You may be a company in the bowels of B2B. The content may involve something as mundane as an email signoff or, in the case that I’m about to highlight, subscribing to a blog. Every online touch point offers the chance for storytelling and making an impression that builds your brand. Keep in mind that …more
With the story “The Invasion of Corporate News, The Financial Times became the latest publication to skewer brand journalism. I suppose the FT figured a headline along the lines of “You’re Too Stupid to Figure Out Journalism from Propaganda” might alienate readers. Because that seems to be one of the themes in the FT piece. …more
Yesterday in Beijing that question was at the heart of a roundtable we participated in involving Campaign Asia and the BBC. The very insights that Campaign Asia’s Jason Wincuinas offered on the topic in last week’s Q&A framed a lively discussion. As part of our preparation for the roundtable, we turned to the Forbes Global 2000, sifting …more
Teaming with the BBC and Campaign Asia, we’re participating in a roundtable in Beijing next Monday (8/18) that takes on the topic of Chinese companies building global brands. Jason Wincuinas, managing editor of Campaign Asia-Pacific will “referee” the session. As a prelude to the big event, we flipped roles with me peppering Jason with questions. Here’s the …more
Teaming with the BBC and Campaign Asia, we’re participating in a roundtable in Beijing on August 18 that takes on the topic of Chinese companies pursuing global brands. Because of our strength in Asia, we’ve had a fair amount of experience over the years in helping Asian companies — including many from China – establish …more
More to the point, do they fortify the McDonald’s brand? I can understand McDonald’s quest to associate with suppliers who take a certain “hand-crafted” approach to their products. The message serves as a counterbalance to the perception that McDonald’s is all about volume production. Stepping back for a moment, the execution of this campaign is …more
I often refer to levity as the killer app in business communications. Why do so few organizations go this route? It takes guts as much as creativity to insert levity into an organization’s storytelling. As a great philosopher once put it, “One man’s levity is another man’s trash.” Zappos showed guts bringing levity to its …more
Love it. Hate it. Native advertising isn’t going away. Recognizing a new way to make the cash register go ka-ching, media properties have been implementing native advertising as fast as they can stuff the dollars into their pockets. You can’t really blame them. Eroding revenue over such a long period of time would cause a …more
You’re probably expecting me to spit out the seven lessons of branding from Ron Burgundy in a tidy row of bullets. Instead, there’s a more meaningful takeaway from the branding effort on Ron Burgundy and leading into the release of Anchorman 2 later this month. Zig when others zag. Like the science behind storytelling in …more
