Brand Mix

Here's my summary of interesting things I read (or saw) this last week. Usually the six things I pick come from blogs I follow or from news stories or articles I happen to see. But now I've taken the Twitter plunge, I have a whole new source of material. These are some of the stories tweeted by people I'm following in the last week:

1) More of less stuff: the armory (donnawhite)
"Brands can leverage this new frugality to their competitive advantage by actually enabling the concept of simple living in their marketing and social-networking efforts."

2) Report: Users Expect Brands to be on YouTube - But Don't Want to See More Ads: ReadWriteWeb (danschawbel)
"YouTube is a perfect playground for marketers who are looking to engage teenagers and young adults. These users are extremely loyal to YouTube, and, according to this report, the majority of this demographic believes that it is a good thing that brands use YouTube. They also believe that brands who have a presence on YouTube are 'forward thinking and innovative.' At the same time, though, users also don't want to see any additional ads on the service."

3) Best Buy vs. Wal-Mart: Is There Room for Both, and Others? Knowledge@Wharton (bestbuy)
Best Buy tweets a story about Best Buy. Story includes reference to the demise of Tweeter. It's all very confusing.

4) Tropicana Line's Sales Plunge 20% Post-Rebranding: AdAge (Fritinancy)
A lot of people tweeted about this story from AdAge. Sales of Tropicana were down 20% in January and February after its new design hit the shelves pointing to a more concrete reason for the quick decision to go back to the old design than the critical media commentary.

5) Why Brands Love Mommy Bloggers: Adweek (GabrielRossi)
The mommy blogging elite attracting agents, online ads and Caribbean cruises. This Adweek article explores why mommy bloggers have become so important to advertisers like P&G and Walmart.

6) Biz Stone: The Colbert Report (Fresh Peel)
Twitter Co-founder Biz Stone takes on Colbert. "I assume that the Biz in Biz Stone does not stand for business model." Colbert scores! But Biz held his own pretty well.