SOTB: Birthday edition ~ Brand Mix

Wednesday, August 19, 2009

SOTB: Birthday edition

Brand Mix is two years old today! 191 posts last year, down a bit from the first year but still not too bad. Put the two years together and it adds up to about a book's worth of words. Some of my favorite posts from Year Two:

1) Summer reading: Watching the English (July 2009)
If you 1) Are English and wonder why you act the way you do or 2) Have spent time with English people and wonder why they act the way they do, this great book provides all the answers.

2) What do you think about the Baked! Lays makeover? (May 2009)
Does the creation of a Baked! line of products work? An interesting product architecture question without an easy answer.

3) Why do popular brands have such incredible staying power? (May 2009)
An analysis of all the theories about why consumer brands like Tide and Heinz Ketchup have stayed popular so long. "Mother's knows best" and "conditioning" are two of the leading contenders. Better quality isn't.

4) How long will the nation's shoppers resolve to stop spending? (January 2009)
I am not as convinced that the current recession has forever changed our shopping habits as some people believe. Jimmy Carter thought the same thing back in the 70s recession and look how wrong he turned out to be.

5) How about disposable brands? (December 2008)
Create brands with intentionally short lives to address the problem of short life cycle of fashions and some technologies. That was the theory I floated back in December. Pros and cons evaluated.

6) Decisions made with 10% logic, 90% emotion (October 2008)
In politics, the candidates that appeal to logic and reason always lose out to those who go for the emotional angle. What works in politics probably works for soap and dog food too.

Plus favorite video of the year: Penguins (BBC)

That's it! Back soon with more stories from the world of brand strategy. Also to be found, from time to time, on Twitter (@martinjbishop).

2 comments:

Unknown said...

Happy Birthday!

Denise Lee Yohn said...

congrats, martin -- what a great 2 years it's been -- i just named your blog as one of my favorites (http://deniseleeyohn.com/bites/2009/08/14/5-favorites-on-friday-favorite-brand-blogs/) -- think of it as a bday gift!

 
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