What will flotation mean for the Facebook brand?

IPOs change businesses. Imperatives and pressures change; new cash facilitates new initiatives. This means new strategic business models are called for that inevitably impact upon the brand. We can look at the example of Google: it was conceived as a simple search engine, and a very successful one, but its growth was based upon the...

Brand value is not about control of social media.

I was attending a digital marketing conference last week and I heard a speaker talking about social media say, and I quote, 'The value of a brand is diminished because we, marketers, have less control.' That's right - I did a double-take too, but he repeated the same incendiary statement. I struggled to understand what...

Ten Brand New Year resolutions

What kind of a year will 2010 be for brands? Well, 2009 was quite up and down and we seemed to be rocked by events both economical and commercial, so I guess one watchword for 2010 must be to take as much control for the destinies of our brands as we can. So here are...

Facebook – the big brand arena

"Overwhelming majority of big US brands are on Facebook by Dan Leahul, Brand Republic 10-Aug-09, 09:15" Having worked for many major US brands, I find this article fascinating. For me,  Facebook is a powerful tool for brands and as the above article states many major brands are having incredible success - but it can also be...

New website

Okay, I admit I've not been doing much blogging recently as I've been working on my company websites and developing a new site aimed at my European business - http://www.one-marketing.eu.

Brands and social networking

I have long advocated the use of social networking in brand developent - it seems so fundamental to what brand awareness is about, people talking to each other about the brand. Well, for uk brand owners and promoters there is an even stronger case for including social internet in the branding mix. It seems we...

MePLC – forget the brand as person model, what about the person as brand?

I get very bemused by the way the media, and indeed the wider public,  has latched onto the idea of the brand - today, everything is a brand. I'm not going to irritate my ulcer by trying to define when it is or is not right to refer to something or someone as 'a brand'....

More missing the point.

Hmmm... so in another effort to help protect us from ourselves, the government are suggesting banning all show of logo's etc. for cigarette merchandising. I am constantly amazed at politicians confusion between the brand and brand communications... but it does present an interesting thought exercise. If cigarette brands (or any other brands for that matter) are...

Managing multiple personalities

There was a recent article in the New York Times, discussing how individuals present themselves in virtual worlds and the social internet. The author referred to the work of psychologist and sociologist, Erving Goffman who used the analogy of theatrical performance for the way we present ourselves to others in the world. We all have...

Waitrose gets social

On the News Quiz on Radio 4, Sandi Toksvig said; "the only purpose of Sainsburys is to keep the riffraff out of Waitrose". It is testament to the power of brand positioning that we all knew what she meant and were able to laugh at it.  But, hey: look what's happening Waitrose! Their website is...