I recently watched The Godfather Trilogy and came away with not only an insane hunger for cannoli but also a reminder of the intangible value of public relations. In Part II, a younger Vito Corleone reassures his brothers with the infamous line of “I’ll make him an offer he can’t refuse.” The more I reflected [...]
Two Brands Make A Right
It's 6:30am and my toddler is letting me know she's ready to start the day. We do the same thing every morning. I put her oatmeal in the microwave and like clock work, she points to the TV and says, "Dorda." Only a mother would know baby talk, but my daughter wants to watch Dora the Explorer while she eats her breakfast. Every morning we watch Dora the Explorer on Nick Jr. She's only a toddler but already my daughter is a creature of habit and knows when she eats breakfast she gets to watch TV. And she already has a favorite brand - Dora the Explorer. The funny thing is I don't mind one bit. I have found myself indulging in her desire to have everything Dora. Because I think it's cute every time she sees something Dora and says "Dorda," I end up purchasing that product for her. Our last trip to the grocery store was an event; we got Dora crackers, soup, bandages and an electric toothbrush - all things that we already had at home but she didn't care about that. Her choice of consumer products is based on whose face is on the packaging. She asked for crackers the other day and wouldn't eat the normal box of animal crackers because she wanted the Dora animal crackers instead. The animal crackers tasted exactly the same but the package was different and my toddler knew it. She also knew the difference between her regular pink toothbrush and her new Dora toothbrush - both Colgate products but one was the definite winner in my toddler's eyes. Colgate and Nick Jr.'s Dora the Explorer, both well-known brands, partnered together to produce a toddler's dream toothbrush. Colgate transformed their child's electric toothbrush and gave it new appeal reaching a very important audience - moms of toddlers. Brand Extensions
Brand extensions have helped companies build their brands and become top-of-mind in consumer purchasing behavior for decades. In 1979, Edward M. Tauber coined the term “brand extensions” to describe leveraging a well-known brand name in one category to launch a new product in a different category. (more…)
I’ve been asked this question nearly every day for the last ten years or so (prior to that, dinner was complimentery appetizers at happy hour). It’s a challenge to constantly come up with tasty, easy, and economical recipe ideas. Lucky for me I discovered AllRecipes.com about eight years ago and it’s been one of my favorite go-to sites ever since. [...]
Recently I talked with a long-time client about what trust means. His company has done an outstanding job of building and defending their brand – as proven by their customers’ loyalty during this economic downturn. Gaining and keeping customer trust is not easy. The Forrester Research paper on interactive marketing reveals the deplorable levels of trust that [...]
The Atlantic Monthly is known more for its in-depth analysis than for slick marketing. But the title it gave Nicolas Lehman’s article in the July/August issue was all about attracting attention: Is Google Making Us Stupid? Lehman’s article, which I both enjoyed and related to, actually has little do with Google per se and more to [...]
During the past few months, I’ve come to the conclusion that being a successful account manager is largely dependent on being a CIO – a chief integration officer. In my eyes, successful integration translates into happy clients, solid results and growing budgets. As the public relations industry continues to navigate through the convergence of many [...]