At the end of my class on brand management each term my MBA students rate the subject on various attributes. Among them is the degree to which the class had a “strong theoretical basis”. It is always my weakest score because I do not rely on very much published academic research to build the course content. Some decent case studies and a few readings from Harvard Business Review more than suffice.
Twitter was built on 140 characters. Even though the limitation was serendipitous, it remains a defining characteristic of the brand in the minds of many. Concise thinking, hash-tagged to provide simple, global connection – there’s the Twitter value equation in a little under half the consigned quota. But the question Carl Miller asks is a good one. What happens when the idea that defined you starts to work to inhibit you?
Recently at New Zealand Fashion Week, models walked the runway in lingerie and the crowd went wild. It was a world first. Not because the show was radical – but because the underwear was from a start-up brand named Confitex and it was specifically designed for people with incontinence.
1. Don’t Be Afraid To Kill Weaker Brands Capitalism rests on simple, predatory logic – weak brands must die and strong brands must kill them. Only then will the consumer be served and the market improve or progress.
Personalization is the quest of the moment for so many marketers, with 70% of executives interviewed by Forrester saying it is now of strategic importance to their business. (What may surprise you, as it did me, is how generalized so much of marketing still is.)
