marketing Archives - Page 55 of 56

New York Series: Naming a Brand

Posted on February 10, 2009 by Steve Sammartino

This is the oldest marketing lesson in the book – What to call our brand. It seems it doesn’t matter how many times the story is told, but some businesses never seem to learn. Here’s a bad example of a clothing brand name which I saw in Bloomingdale’s today.

Yep, Acne. Which means pimples here in Australia. I’m surprised it even made it instore. So here’s the startup blog rules for brand names. Which I’ll keep short:

Try to invent a word that currently has no meaning. (our job is to invent meaning under it)
Ensure you can ‘own it’ globally. (No confusion, registerable)
Make sure it doesn’t mean something ridiculous, in your country or another.

That’s all that matters in real terms. Other rules are made up by people who are focused on stuff which doesn’t really have much to do with brand building.

New York Series: Nice copy writing

Posted on February 10, 2009 by Steve Sammartino

Here’s a nice piece of copy writing I found on a store in Soho. The thing I like is that ‘fun’ have finally entered categories which go beyond toys, chocolate bars and candy.

Life was meant to be fun, so I think it best we inject it into our startup regardless of what category or industry we play in.

New York Series: NBC ‘Scareface’ & UGC

Posted on February 8, 2009 by Steve Sammartino

I went to 30 Rock to check out the NBC studio. One thing that struck me was the involvement they create for customers in the studio. Here’s a picture of me as Al Pacino:

It’s an old trick, but the point is simple:

The days of passive consumption are over.

We now demand to be part of the experience, to create the stuff we buy. Especially in new media and web forums.

New York Series: Dylan’s Candy Bar

Posted on February 8, 2009 by Steve Sammartino

I was so impressed by Dylan’s Candy Bar – they get it.

It’s just perfect in every way. The understand the following important factors in branding, retail, business, marketing:

Theatre at transaction – best I’ve ever seen
Premium product
Single Minded proposition
Being the experts
Feel good factor
Service by people who dig working there (when you get served they say ‘have a sweet day!’ – love it)
Escapism
The brands are the stars – the product ‘is’ the promotion. No advertising required here.
They know the category is more important than their ‘Dylan’s brands’.

In fact, instead of me raving on…. here’s a huge photo essay I took. That should give you the idea. Enjoy.

New York Series: So much advertising

Posted on February 6, 2009 by Steve Sammartino

I am absolutely flummoxed at how deep the media channels flow in the USA.

I’ve never such visual pollution in one city. So much advertising.The thing I’m most surprised about is the ethical (pun intended) pharmaceutical category. TV advertisements for Drug X, encouraging people to go to the doctor to see if they have disease Y, in which case they should ask the doctor to prescribe drug X. This is so wrong, on so many levels. Start ups out there, please be in business for good – sales should be your secondary objective – helping people your first.

times-square

Sure, Times Square is kind of cool to look at, a real visual orgy. But it just never ends.

If you’re in the media business in Australia or Europe, there are plenty of new spaces which can be leveraged. I’ll provide a summary of new media channels with a photo essay at the end of the trip. But in the interim here’s a link to an historical advertising photo stream I found on flickr. Quite interesting.

Dubai Series: Sugar Daddy’s

Posted on February 3, 2009 by Steve Sammartino

I stumbled upon this Single Minded Hero in Dubai. In fact, my Dubai host drove out of her way to take me here. The Sugar Daddy’s ‘Cup Cake’ Bakery. And they make and sell, yep – just cup cakes. Here’s a bit of a photo essay I took.

Also Notice the word ‘make’. Selling just ain’t enough these days. We want to deal with the expter, the person who knows what they are doing, the person who cares about what they are doing and deliver it to us themselves. We like to deal with the craftperson direct.

No doubt we are living in the age of the micro niche. There’s also no doubt that simplicity in Ideas and theatre at transaction is very refreshing and worth investigating.

How micro is the focus of your startup?

Dubai Series: From Chrysler ‘A Space’

Posted on February 3, 2009 by Steve Sammartino

Here’s another simple innovation from an old industry, a parking lot, actually giving a hoot about their customers.

car-park-lights

As you can see in the pic there is a little red or green light above every space indicating its availability. So the tiny car space mirage is now a thing of the past. The thing that actually excites me about this innovation is that it doesn’t benefit the car park owners. They’d be better off having cars drive around longer searching for a spaces and elongated traffic jams, which would result in greater revenue. But they chose this instead which is very cool.

What stuff is your business doing for them, and their benefit?