I see the word “leading” used all the time to describe organsations. Nearly always it means that the company is not the biggest in its sector but desperately needs us to believe it is important.
Interestingly, the word “leading” has another definition (pronounced ledd-ing) – from printing, where it stands for extra empty space between lines of type.
When I read about a “leading company” I can’t help thinking of that meaningless empty space…
I linked to this paper on wicked problems the other day and Chris Corrigan commented “there’s a lot in that paper eh?”. Which is true.
I’m experimenting with marketing less and listening more
Just back from another extraordinary gathering at Medinge where the community that has produced Beyond Branding meets each summer. I was planning to keep this
Passion brands bring people together based on common interests and excitements. I’m particularly interested in ones created from the bottom up, as opposed to driven by producers concerned mainly with profit.
Interesting research from Stanford suggests that exciting brands get more trusted after making mistakes and putting them right whilst more “sincere” brands start with more trust but lose it more easily. Perhaps the sensible interpretation is that second-guessing customers can be a waste of time!
Michael Hammer’s new book, The Agenda, is about the rise of customer power. But is customer-centricity really such a good model for business and society?
Thanks to Matt Tucker at Smith Associates for telling me about What Brand Are You. It strikes me that lots of companies waste money on
The AntiBrand: blackSpot sneakers, a project by Adbusters attacks Nike directly. In doing so they take on what has become one of the great icons
We live in a world of too much marketing and too much branding. People’s faith in advertising has fallen to new lows as we simply
So the Abbey National is rebranding itself this morning. As I write this entry, they are revealing their new look, their shortened name (just “Abbey”)
Great writing from Tom Guarriello: Pillowmen reviewing a new show on Broadway (my emphasis). But we’re all in the entertainment business today. This means we’ll all be called upon to
Yet more breathtaking hypocrisy from Procter and Gamble in its efforts to salvage Sunny Delight. Readers are urged visit their “Dr Gary” and ask him a reall good question.
I found this site very thought-provoking: Give us back our game. It argues that kids’ football has been spoiled by the over-active participation of adults.Today’s children learn from the grown-ups
Neil McIntosh of Guardian Unlimited does a terrific fisking of the National Union of Journalists’ code of conduct for using “witness contributors”. That by the way, is their euphemism for
