German Restaurant Brand Launches Mader's Hummel Website

Mader's Authentic German Restaurant in Milwaukee has just launched a new website where they are selling Hummel Figurines. It is an interesting study in brand because it ties together a famous Milwaukee-based German restaurant, established in 1902 with a famous brand of German craftmanship. M.I. Hummel figurines.

The site Mader's Hummels actually has a picture of the restaurant in its masthead.



What do you think of this brand? Do you think it can extend the restaurant identity to the Hummel site?

Gene A. Wright

Rumors Fly About iPhone (Apple Phone)

We have talked about the powerful brands of APPLE and Disney in class. It is interesting how people speculate about what firms should do, and how they should do it, often based on BRAND IDENTITY.

Rumors are flying around about APPLE, DISNEY, CINGULAR, and also involved, based on history is Motorola. A Motorola Press Release regarding APPLE, including a link to a Steve Jobs video.

The FORBES article, "What would an iPhone Look Like?" discusses some ideas related to the strong BRAND IDENTIES of the firms.

What do you think should happen based on the brand identities?

Who should take the lead?

What should the key features of the product/service offering look like?

Customer-Centered Brand Managment

Recommended Article

"Customer-Centered Brand Management"

Harvard Business Review
September 2004

A good article that teaches us that we should be building brands around customers and customer segments rather than customers around brands.

Gene A. Wright

Smell as Part of Brand? You bet!

An article in FORBES entitled "What's that Smell?" discusses the importance of smell in creating and maintaining a brand. The article was written by Suzanne Hoppough.

The article states "fragrance is as much a marketing tool these days as logo and a jingle". Alan Hirsch, a researcher in the topic area, is quoted in the article "smell has a greater impact on purchasing than everything else combined".

We learn that a firm ScentAir is in the business of creating these scents for brands and retailers. Their website does have a list of resources, including some peer reviewed articles on scent and marketing. Interesting!

What do you think about scent/fragrance/smell and branding?

Gene A. Wright

Branding and Movies

We are seeing, and have been seeing brands appear in TV, movies, and film.

Another portion of the website Brand Channel allows us to review the brands that appear in movies. The site actually gives us a list and a count of the number of times a brand appears in a current film.

The section of the site is called Brand Cameo-Films. Check it out.

Enjoy.

How effective is this form of branding?

Gene A. Wright

Science and Branding

Well, many are skeptical, especially "left-brained" scientific and engineering types that "branding" and the power of branding has scientific evidence. Well, in an article on BrandChannel we can read about scientific evidence from the science of neuro-imaging, specifically, "a non-invasive technique called functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), the scans reveal which parts of the brain are active in real time".

The article "The Science of Branding" by Edwin Colyer looks at the evidence using Pepsi versus Coke.

What do you think?

Real or imagined, imaged or hoax?

Gene A. Wright

HP and Apple Co-Brand

One of the options a firm has is to co-brand, with another firm, products and services.

A relatively recent move by Apple and HP put them together as partners in the "MP3" player market. An article entitled "HP and iPod: Out of Sync" discusses the partnership and some of the reasoning.

What do you think about co-branding?

What do you think about this partnership?

How successful do you think this co-brand has been?

Gene A. Wright

eBay Brand in Trouble?

What is the ebay brand? How big is the brand? How much brand equity does it carry? How loyal are people to ebay?

Well, in a Blog Post in "Brand New Day" entitled EBAY a Brand in Trouble, David Kiley wants us to understand that it is in trouble.

What do you think?

Gene A. Wright

The Value of a Strategic Global Brand

In this class we are fortunate to be able to discuss a subject that has tremendous value. Each year, Business Week, publishes a report along with Interbrand that calculates the value of a global brand. Now, it is important to understand the way the value is calculated, because there are a number of companies that may be absent from the list. Nonetheless, it is important that we look at the components of this calculation and the relative value placed on the factors.

Strategically, it is imperative to recognize that many stakeholders, clients, and customers place high value on these companies.

The article "The Top 100 Brands 2006" is an interesting scan. More important however is the method used to calculate the top brand value, held by Coke, at $67 BillionUS and that it actually dropped since 2006. If you click on the company names (start with Coke) you will be treated to a "slide show" featuring a commentary of the brand value of each company.

What do you think about this value calculation? Can an "intangible" be made tangible by putting a $ value on it? Does this valuation go beyond "marketing value"? Why?

Gene A. Wright

Welcome to Strategic Branding

This Blog will be used to discuss issues related to Strategic Branding; which goes far beyond the "marketing connotation". The postings to this blog will be used to spur discussion related to our classroom topics. Everyone is welcome to comment on the postings. Only those postings that are thoughtful and serious will be published.

We will be using a book for this portion of the class. The book, "Building Strong Brands" written by David A. Aaker has a great model to work with and learn from as well as wonderful, rich content related to this subject.

The issues posted will not necessarily follow the outline of the text or the class syllabus. Where possible, they will be used to illustrate or apply an important concept related to the subject.

Anyone wishing to understand the base subject matter of our discussions need only review the story of the Saturn Brand from the book.

Engage and Enjoy.

Gene A. Wright
MSOE