Book Club: Buyology

"Buyology: Truth and Lies About What We Buy," published by Doubleday, lays out the findings of a three-year, $7 million neuromarketing study by Mr. Lindstrom, who is chairman-CEO of Lindstrom Co. He and a team of researchers in Oxford, England, used the most up-to-date neurotechnologies -- functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and electroencephalography (EEG) -- on 2,000 people from five countries in an effort to better understand consumer behavior. The goal was to gauge the efficacy of product health warnings, product placement and subliminal messaging, among other things.

Ad Age

50 Stunning Examples of a great redesign

wefunction.com

PepsiCo Launches Massive Overhaul

PepsiCo today said it will pour some $1.2 billion over three years into a push that will include sweeping changes to its brands, including what Chairman-CEO Indra Nooyi characterized as a revamp of "every aspect of the brand proposition for our key [carbonated soft drink] brands. How they look, how they're packaged, how they will be merchandised on the shelves, and how they connect with consumers."

Ad Age

Fate

Stand by Your Brand: How Cohesive Design Turned Obama Into America’s Leading Man

But the “O” logo is only one element of the two-part Obama campaign. Utilizing the san serif Gotham font, his typeface creates a look that is both formal and friendly, the perfect hallmark of an ideal Presidential candidate. Paired together with its “O” partner, and the Obama brand created a dynamic duo. The symbol occupies the recognizable “hero” role, while the font literally reinforces the brand name. No piece of marketing collateral ever escapes a healthy dosing of logo treatment in a political campaign, but Team Obama has transitioned his sleek modernist look into an iconic symbol so seamlessly it borders on graceful.

dvisible magazine
h/t Steve L.

Transmoflection

Vancouver 2010 Graphic Identity

Subconscious Warm-Up

The upshot of the original study, and numerous replications, was that the subjects subliminally exposed to Apple branding came up with more uses, and their uses were deemed more creative, than those exposed to the I.B.M. logo or to no logo at all. In other words, exposure to the Apple logo appeared to make people more creative.

New York Times Magazine

When you stand for something

It's frustrating to watch marketers, politicians and individuals fall into the obvious trap of trying to stand for something at the same time they try to please everyone or do everything.

Seth's Blog

Salesmen & Sociologists

Here’s what’s happening. First of all, we have substantially exaggerated the power of brands. Most consumers in most categories have little or no brand loyalty. They don’t care which bank they go to (they go to the one that’s across the street.) They don’t care which airline they fly (they fly the one that has the best deal at the best time.) They don’t care what auto insurance they buy as long as it’s cheap or what tomato sauce they buy as long as it tastes good.

Ad Contrarian

Choc in a Box

New Work: Museum of Arts and Design

New at Pentagram

White Castle Equity Video

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Best Global Brands

Then there are the other guys—companies that refuse to let tough times distract them from their long-term brand-building efforts. Sometimes they see a recession as the perfect moment to get a leg up on a weakened rival. Others strengthen their brands to ward off discount competitors. Still others feel they have a knockout new product that requires support. In BusinessWeek 's annual ranking of the 100 Best Global Brands, several are keeping their U.S. marketing budgets steady, as a percentage of revenue.

BusinessWeek

Getting Inside the Customer's Mind

To help it get there, Macy's recently became the latest sales-challenged U.S. retailer to hire a British research shop called dunnhumby. Co-founded in 1989 by marketing geeks Edwina Dunn and Clive Humby, dunnhumby doesn't help retailers find new shoppers. Rather, by crunching data from credit-card transactions and customer loyalty programs, the outfit reveals hidden and lucrative facts about clients' current customers. It can identify who might jump at a particular sale, or who will ditch the store if a certain product goes away. "I really think it's some of the best intelligence available," says Deborah Weinswig, who follows the retail industry for Citigroup.

Business Week

A Pop-Up Agency Shows Off Emerging Talent

A decision was made that Jack & Bill would concentrate on clients in the fashion field because many of the younger Porter Novelli employees worked on accounts in areas like “fashion and style and art and culture,” said Erin Osher, a partner at Jack & Bill who is an account supervisor at Porter Novelli.

“It was really the chance of a lifetime to create an agency with the support and help of a big organization,” said Ms. Osher, who has worked at Porter Novelli for three years.

New York Times

4 Captivating Companies and What They Share

The SAGA companies do very different things and are of hugely different sizes: Google's market capitalization is about $158 billion; Starbucks is down to about $12 billion. Yet they share some remarkable traits. At the most basic level, each has transformed not only a specific commercial marketplace but also some important aspect of contemporary life -- computing and music for Apple, information and advertising for Google, coffee for Starbucks, books for Amazon. In doing so, each has had an appreciable impact on our daily routines, taken on a looming presence in popular culture, and often engendered an intensity of feeling more often associated with tastes in entertainment or political views. Together, they have created a new model of business innovation, culture and values.

Washington Post

The Plot Thickens

Branding in a New Dimension

First, brands cannot be created and managed in a top-down approach. Gone are the days when branding companies could create a brand identity accompanied by a dense, rarely read instruction manual on how to apply it across media. Brands are no longer static. Today they're fluid, flexible and nonlinear.

Ad Week

Book Club: Make.Love.Brand.

We chose Authenticity as the theme for the first volume in our book series Make.Love.Brand. because we believe that the terms of engagement for business are being redefined. We believe that authenticity is a requirement for any company intending to be relevant. And, we believe that without authenticity, there is no love.

Ziba

Target's Design Scout

Michele Caniato, a consultant on high-performance materials for companies such as Nokia (NOK) and Whirlpool (WHR), founded Culture & Commerce with entrepreneur George M. Beylerian in 2000. They applied the concept of Hollywood talent management to product design. "We're a matchmaker and guardian angel," says Caniato, adding that the firm has negotiated $65 million in designer contracts to date.

Business Week

P&G to sell Noxzema

Sources familiar with the deal told The Enquirer that Alberto-Culver Co. of Melrose Park, Ill., will acquire Noxzema, which P&G has owned since 1989. A sale price was not available. P&G spokesman Paul Fox declined to confirm the deal on Sunday, saying the company does not comment on rumors.

Cincinnati Enquirer

Sweet Revenge

It’s a cliché that the fight for survival brings out the best in business rivals, but a clear rivalry is also useful to consumers — it’s something to latch on to, an opportunity to take sides.

New York Times Magazine

Target to Open Designer-Focused Stores in NY

Target is calling these temporary stores bodegas to convey an egalitarian and very New York shopping experience, said Ms. Tesija. They will be located in vacant storefronts in Midtown, Union Square, SoHo and the East Village, and will open Sept. 12, which is the end of Fashion Week.

“The idea was really generated based on the Target take on Fashion Week,” she added. “This would be a way we could bring affordable design to the masses.”

New York Times

What the Heck?

'Where to' might not be as important as 'how loud'

The alternative is to do your best to pick a direction (hopefully an unusual one, hopefully one you have resources to complete, hopefully one you can do authentically and hopefully one you enjoy) and then do it. Loudly. With patience and passion. (Loud doesn't mean boorish. Loud means proud and joyful and with confidence.)

No flitting, no waiting for proof. Just consistent, overwhelming performance in pursuit of a vision you believe in. That's far more important than which direction you chose in the first place. And yes, I think it's a marketing decision, because the market embraces 'how.'

Seth's Blog

Coke's New Design Direction

When Butler reviewed the state of design at Coca-Cola on his arrival, evaluating everything from the branding created for the then-recent 2004 Olympics in Athens to the process that the company's 300-plus bottling partners went through to get approval for new bottle designs to the customer experience of buying a Coke from a vending machine, he found a lot that needed fixing.

Business Week

Michel Gondry Levi's Commercial

Marketers get to us in more ways

"There are probably more pretty good products being sold in America now than at any time in history. This is a tribute to progress, but it both complicates our decision making as consumers," he writes, and makes it difficult for one product to stand out.

USA Today

Mixing It Up

It all sounds less like an ad than like a skit — the old Dan Aykroyd “Bass-O-Matic” bit on “Saturday Night Live” crossed with the recurring “Will It Float?” segment on “Late Show With David Letterman.” Then again, Dickson will, with deadpan delivery, touch on a product attribute here and there. And reducing 50 marbles to dust does suggest that the device sure is powerful, in a 1970s infomercial sort of way.

New York Times

Retailing icon Mickey Drexler doubles down

These brands tap into nostalgia, but Drexler does not want J. Crew's stores to be fantasyscapes that transport the shopper back to the country estates of Evelyn Waugh or the Africa of Isak Dinesen's memoirs. He dislikes the way a lot European designers' boutiques are intimidating. "Maybe its my Bronx upbringing, but I don't like elitist approaches. We don't take ourselves too seriously at J. Crew," he says. "Going into a store is kind of like meeting a person. I want J. Crew to come across as open, warm, and friendly."

Fortune Magazine

How to Win by Studying Culture: An Interview with Grant McCracken

If I could add an MBA course, I would call it "Anthropology and Ethnography In Business," and it would lay bare the culture that shapes how consumers think and feel and how culture determines what they want. It would teach students how to do "ethnography" which is the method anthropologists use to study culture, and in our case to extract the parts of the culture that matter so that these can be built into product development, innovation, promotion, advertising, direct marketing, digital marketing, new media, and the rest of the marketing package.

Harvard Business Review

Stop & Shop unveils new logo

Gone are the red and green traffic lights that served as the company's symbol since it opened in 1914 In their place: a yellow bowl with three colorful halves that can be interpreted as bowls of fruit, bread or ingredients, the company's spokesperson said.

Boston Globe

Put a Little Zappos in Your Day!

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Those Shelved Brands Start to Look Tempting

Marketers of consumer products go through a similar process during economic downturns, taking stock of brands they already own to see if any can be revived or renewed. It can cost significantly less to bring back a brand — or restore the luster to a faded one — than to develop a new product, because spending huge sums to generate awareness is not necessary.

New York Times

Nike Liu Xiang Ad

This is the type of thing that makes Nike a leader in sports marketing. When the other sponsors privately cringe at the thought of one of their top guys going down, the folks at the Swoosh actually think, "How do we spend on this and turn it into a great human moment that appeals to people?"

CNBC.com

Digital Designers Rediscover Their Hands

Mr. Tulley’s transformation highlights a little-noticed movement in the world of professional design and engineering: a renewed appreciation for manual labor, or innovating with the aid of human hands.

“A lot of people get lost in the world of computer simulation,” says Bill Burnett, executive director of the product design program at Stanford. “You can’t simulate everything.”

New York Times

Designing the Future of Business

A 2007 survey by Kelton Research for Autodesk (ADSK) found that when seven in 10 Americans recalled the last time they saw a product they just had to have, it was because of design. The survey found that among younger people (18 to 29 years old), the influence of design was even more pronounced. In Britain, a recent survey by the Design Council found that 16% of British businesses say design tops their list of key success factors. Among "rapidly growing" businesses, no fewer than 47% rank it first.

Business Week

More Bounce for Bounce

It is significantly difficult to get excited about dryer sheets — those scented thingies you put in the dryer to make your clothes smell better and cling less to your underwear — but this redesign is relatively exciting. Bounce, a product from the infinite P&G empire, recently launched a complete redesign of their full line of dryer sheets, which come in a variety of scents and styles. A large variety.

Brand New

Even P&G finds market difficult

"Lots of companies say that they're recession-proof. But when the recession comes, everybody gets touched, and P&G is not immune to that," said Richard Smith, an analyst who covers P&G for the Motley Fool.

Cincinnati.com

Mars Takes M&M’s Out of Their Shell

“Some of the first creative I saw was very serious and indulgent, and treated the product like this very rich new M&M thing,” Ms. Credle said.

But she believed that M&M’s candy was supposed to be fun. She revised the ads so that they parodied typical premium chocolate ads, and brought in a character — a sexy green M&M — that had been used in much of the traditional M&M’s advertising.



New York Times

Ex-Sara Lee, Nike executive hired by Brandimage-Desgrippes & Laga

Brandimage-Desgrippes & Laga, a global brand design consultancy firm based in Walnut Hills, has turned to a former president of Sara Lee Retail Foods to lead North America strategy for the company.

Cincinnati.com

America Is F*cked.......(Graphically at least)

America Is F*cked.......(Graphically at least) from Jess Gibson on Vimeo.

The Pitfalls of Megabranding

But then again, the whole idea of a megabrand is to strip the brand name of any actual meaning and turn it into a Paris Hilton. Famous for being famous.

Will it work? Maybe. Marketing is never one-sided. Winners are usually those companies whose strategies are better than the strategies of their competitors.

Ad Age

Font of Youth: How is Obama Like Target?

Like Aeron chairs or Eames furniture, Helvetica and its ilk have enjoyed a revival in the 21st century, and—like so much in campaigns—the use of the font sends multiple messages. First, given how small-c conservative most campaign design is (something like this could have been a campaign design for any candidate in the last four decades), the font and the all-around look communicates modernity—it reinforces the "change" branding. If you think of a Presidential candidate as a brand—and their campaigns do—it's young... but not too young. It also communicates a level of familiarity and safety, because you've seen if pretty much everywhere in commercial culture. (John McCain's website, befitting a conservative and old-school candidate, has a more traditional design and mix of serif and sans-serif fonts.)

Tuned In

How Stengel Found Purpose, Post-P&G

Stengel's interest in the institute stems from his kinship with Spence, whom he first met through a mutual friend about three years ago. Since then, Spence has spoken several times at P&G -- as part of the company's advanced general-manager training program -- and Stengel has visited GSD&M, which at one point he eyed as a potential agency partner for the packaged-goods giant.

More recently, as Stengel, 53, planned the next chapter of his career after 25 years at P&G, Spence, 59, invited him to become an advisor to the think tank -- a role Stengel will assume after publishing a book about marketing early next year.

Ad Week

Summer Silliness Brings a Pizza Field and a Giant Oreo

Alternative is a good way to describe the Right Guard campaign staged in London last month. While Right Guard referred to the subway stunt as “pitvertising,” bloggers called it icky and posted cheeky speculations about what might happen if the technique were applied to other products.

New York Times

Business Model Innovation: Best Buy, P&G and Apple Get it. Starbucks Doesn't Get It.

An economic crisis can be a crucible that forges new innovations in business operations or they can lead companies to make dumb mistakes that destroy them as they rush blindly to survive. We’re beginning to see corporations move into one camp or the other as the economic downturn gets worse and worse.

Nussbaum on Design

Artists Revealed

Beck's Canvas

Courage

Nelson Peltz, activist marketer

Brand reinvention is usually not part of a raider's attack plan, unless you're Nelson Peltz. Peltz, 66, spends hours wandering supermarkets, malls, and fast-food restaurants with his ten children (ages 5 to 45) to get investing ideas, which he later chews over with partners Peter May and son-in-law Ed Garden, who together run Trian, a hedge fund founded in 2005. According to people familiar with the fund, Trian now has more than $5 billion under management, including investments in companies such as Heinz, Wendy's, and Tiffany.

Fortune Magazine

James Biber Remakes Starbucks for ‘Architect’

The July issue of Architect magazine asked five architects, including James Biber, to redesign Starbucks in light of the company’s recent downturn. (Shares have fallen by 42% in the last year, and the company has announced its plan to shutter 600 stores.) Biber, who is featured on the cover caffeinating in New York’s City Bakery, proposed an environment that caters to a range of experiences—from fast to slow, from social to private—within a setting redesigned to be simple, efficient and universal. The approach even includes a new name for the chain: *$.

blog.pentagram
architectmagazine.com

Book Club

johnnybunko.com

The Best Global Design of 2008

The second big trend in 2008 was the return to minimalism and elegance. Apple's (AAPL) gold-winning MacBook Air laptop and iPhone best represented this trend. So did the silver-winning Whirlpool (WHR) Duet front-loading washing machine. Other winners were not beautiful but simply sensible. The Flip video camera by New York's Smart Design and Pure Digital Technologies is a pocket-size, easy-to-use videocam that employs no cables or complex software.

Business Week

WOO WOO

Stengel on Leadership, New Media and the Purpose Institute

Our pilots [on single-point agency leadership] are going exceptionally well. We are learning a lot from them. But there's no doubt the future for P&G and our agencies will be on high-performing, highly inspired integrated teams. That's where I think you get breakthroughs and embrace a lot of the opportunities we maybe were not embracing years ago when our teams were not as integrated.

Ad Age

The Process

P&G Global Marketing Chief Stengel to Step Down

The company announced today that Mr. Stengel, 53, who captains its $5.2 billion marketing budget, will step down Oct. 1. He will be working on special projects effective Aug. 1.

Succeeding him will be Marc Pritchard, 48, former head of P&G's cosmetics business who most recently had overseen a stepped-up global restructuring effort concentrated largely on how the company's regional market development organizations and global business units divide their duties.

Ad Age

Starbucks' Lessons for Premium Brands

Schultz sought, admirably, to bring good coffee and the Italian coffeehouse experience to the American mass market. Wall Street bought into the vision of Starbucks as the "third place" after home and work. New store openings and new product launches fueled the stock price. But sooner or later chasing quarterly earnings growth targets undermined the Starbucks brand in three ways.

Harvard Business Review

BBDO acquires Barefoot

"We have been interested in Barefoot for several years," said Andrew Robertson, President and CEO, BBDO Worldwide. "We're both about 'The Work,' and we have been impressed with how they've evolved into a digitally-driven integrated agency. Recently, we've had a chance to work together and get to know each other's organizations. We felt like this was a good time to forge a partnership."

Cincinnati Enquirer
Ad Age

The Death of Mass Luxury

It certainly looks that way. Executives at luxury retailers such as Saks (SKS), and high-end brands ranging from Coach (COH) to Karl Lagerfeld, are bemoaning the disappearance of free-spending shoppers. "You're seeing more pressure on that aspirational luxury consumer at our entry-price points," says Steve Sadove, chief executive officer at Saks.

Business Week

How to make everyone happy

If you are willing to satisfy people with good enough, you can make just about everybody happy. If you delight people and create change that lasts, you're going to offend those that hate change in all its forms. Your choice.

Seth Godin's Blog

Weak economy may be Wal-Mart’s strong suit

A year ago, Wal-Mart seemed to be mired in a world of woes. The discounter’s sales growth was anemic and its share price was slumping. Its two big nemeses, WakeUpWalMart.com and Wal-Mart Watch, two union-backed campaigns critical of Wal-Mart’s labor practices, regularly lambasted the retailer for its wages, benefits and treatment of workers. An attempt to appeal to more affluent shoppers had backfired badly, leaving the company’s apparel and other departments struggling. The company had been forced to scale back growth plans.

MSNBC.com

Safeway Hires P&G Vet Dietz as CMO

Safeway yesterday said it appointed Diane M. Dietz as its new evp and CMO, filling the spot vacated by Brian Cornell, who left the grocer to become CEO of Michael's Stores.

Dietz will oversee Safeway's marketing, merchandising, manufacturing, and distribution functions, and reports directly to Steve Burd, the chairman, president and CEO.

Brand Week

The End of the Line for Line Extensions?

Within the past year, some of the most heavily extended personal-care brands in those giants' portfolios -- Unilever's Dove and P&G's Pantene and Olay -- have slowed substantially or even declined in the U.S.

Ad Age

On Motivation

Outofyourleaguegirl

P&G's Sustainability Initiatives -- Not So Sustainable

Yet several of P&G's competitors have begun rethinking their approaches to chemical use. Earlier this year, Clorox launched a line of natural plant-based home cleaners; Wal-Mart, eager to line its shelves with green products, couldn't wait to get them into its stores. S.C. Johnson created a Greenlist, a ranking of chemicals according to their safety, and wherever possible has stopped using chemicals from the most hazardous class. Method and Seventh Generation, two smaller companies that make cleaning products using naturally derived ingredients, have been growing by double digits while some of P&G's comparable brands are flat or declining.

Fast Company

How to Build Brand Friendship

That human dynamic is the root of brand loyalty as well. Our "relationships" with brands aren't nearly as deep or meaningful as human relationships, but they do share some of the same characteristics. The extent to which you can create a sense of belonging, friendship, and dependability between your brand and customers is the extent to which you have a powerful brand asset.

Business Week

Wolff Olins' Intuitive Branding

So it seemed like a good moment to see if Wolff Olins (part of the Omnicom media conglomerate) has found the secret of being taken seriously by top-flight clients and yet still managing to produce work that is successful, news-worthy and distinctive. On a cold day in January, I went to their spacious offices near King's Cross to find out.

Business Week

Less Hyphen, More Burst for Walmart

Brand New

Book Club

Brands are dead. Advertising no longer works. Weaned on TiVo, the Internet, and other emerging technologies, the short-attention-span generation has become immune to marketing. Consumers are “in control.” Or so we’re told.

In Buying In, New York Times Magazine “Consumed” columnist Rob Walker argues that this accepted wisdom misses a much more important and lasting cultural shift. As technology has created avenues for advertising anywhere and everywhere, people are embracing brands more than ever before–creating brands of their own and participating in marketing campaigns for their favorite brands in unprecedented ways. Increasingly, motivated consumers are pitching in to spread the gospel virally, whether by creating Internet video ads for Converse All Stars or becoming word-of-mouth “agents” touting products to friends and family on behalf of huge corporations. In the process, they–we–have begun to funnel cultural, political, and community activities through connections with brands.

Walker explores this changing cultural landscape–including a practice he calls “murketing,” blending the terms murky and marketing–by introducing us to the creative marketers, entrepreneurs, artists, and community organizers who have found a way to thrive within it. Using profiles of brands old and new, including Timberland, American Apparel, Pabst Blue Ribbon, Red Bull, iPod, and Livestrong, Walker demonstrates the ways in which buyers adopt products, not just as consumer choices, but as conscious expressions of their identities.

Part marketing primer, part work of cultural anthropology, Buying In reveals why now, more than ever, we are what we buy–and vice versa.

Buying In: The Secret Dialogue Between What We Buy and Who We Are

Wal-Mart Plans New Logo to Update Image

Part of Wal-Mart's continuing effort to update its once-dowdy image, the new logo for signs and building facades includes white letters on a burnt-orange background followed by a white starburst, according to an artist's rendering that the company filed recently with planning officials in Memphis, Tenn.

Wall Street Journal

Solution, or Mess? A Milk Jug for a Green Earth

The redesign of the gallon milk jug, experts say, is an example of the changes likely to play out in the American economy over the next two decades. In an era of soaring global demand and higher costs for energy and materials, virtually every aspect of the economy needs to be re-examined, they say, and many products must be redesigned for greater efficiency.

New York Times

Blood, Sweat and Tiers: Building Optimal Brand Identity Architectures

Certainly not all brands are relevant enough, nor all brand experiences rich enough, to extend to all tiers. Regardless, all ideal brand identity architectures effectively differentiate each brand offering while actually building on the brand’s integrity. In this article, we’ll show how it’s done by using two examples: the first is Lean Cuisine, an actual, established brand of frozen entrees, and Sunshine Grove, a fictional brand of orange juice created for illustrative purposes.

AIGA.org

Herbal Essences Case Study

Issue:


Analysis:


To find the right new, smaller target market for the brand, Arnold and her team turned to Clay Street, an immersion program for P&G managers to jump-start innovation. There, the team came up with a new target audience for the brand—Generation Y. "In the case of Gen Y, there really wasn't another hair-care brand that was really meeting their needs," says Lafley. "The question was: 'Can Herbal do it?'"

Business Week

2 Things In 1

Shoppers beware: Products shrink but prices stay the same

"Downsizing is nothing but a sneaky price increase," says Edgar Dworsky, former Massachusetts assistant attorney general in the Consumer Protection Division, now editor of Mouseprint.org, a consumer website. "I'm waiting to open a carton of eggs and see only 11."

It's not that bad, yet. But as packaged goods makers' costs rise, they eventually have just two choices: raise prices or put less stuff in the package. While most are trying a price boost first, a growing number are shrinking the contents of their packages — from Frito Lay's chips to Dial soap to Dreyer's ice cream.

USA Today

Making men feel sexy

“This was part of the promise, I guess, as we acquired Gillette, in how we would take this phenomenal equity that we’ve got and blow it out across multiple categories where P&G has got strengths,” he said while addressing the Wachovia Nantucket Equity Conference.

“We’ve got about 50 million men in North America who shave every day with Gillette. If we can get about 10 percent of those guys … to buy these adjacencies, we’ll hit our trial targets and I think build a very sizeable business.”

Cincinnati Enquirer

Book Club

Journalist Conley examines the implications of brand-centric marketing in an incisive investigation that illustrates how defenseless consumers are against advertising—on any given day, they are assaulted by 3,000 to 5,000 ads and branding stratagems that subtly dictate every aspect of their lives. Harnessing scientific innovations, branding has become increasing insidious—whether it is the Xbox audio logo or Southwest Airlines' incorporation of the fasten seatbelt sound in their marketing campaign—consumers are being conditioned to think in brands. Beyond ad creep and product placement in entertainment programming, viral and word of mouth (WOM) marketing now make even personal recommendations suspect. According to Conley, 1% of American children and 7% of mothers are compensated for participating in WOM marketing. Even social policy is being corrupted—the author asserts that public branding initiatives such as post-Katrina New Orleans' allocation of public funds toward refurbishing its Mardi Gras City image rather than addressing its safety issues shifts resources away from problem-solving in favor of perception. Conley's perspective on branding's encroachment into social areas is as alarming as it is stimulating.

OBD: Obsessive Branding Disorder: The Illusion of Business and the Business of Illusion

Razorfish shames its timesheet laggards

Avenue A/Razorfish is going all Hester Prynne 2.0 on them. Its HR department in New York has set up a flat-screen TV that flashes offenders’ photos with a message that reads, for example, “I haven’t done my timesheet in 3 weeks.”

AdFreak.com

Yves and Mitch's Excellent Venture

We're 30 people, and we've got a desire to stay small and close to our clients because that's where we add value. So Yves and I have built a machine for investment that allows us to diversify revenue. We've developed a three-pillared approach: One is what I'd call strategic engagement, which is long-term contracts with corporate clients like Coca-Cola or Johnson & Johnson. Another is civic projects, such as One Laptop Per Child, which we designed and branded because we feel the need to do good work. The third, slightly unusual pillar is true partnerships with the companies we work for.

Business Week

Unilever and P&G ease marketing fears

AG Lafley, chairman and chief executive of P&G, said: “Right now the plans are to spend about the same percentage of sales [on advertising as last year].” In particular, P&G would be increasing its communications in shops, where research said consumers were making more purchase decisions. “In a period of food price inflation, more of the shopping list is being decided in the store.”

Financial Times

Why Don't Managers Think Deeply?

In their new book, Marketing Metaphoria, Gerald and Lindsay Zaltman suggest some answers to the questions. In decrying the lack of what they call "deep thinking" among managers and especially those responsible for marketing, they suggest some things that get in its way. Among them are: (1) reluctance to take risk, especially when short-term performance is at stake, (2) the fear of disruption resulting from "thinking differently and deeply," (3) the potential psychological cost of changing one's mind resulting from deep thinking, and (4) the lack of information providing deep insights on which to base deep thinking.

According to the Zaltmans, while nearly all research techniques commonly used today probe humans only at their conscious level, the subconscious (offering deep insights) really determines behavior, and that explains why humans don't behave as they say they will, whether in buying or other behaviors. As a result, for example, four in five product introductions perform below expectations.

Harvard Business Review

Merger Leads to Extended Results

I always wondered what the combination of European sensitivity, American innovation, and Asia's pioneering spirit would look like. And, unfortunately, now I know: Purple Helvetica Extended.

Brand New

The New Direction of Design

IDSA’s executive director talks design

The Generation Y Hotel

These new travelers are far more adventurous, far more curious and far more tech-focused than their parents. "They're interested in things that are a lot less traditional, things that have much greater personality and the experiences that are a little less predictable," says Yesawich, "which is why design has become the primary basis of differentiation for these lifestyle hotels. They don't want stuff that looks like it was all shipped out of the same warehouse in North Carolina."

Time Magazine

What's That You've Found?

Indexed

Packagers Put Costs On Consumer's Backs

“Behavior is quickly changing in the packaging sector, as an unprecedented surge in energy costs has translated into massive price increases,” said Wachovia Capital Markets analyst Ghansham Panjabi.

Forbes

Snipers

Pulp Branding

Merger brings new CEO to Cincinnati's Fisher Design

The Walnut Hills agency combined with LiBrandi Communications Group, a 3-year-old firm founded by former LPK brand strategist Bryan LiBrandi. The merger will add 15 clients with bookings of $500,000 and three design experts, for a combined 38 employees and roughly 30 clients. Fisher declined to provide details of the combined firm's bookings, as well as specifics on the merger agreement.

Business Courier of Cincinnati

Coke (Yes, Coke) Wins First Design Grand Prix

"It was simply the best piece of work in the entire collection," said Rodney Fitch, head of the design jury and chairman-CEO of Fitch, a design company. Jurors also cited as a factor in the win that the work was done on behalf of a major multinational brand, and said the streamlined new brand identity represented the "iconization of a brand's heritage."

Ad Age

Can Hotshot Ad Guy Alex Bogusky Make Microsoft Cool?

Now Crispin has been handed perhaps its biggest challenge to date: Microsoft. The tech giant stunned the ad world in March when it passed over safer choices like Fallon, JWT, and its agency of record, McCann Worldgroup, and awarded its new $300 million consumer-branding campaign to Crispin. It was an act of courage or desperation, depending on whom you ask.

Fast Company

P&G Names New Global Beauty Chief

Mr. Shirley, 51, becomes vice chairman-global beauty and grooming on July 1, overseeing both the Gillette business from which he joined P&G in 2005 and the rest of P&G's beauty business. The post has been unoccupied since Susan Arnold became president-global business units last year.

Ad Age

Beloved Characters as Reimagined for the 21st Century

An unusually large number of classic characters for children are being freshened up and reintroduced — on store shelves, on the Internet and on television screens — as their corporate owners try to cater to parents’ nostalgia and children’s YouTube-era sensibilities. Adding momentum is a retail sector hoping to find refuge from a rough economy in the tried and true.

New York Times

Hummer Bummer: GM Wants Out of Guzzler Game

But for now, Hummer is a liability for GM. It's hard to sell, and it's hurting GM's chances of increasing its credibility as a green player. Last week, for example, when GM was announced as the "exclusive automobile sponsor" of Discovery Communications' new green channel, The New York Times said this might "raise eyebrows" given that GM makes Hummer.

Ad Age

Design firm chooses home

The new company, Brandimage - Desgrippes & Laga, will have double the revenues, double the clients, double the offices and double the employees as the old Laga.

Cincinnati Enquirer

Difficult is Worth Doing