Brand Mix

Photo: me

Here's my summary of interesting things I read (or saw) this last week. I'm spending practically the whole weekend supervising egg hunting so I thought I'd leave an Easter egg for you as well. It takes to you one of the most incredible wild life videos I've ever seen. Buffaloes vs. lions and more. Good luck finding it!

1) Zappos Map: Susan Nelson
This map went viral around our office on Thursday. Another great idea from Zappos and one that could have some interesting applications for insight development. As I watch now, Omaha seems to be going big on Vans.

2) Ford creates a Social Media Movement with Fiesta: eyecube
The big social media story of the week. Ford is giving away 100 Ford Fiestas to 100 people to test drive them for six months. The agents are all social media heavy hitters and they will be telling their "Fiesta Movement" stories on YouTube, Facebook and Twitter etc. Reviews for the car and the idea mostly positive.

3) Enough With the Value Messages Already: Brandweek
Must be a story of the week if it includes a quote from me. Todd Wasserman has had enough of the abuse of the word "value" as every brand out there is trying to attract recession-sensitized consumers to their products without dropping prices. Trouble is there's not much in the way of attractive alternatives.

4) Tina Fey on Amy Poehler on branding now: Grant McCracken
This week saw the first episode of Parks & Recreation starring Amy Poehler. (I watched the show and I didn't think it was all that great.) Anyway, Tina Fey says of Amy: "Amy is funny because she doesn't care what you think, but she does want to make you laugh. It's a complicated and important combination." Grant thinks that new brands are like her: "less agreeable, less eager to please, less unapologetically pleasant" unlike the the old bland brands.

5) Burger King Introduces the Booty Call to 5 Year Olds: BiG



Scott thinks that this ad promoting 99 cent SpongeBob kid's meals is terrible on every level including the fact that it's completely inappropriate for 6 year olds. So I tested it out on my own 6-year old (Emmi). I can report that the only thing she saw or reacted to was SpongeBob himself (and Squidward) which suggests that the main problem with the ad is that the rest was just so much wasted space.

6) MP shames chocolate makers who over-egg Easter packaging: The Herald
Brands are being named and shamed for their excessive use of chocolate Easter Egg packaging. (For those in the States, this is what a chocolate Easter egg looks like in the UK.) Anyway, Jo Swinson, a Liberal Democrat MP, has compiled a list of worst-offender firms and has named Lindt as the company: "whose packaging is the most excessive with an Easter egg, which takes up only 9% of the volume of the packaging."

That's it! See you next week for more stories from the world of brand strategy. If you can't find the Easter egg and want a clue (or the answer), email me or Twitter (martinjbishop).