
I remember when Michael Wolff was very bullish about the internet in the 1990s, so when he starts sounding warning bells, we had better take heed. The way Michael paints Facebook—and a belief that its advertising model will eventually collapse for being so limited—is not unfamiliar to anyone who ever wondered, during the dot-com […]
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Global experience trumps education—Anna Tavis, Brown Brothers Harriman
Every now and then, the Harvard Business Review comes up with some gems. This video, from Anna Tavis, head of talent and development at Brown Brothers Harriman, says that global experience is more important than education if you wish to be successful in business. She also hints at the importance of differentiation, which I […]
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In the MG world, the Chinese understand Britishness better
Take a car range that’s not selling too well, and try to pull the patriotic heart-strings to see if you can move a few. Trouble is, this ad for the MG 6 Magnette, which is running on some of our sites, is pretty awful. It’s not convincing, for starters. Brand Germany has its […]
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Small is beautiful, whether it’s a company or a country
My friend Summer Rayne Oakes at Source4Style put me on to an article in The Guardian by Ilaria Pasquinelli, on how small firms drive innovation. If the fashion industry is to survive, she says, it must team up with the small players where innovation takes place, thanks to the visionaries who drive those firms. […]
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Optimism marks out the Indian decade
Symbiosis Institute of Media and Communication I’ve had a wonderful time in Pune and Mumbai, two cities to which I had wanted to go for some years. Like some New Agers say: be careful what you put out into the universe. It can come true. My main reason for going was to address the […]
Finishing off 2011 with the most fun radio interview I have ever done
Photo by Xavier Collin/Snapstar Live Friday morning’s interview with Sonia Sly on Kiwi Summer was the most fun I have ever had on radio. Radio New Zealand National was the most fair and balanced medium I dealt with when running for Mayor of Wellington in 2010, and I was glad that Sonia thought of […]
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