branding
Sis-boom-bah! Rah-rah-rah! Go University of Phoenix
Those of you (mis)fortunate enough to live in a part of the country that is not - as Boston currently is - in SUPER BOWL, ALL THE TIME, EVERYTIME mode. Or who don’t give a rap about the where-what-how of this blessed event, may not know that the game - excuse me - THE GAME [...]
Starbucks-for-a-Buck. What’s that all about?
For openers, I have to admit that I rarely drink anyone’s coffee, let alone Starbucks’ coffee, which I really don’t like the taste of. (Some people I know claim that one of the reasons that Starbucks junks up its coffees with the latte-sugar-whatever stuff is to disguise that taste.)
As for coffee, sometimes I have a [...]
Branding public spaces
One of the more distressing advertising and branding trends of the last few decades or so has been the creeping corporate claim on public places.
We see it all the time now with sports venues. In Boston, The Boston Garden was replaced with the Fleet (Bank) Center, which has been replaced by TD North Garden. At [...]
Regional Branding: the KC Animal Health Corridor
I saw a small piece in a recent Economist on Kansas City’s attempt to make itself into the Silicon Valley of animal health.
My first reaction - foolishly - was that “Animal Health Corridor” was a not particularly catchy or interesting name.
Then I paused for a sec, and reminded myself that it’s a pretty good name [...]
Open Season on Political Logos: Republicans
On Wednesday, I posted my opinion on the logos being used by the Democratic presidential candidates. In the interest of providing fair and balanced opinionated marketing, here goes for the Republicans (shown in alphabetical order, by last name).
Nice. I like the type face, the simple design, and lucky Rudy he’s a household, first-name word.
And not [...]
Starbucks Hits the Airwaves
Over at Church of the Customer Blog, Jackie Huba writes about the first television ad campaign by Starbucks. You can see the spots here.
Jackie mentions the slight decline in store visits and asks:
Is that because Starbucks has finally reached a saturation point? Or is it more complicated, the result of a series of decisions that [...]
Open Season on Political Logos: Democrats
Having just done some new logo work with a client, I’ve become more “logo aware”, and have been sizing up the logos (or bumper stickers) for the presidential candidates.
I was going to do a logo appraisal of all the candidates at once, but they’re are still too darn many of them. So I thought I’d [...]
Majoring in History
I worked for many years for a now defunct software company called Softbridge.
Softbridge had a long legacy (by software company standards) of technical excellence, and we traded on that legacy.
In our marketing literature, we touted the fact that we were one of the few companies that was on the dais with Bill Gates (at Windows [...]
Macy’s Brand Killing Spree
Since Boston’s latest home grown department store, Filene’s, closed down - a depressing and protracted affair - I’ve been doing my share of sniffily, nostalgic be-pissing and be-moaning. Oh, everything is becoming that same everywhere you look. Of course, the fact that there was nothing particularly unique about Filene’s other than its name, logo, and [...]
