HERE’S A MISSION: STOP WASTING TIME ON SILLY STATEMENTS
by Jason Miletsky
I don’t tend to get stumped by very much – I mean, stumped to the point where I just don’t know how to respond, but a few days ago that very thing happened. I was on a meeting with a company about a re-branding initiative, and four individuals on the client side were [...]
DOES THE USP MATTER? DO WE NEED TO BE UNIQUE?
by Jason Miletsky
Just read an article that the USP is dead. Seems to me that all they did was change the acronym.
But it still begs the question: do brands need to have a USP (Unique Selling Proposition)? Do they matter?
Yes, but let’s be clear about the what it means to be “unique” and determine how [...]
WHAT’S IN A NAME? BING MAY FIND OUT WITH BAD “DECISON”
by Jason Miletsky
As I do pretty much every morning, I was reading AdAge.com earlier and found this article on Microsoft’s effort to market Bing. If you don’t want to read the entire article, the spot for their new engine is below:
As an outspoken critic of Microsoft’s marketing in their fight against Apple (http://bit.ly/1aspFs), I have [...]
PORK: THE OTHER WHITE FLU
by Jason Miletsky
Anybody who questions the power of branding won’t need to look any further than the recent outbreak of swine flu to see its influence.
While people around the world are stocking up on surgical masks and health organizations are frantically trying to keep the public calm and distribute vaccines, the pork industry has been [...]
WHO SHOULD POLICE THE BRAND – CLIENT OR AGENCY?
by Genevieve Smith
The employees of the company must act as the brand police. Given that companies constantly generate new product, operations, decisions, competitive reactions, and goals, it’s unlikely that any agency would be embedded enough to see how each one of these will affect the brand, making it impossible for the agency to effectively serve [...]
DO CONSUMERS REALLY FORGE EMOTIONAL CONNECTIONS WITH BRANDS, OR IS THAT JUST SOMETHING MARKETING AGENCIES LIKE TO SAY?
by Jason Miletsky
Marketing types, especially on the agency side, can be so full of crap we could be repackaged and sold as fertilizer. Advertising body copy is filled with useless words and phrases that mean absolutely nothing to anybody, including classic gems like “Our company stands for quality, or “We work to serve you,” and [...]
I’M NOT A PC, AND NO 4.5 YEAR OLD WILL CHANGE MY MIND
by Jason Miletsky
I don’t get it. I don’t get the campaign, and I don’t get the thinking behind it.
Why would Microsoft, which holds on to a crazy dominant share of the OS market, deliberately play into Apple’s hands – not only further legitimizing them, but in the process making Apple seem even cooler than [...]
CONTINUING THE MICHAEL PHELPS DEBATE
I honestly thought the whole Michael Phelps thing had blown over. Someone snapped a picture of him smoking pot, there was a big uproar, Kellogg’s dropped him as an official sponsor even while other brands stuck by his side, and the story pretty much faded away. Done.
But a day or so ago, I logged onto [...]
IF I COULD…BRANDS I’D LIKE TO RUN
by Jason Miletsky
In my new book, Perspectives on Branding, due in stores in March 2009, I answer a series of brand-related questions based on my experience and opinion. One of the questions in particular struck me as a good way to start my first blog of the new year:
IF YOU COULD TAKE THE HELM OF [...]
